Dan Demetriou, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota – Morris (UM-Morris), is putting himself between America and the prevailing academic opinion that encourages open borders for the United States.
“I am persuaded that the leftist immigration and refugee policy agenda, especially given the influence of divisive social justice theory and looming automation, is an existential threat to the US and other advanced Western nations,” Demetriou recently stated publicly, The College Fix reports.
Demetriou is not speaking out because of some deluded sense of self-importance; he was forced to defend himself publicly after he used his Facebook page to comment on President Donald Trump’s executive order that issued temporary travel restrictions for scheduled countries.
The professor’s opinions did not align with those of his leftist peers — some of whom leaked Demetriou’s remarks to his campus community.
Those Facebook comments stated that “100 percent of illegal immigrants lower confidence in the rule of law and add people and workers and students we don’t need. They on average have IQs lower than natives and low skills. They are harmful to an economy about to automate, especially when it is a welfare state.”
If that didn’t sufficiently resemble heresy to liberal academia, he continued by suggesting “refugees are way worse, as most adhere to a religious-political cult with repulsive values at war with the west from its inception. No country who has taken the current crop of refugees has made it work. No school with many refugees or illegals is a good school. None of their neighborhoods are safe. Not everyone has an extra $100k to avoid them.”
Lest anyone miss his point, Demetriou wasn’t finished yet.
“What an insult to our kids, our educators, to suggest for a moment that a 20 yr old, raised in rubble and taught to hate you, gays, Christians, Jews, women’s rights, and western liberalism would be as good an American as your kid.”
His academic home, outraged with such an opinion, quickly condemned the remarks and organized a teach-in to ensure students were not contaminated by the professor’s views.
The teach-in was entitled: “We all belong here, we will defend each other.”
University Chancellor Michelle Behr issued an email that said while the it’s nice to respect freedom of expression, Demitriou’s comments were “distressing” and violated UM-Morris’s commitment to “multicultural and international inclusiveness.”
Ironically, Demitrious is on sabbatical in Sweden, a country that he described as one taking in “the current crop of refugees” and not making it work. Sweden has taken in large numbers of refugees over the past two years and most are not assimilating well into Swedish culture.
From his temporary exile, the professor maintained in a Facebook comment that students need “authenticity in political discussion.”
In an emailed statement last week to The College Fix, Demetriou said he plans to be back at his university for the Fall semester and added that he has no intention of repenting his views or plead guilty to political revisionism.
“Although I am not an expert on immigration or the current refugee crisis, my considered views are well within the mainstream of expert opinion and, I trust, will grow only more common in the coming decades,” he told The Fix.
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