Donor cancels Islamic chair for Temple

Ayoub, who has published numerous books and articles in English and Arabic, said, "There was no reason for this to happen. . . . IIIT are in no way anti-American.

"Bigotry is not good, whoever practices it. If Muslims did that, tried to block a Jewish chair or program, I wouldn't have liked it," Ayoub said, declining to further elaborate on Temple's internal debate.

Other professors were also angry about the broken deal.

In a Dec. 21 letter to Hart, Leonard Swidler, who teaches Catholic thought and interreligious dialogue, called the situtation shameful and noted pressure on Hart from "very un-American . . . Islamophobic persons on the board of trustees."

He also accused the university of "building walls instead of bridges vis-a-vis Islam."

David Horowitz, head of the Los Angeles-based Freedom Center, called IIIT "Islamo-fascists" and "part of a jihad against the West." The Freedom Center sponsored Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at college campuses in October, including Temple, to caution about what it calls the perils of Islamic extremism.

Though he had not heard about the $1.5 million offer to Temple by the IIIT, he said the danger of accepting such gifts was that the donors could influence the choice of professors and curriculum.

During Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, Horowitz invited former Sen. Rick Santorum to speak at Temple about the threat from Islamic radicals. Santorum also spoke at the University of Pennsylvania.

The previous week, Temple trustee Richard Fox joined Jonathan Schanzer of the Jewish Policy Center at a talk on terrorism funding. Fox is chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and Horowitz is on the board.

A Temple spokesman said Fox, a major local home builder who has funded the university's Fox School of Business, did not want to be interviewed for the story.