OneNewsNow.com - ACLJ Standing Up to 'Bully Tactics'

Bill Bumpas - OneNewsNow

You can listen to the report here.

A teacher who was fired by an Oregon community college after an Islamic group complained about a class he was scheduled to teach is trying to get his job back.

Barry Sommer has gained the help of the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) in demanding that Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, rehire him and reinstate the non-credit course he was planning to teach entitled "What is Islam?" The class is designed to introduce students primarily to the Quran and other viewpoints on Islam at a time in which terrorism is a constant threat.

But the ACLJ says the school violated Sommer's contractual and constitutional rights when it caved to pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and fired him. Attorney CeCe Heil tells OneNewsNow the school claims it did not know about the course, even though Sommer went through "strict scrutiny" to be able to teach it.

"They put him through the testing and making sure that this was the class that they wanted to offer. In fact, it was approved and offered," she reports. "And now the administration is trying to distance [itself by] saying, 'We didn't have any idea that this was even being offered,' which...clearly [will] not...stand up in a court of law."

Heil decides the Muslim advocacy organization scared the college into its way of thinking by using "bully tactics."

"So the ACLJ is on board to stand up. You've got the bully on the playground, and he's going to keep being a bully until somebody stands up to him," she suggests. Her group is prepared to go to court if need be.