Alum’s Senior Seminar Prompts Controversy

Despite opposition raised by members of the Exeter community about his Islamophobic ties, Fred Grandy ‘66 will host an upcoming seminar series, Politics in Media, this winter. A former political commentator on NPR and host of a conservative radio talk show on WMAL, Grandy found fame on the sitcom “The Love Boat” before running for an open seat in the House of Representatives in 1986.Actor turned politician, Grandy gave a well-received assembly in September, after which he worked with Director of Studies Brooks Moriarty and Institutional Advancement to create a club, structured as a seminar open only to seniors by application, as an opportunity for students to explore the relationship between politics and media.Moriarty will advise the club, which will meet six times over the course of the presidential primary season this winter term. Participation in the seminar is entirely voluntary and there is no credit earned by the students.

“Offering students alternative ways of thinking is at the heart of a sound liberal education.”

However, since the club’s conception, faculty and students have raised concerns about Grandy’s commentary on his radio show and his affiliation with the Center for Security Policy, a right-wing think tank run by Frank Gaffney, following his resulting resignation from WMAL.Media outlets have reported on The Center for Security Policy’s propagation that Muslims in this country are engaged in “stealth jihad” to impose shariah law on American society. In his article, “Newt’s New Endorser: OWS is a Muslim Brotherhood Plot!” on Mother Jones, Tim Murphy reported that Grandy “has reinvented himself as an anti-Islam activist.”  Blogger Daniel Tutt wrote in his Huffington Post article, “American Muslims Wage Grassroots Campains Against Islamophobia Network,” that Grandy and his wife “actively promote the idea that American Muslims are trying to secretly subvert the Constitution by implementing ‘Creeping Shariah.’”On the Jeff Katz Show, Grandy questioned whether or not “the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the State Department, the Department of Justice and Homeland Security” and if the “Islamic circle of North America are using [stealth jihad] to control and influence our government.” According to Salon, Grandy has alleged that the Director of the CIA, John Brennan, is a secret Muslim, saying “the influence of Islam as a religion among top intelligence authorities in this country is not limited to John Brennan.”To be clear, John Brennan is not Muslim. However, some members of Exeter’s community didn’t see Grandy’s history of anti-Muslim rhetoric as a reason to cancel the seminar, and the club will still be held. Dean of Faculty Shapiro explained that “As a former congressman, Mr. Grandy is certainly qualified to facilitate discussions about the relationship between the political process and media coverage.”Moriarty agreed. “We believe that Mr. Grandy is uniquely qualified to work with our students on this topic and that he will do so in an appropriate and respectful way.” In response to the concerns about Grandy’s Islamophobia, he said that “A group of faculty and administrators discussed these concerns, many of which we share, but we determined that while these concerns are serious and important, they are separate from the purpose of the seminar.”Head of the assembly committee Kathleen Brownback said that “Mr. Grandy’s background as an actor and a Republican legislator made him an interesting choice as a speaker. We try to have a wide range of perspectives, which often provoke very good discussion in various venues on campus.”However, Grandy’s qualifications as an instructor continue to be challenged, too. Columnist and photojournalist Robert Azzi P’02, who served for years as advisor to both the Muslim Student Association and the Middle East Student Association at Exeter, had significant concerns about Grandy’s qualifications. “Without his media experience as an inciter of Islamophobia in this country he would have no credentials on which to base a course. He has no other media experience,” Azzi said. Given the recent assembly on Islamophobia, some may find it impossible to reconcile having a voice of authority like Grandy’s present on campus while still wishing to foster an accepting and inclusive environment at Exeter.Head of the MLK Day Committee and English instructor Mercy Carbonell expressed her discomfort and disappointment with the school’s apparent endorsement of Grandy’s views on Islam. “I sat in the Assembly [on anti-Muslim sentiment] and listened to us respond to the national hate rhetoric, the Islamophobic language that is in the presidential race, that is in the newspapers I still pick up and read in ink. How will we explain that we chose to side with Islamophobia?”She continued, “I am saddened. I keep thinking about the Muslim students in our community. I keep thinking about my Muslim colleagues. I keep thinking about the ways in which the language of those in positions of power and of the oppressors is too rarely in question.” Despite her reservations, Carbonell does believe in the importance of diverse opinions. “Offering students alternative ways of thinking is at the heart of a sound liberal education,” she said. “There is always a benefit in bringing together people who may share differing opinions.”However, she believed that “If it is a conservative voice we want to teach this course, there are plenty of decent, serious, non-inflammatory, likely-more-qualified alums we could choose.”Azzi explained that Grandy’s “very presence cannot be reconciled with the overarching Academy interest in providing a safe, inclusive, tolerant environment for mostly minor children—of which only a tiny vulnerable handful are Muslim.”To those who maintain that Grandy’s views on Islam are not pertinent to the contents of his course, Azzi responded “it’s irrelevant whether Grandy is preaching Islamophobia on campus or not. Asking [Grandy] to do a course without expecting him to reflect on the points of view he has espoused is disingenuous—even if there is a babysitter in the classroom,” he said.Further concerns have been raised regarding the tangible lack of discussion on campus surrounding Grandy’s invitation to teach. Former history instructor Andrew Hertig said his main concern was that “there was no debate or process for determining the appropriateness of Grandy’s proposal.”Several students enrolled in the class were unaware of Grandy’s affiliation with the Center for Security Policy’s history of Islamophobia until recently, and The Exonian reached out to many teachers who were reluctant to express any opinion on the matter. Though the course is scheduled to go ahead as planned and Grandy has received institutional support even after deliberations on his character, controversy continues to grow on campus. Azzi questioned whether the Academy really wants to be perceived as a community that would support Grandy’s principles.Hertig agreed, and said, “I am concerned about our apparent endorsement of someone who could reasonably be called an Islamophobe.” Faculty and students alike continue to wonder how the Academy can justify sanctioning Grandy’s ideas while simultaneously trying to cultivate a more accepting environment on campus.Carbonell echoed this sentiment. “As a human being living in a world that is growing increasingly full of hate speech and fear, and is in need of serious healing, inviting someone in who has a history and a record of hate speech is too far from the healing we need in this school, in this country and in this world.”