A Kinder, Gentler Koran

摘要

Homework is usually controver-sial only for the students who have to do it. But this summer the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which customarily assigns a book to its incoming freshmen, chose Approaching the Qur'an, a set of heavily annotated excerpts from the Muslim Holy Writ. Chancellor James Moeser reportedly asked his trustees, "What could be more timely?" And what could be more predictable than the brouhaha that followed: the rumbling overture on Christian websites; the brassy solo by Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, who compared the assignment to having students read Hitler's Mem Kampf in 1941; and the inevitable legal coda? The Virginia-based Family Policy Network, a Christian group, sued U.N.C., claiming the assignment amounted to state-funded promotion of a faith. The North Carolina legislature is considering pulling the school's funds for the project.