Before I begin, some background is needed. This story officially begins on November 13, 2015, the day of the Paris attack. That night, I sat on my bed, watching the news of coordinated terrorist attacks on our French allies unfold while the official death count rose into the hundreds. Within hours of the vicious attacks, President Obama spoke to the nation. He assured us that these attacks had nothing to do with Islam, a religion of peace.

A few days later, ISIS released a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, citing that hundreds of French citizens were murdered by the “righteous and just” soldiers of Islam. I decided to write an article, titled “In the wake of the Paris attacks, Islam must be held accountable,” on Islam’s role in the attacks and the Islamic State’s ideology for Goucher College’s school newspaper, The Quindecim.

This article was met with a wave of Social Justice Warriors, calling my article “offensive,” “insensitive," and “racist.” Among many things, I was called (on social media, not in person) a white supremacist and a Trump. Some months later, a fellow student of mine wrote a response to my article, although in it he did not address what I actually had written. In the article, titled “A Consumptive Mess,” the author claimed “[He] could lose [his] tongue at Yudelson’s hateful article. [He] could call [me] out on [my] rage, [my] acceptance of the Islamophobic rhetoric that’s plagued both our country and most of Europe for years...” but instead chose to focus on my state of mind, calling me, “upset, scared, and angry.”

I submitted my rebuttal article to The Quindecim, to which my editor responded, “I read your article, and sent it along to other editors as well for feedback. We've decided not to publish it at this time. Thank you for submitting it to the Q for consideration.”

I can’t tell you exactly why they decided not to publish my article. The very mission of a college or university depends upon broad latitude for viewpoints in the pursuit of truth and understanding. So of all places in society where people may express controversial views, should not the university campus be the most open and speech the freest? Without further ado, here is the article my school newspaper wouldn’t let me publish.

As a liberal, I vehemently disagree with virtually everything Donald Trump says. However, while discussing the attacks on Brussels in an interview on "Fox & Friends," Trump said "this is just the beginning." He is absolutely right about this. That day, the Associated Press reported that the Islamic State has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves. Last November, I wrote an article after the Paris attacks addressing the role of Islam in ISIS’ ideology. I knew it was only a matter of time before there would be another attack and I would have to make another plea for an Islamic reformation.

Before I go on, I would like to state that I do not believe an Islamic reformation would stop the current threat of Islamic terror in any way. However, the goal of a global reformation would be to influence future generations of Muslims to abandon the religion’s more dangerous aspects.

The author of the response piece did not address the polls I presented in the article, but instead decided to diagnose my state of mind. The student was correct in stating I was "upset, scared, and angry." I am upset that innocent lives are lost on a daily basis in the name of Islam, I am scared that my friends and family in D.C. may be killed by an attack, and I am angry that my fellow liberals tip-toe around this issue in the name of cultural sensitivity.

I did take his advice; I "stepped back and looked at some different perspectives." I talked to Chaplain Terry and Professor Duncan multiple times, I reached out to Muslim students both on campus and back home (I’m a Rochester, NY native). I even reached out to the student on Facebook, although he chose not to respond. After all that, I came away with the same opinion.

My argument is that it is foolish to insist, as our leaders habitually do, that the violent acts of radical Islamic terrorists can be divorced from the religious ideals that inspire them. Let me make my point in the simplest possible terms: Islam is not a religion of peace (this is not to say there are any ‘peaceful’ religions). Islamic violence is rooted not in social, economic, or political conditions, but rather in the foundational texts of Islam itself.

Now, when I assert that Islam is not a religion of peace I do not mean that Islamic belief makes Muslims naturally violent or evil. This is not the case: there are hundreds of millions of peaceful Muslims in the world and they are the most common victims of ISIS’ attacks. What I do mean to say is that the call to violence and the justification for it are explicitly stated in the sacred texts of Islam. I also want to point out that while terrorists are the overwhelming minority of Muslims, support for their actions and ideas are not as small as we are led to believe (hence the polls I cited in my last article).

For my statements, I have been denounced as a bigot and an ‘Islamophobe’ by my fellow liberals whose multicultural sensibilities are offended by such ‘insensitive’ pronouncements.

‘Hate speech’ is the modern term for heresy. And in the present atmosphere, anything that makes Muslims feel uncomfortable is branded as ‘hate.’ As Sam Harris puts it, we’ve been sold this meme of Islamophobia where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people. Western liberals now seem to collude against critical thought and debate.

I never cease to be amazed by the fact that non-Muslims who consider themselves liberals, including feminists and LGBT rights activists, are so readily persuaded to take the Islamists’ side (Islamism is a revival movement attempting to implement literalist Islamic values in all spheres of modern life) against Muslim and non-Muslim critics. In all kinds of ways, feminists and gay rights activists offer their support to Muslim women and gays in the West and, increasingly, in Muslim-majority countries. However, most shy away from linking the abuses they are against—from child marriage to the persecution of homosexuals—to the religious tenets on which the abuses are based. Liberals, who claim to believe so fervently in individual liberty and minority rights, make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities.

The killers of ISIS and Boko Haram cite the same religious texts that every other Muslim in the world considers sacrosanct. According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, instead of letting Islam off the hook with bland clichés about Islam as a religion of peace, we in the West need to challenge and debate the very substance of Islamic thought and practice. Ali says that "We need to hold Islam accountable for the acts of its most violent adherents and demand that it reform or disavow the key beliefs that are used to justify those acts."

We must no longer accept limitations on criticism of Islam. We must reject the notions that only Muslims can speak about Islam, and that any critical examination of Islam is inherently ‘racist.’ Instead of contorting Western intellectual traditions so as not to offend our fellow Muslim citizens, we need to defend the Muslim dissidents, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who are risking their lives to promote the human rights we in the West take for granted: equality for women, tolerance of all religions and orientations, freedoms of speech and thought. Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do, in fact, support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.