The University of Maryland has postponed indefinitely a screening of "American Sniper" after an outcry from Muslim students – the latest campus protest triggered by the popular and Oscar-winning film about the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.
"American Sniper only perpetuates the spread of Islamophobia and is offensive to many Muslims around the world for good reason,"
a statement from the Muslim Students Association declares.
"This movie dehumanizes Muslim individuals, promotes the idea of senseless mass murder, and portrays negative and inaccurate stereotypes."
The movie had been set to screen May 6-7 but was postponed Wednesday.
Breyer Hillegas, president of the university’s College Republicans,
told Fox News the shutdown "stifles dialogue and debate."
"Universities are always trying to satisfy the political correctness police and worry about who they might offend – rather than standing up for principle and the First Amendment of the Constitution," Hillegas told Fox News.
"If the university prevents a movie like that from being show – it promotes intolerance and stifles dialogue and debate – and goes directly against the atmosphere that the University of Maryland is supposed to support."
In early April the University of Michigan canceled a campus screening, but later reversed the decision.
And Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a private science and engineering college in New York,
postponed its screening earlier this month after a Muslim students' group asked for its cancellation.
Fox News also reports protesters at Eastern Michigan University disrupted a screening of the film, and a petition drive is underway at George Mason University to ban the film from the Virginia campus.
Hillegas said College Republicans at Maryland will fight the postponement.
"We’re going to fight it with all we have," he told Fox News.
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