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NPR Fires Juan Williams Over Remarks About Muslims Delivered On Fox News

By Howard M. Friedman

Yesterday evening, NPR terminated its contract with its news analyst, Juan Williams, after Williams made comments on Fox News about his views of Muslims.  The New York Times today reports that Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, made the offending comments while appearing on The O'Reilly Factor in response to a question posed to him by Bill O'Reilly.  Williams said in part:

I mean, look, Bill, I?m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I?ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

NPR issued a statement saying that the remarks were inconsistent with NPR's editorial standards and undermined Williams' credibility as an NPR analyst. In response, former Republican governors Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, both Fox News personalities, called for Congress to defund NPR. (CBS News.)

Full post as published by Religion Clause on October 21, 2010 (boomark / email).