At a campus as intellectual as Penn State, it is indeed disheartening to come across invective as racially intolerant as Paul Smith's letter ("Culture understanding cannot explain attacks," Sept. 15)

Mr. Smith charges blindly that it is impossible to equate the "Islamic culture of death" with Western culture. Perhaps it would serve Mr. Smith, as well as other similarly minded individuals, to learn more about a culture before condemning it so unilaterally.

With respect to individual rights, it was Islam that, in the 7th century, endowed women with the right to vote, own property and even run a business. Western culture only followed suit in the last century. It is due to the diligence of Islamic scholars that the great works of Greek and Roman antiquity were preserved while Europe went through the decadent Dark Ages.

How ironic it is that while Averroes and Avicenna were contributing to human knowledge in the arts and sciences, Western culture was engrossed in tribal warfare and pagan rituals.

Regarding intellectual freedom, it is none other than the West that imprisoned Galileo for his heliocentric model because it was thought inconsistent with the Bible.

Mr. Smith's greatest crime is his disingenuous censure of a people based on the actions of a small sect that espouses extremism. What if one were to condemn Christianity for the anti-abortionists that kill innocent civilians in the name of God? In the new millennium, we will all have to cooperate in an increasingly globalized society. The only way humanity will succeed is if we shed our hidden prejudices and disavow our intolerance for cultures different from our own.