Long time journalist, Juan Williams was fired by National Public Radio (NPR) on Wednesday, after he made anti-Muslim comments during his appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor”.

“The O’Reilly Factor” hosted by Bill O’Reilly has been on Fox News Channel since 1996. Juan Williams has appeared on the show before, and has even been a guest host.

During the show, Bill O’Reilly asked Juan Williams to talk about an idea that the United States is facing a “Muslim dilemma”. O’Reilly recently appeared on the daytime talk show “The View”, where Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, walked out after O’Reilly made the comment “Muslims killed us on 9/11″.

Williams yesterday responded to O’Reilly’s request by saying “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.”

These comments apparently were enough to persuade NPR to let Juan Williams go. However, during William’s appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor”, he also took part in a rather heated debate with O’Reilly sticking up for Muslims. He explained that Muslims should not be blamed for “extremists”.

When looking over exactly what Juan Williams said, it is really hard to determine if NPR did the right thing in firing him. Williams is known as someone who supports civil rights, and before these comments, certainly not someone who was considered to be prejudice in any way. The comments he made were certainly not politically correct, but were they racist, or prejudice? He is certainly wrong in stereotyping Muslims as terrorists.

NPR released the following statement about the termination of Juan Williams’ contract:

“Tonight we gave Juan Williams notice that we are terminating his contract as a Senior News Analyst for NPR News.

“Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret. However, his remarks on The O’Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a News Analyst with NPR.

“We regret these circumstances and thank Juan Williams for his many years of service to NPR and public radio.”

Juan Williams, 56, has been a journalist for “The Washington Post”, “The New York Times”, and “The Wall Street Journal”. He has also been published in several magazines such as “Time” and “The Atlantic Monthly”. He has won an Emmy Award for his work in documentary writing, and was a scriptwriter for Oprah Winfrey’s special, “No One Dies Alone”. Williams had been with NPR since 1999.

What do you think? Was the termination of Juan Williams’ contract justified?