Monday, March 06, 2006
The Yale Taliban
John Fund has a piece at OpinionJournal.com (subscription may be required, but it looks like it's in the public part of the site) about Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan who is now a student at Yale. Mr. Fund explores the reasoning behind Yale's acceptance of Mr. Rahmatullah as a special student, versus other more deserving people from Afghanistan and other places, interviewing (or attempting to interview) several members of the Yale community. My take: at Yale, it seems "cultural diversity" trumps reason and common sense, not to mention morality.
Here are a couple of my favorite paragraphs:
UPDATE: Captain Ed Morrissey has a much more eloquently written post on this issue.
Here are a couple of my favorite paragraphs:
Having lived overseas as a child and traveled to many developing countries, I am all for students knowing more about the world. But the arguments for accepting Mr. Rahmatullah are surreal. "If we didn't accept him and try to learn from him, how could we say we're this diverse body and institution of higher learning?" freshman Benjamin Gonzalez asked the New York Sun. "If we just dismiss him, what does that say about us?" It may say that moral relativism has such an entrenched hold on campus that some people can no longer make needed distinctions.I read a spy novel a long time ago--I can't remember the author or title--in which one of the characters referred to Yale as "the fool factory." Whether that epithet was appropriate then, I don't know, but it sure looks to me as if it's appropriate today. Go read the whole thing and form your own conclusions.
Some, though, are more discerning. James Kirchick, a senior who describes himself as a liberal Democrat, is appalled that campus feminists and gays trash American society as intolerant but won't protest now that "an actual, live remnant of one of the most misogynistic and homophobic regimes ever" is in their midst. "They have other concerns, such as single-sex bathrooms and fraternities," he told me.
UPDATE: Captain Ed Morrissey has a much more eloquently written post on this issue.
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