Yale University: Taliban Yes, US Military, No

[GotZoom]

Diversity? B.S. $160,000.00 Tuition? That is more like it.

-----

While most American parents can only dream of sending their kids to a first-tier university such as Harvard and Yale, a former ambassador for the oppressive and brutal Afghan Taliban is enrolled at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, even though he possesses none of the qualifications to attend such an institution for higher education.

"Yale University enrolls the Taliban's former spokesman as a student, but continues to prohibit other students from organizing a Reserve Officer Training Corps chapter on campus and also seeks to deny students the right to hear from military recruiters about employment opportunities," say members of the student group Young America's Foundation.

Under the guise of alleged sex discrimination as a result of the military's so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards homosexuals, Yale and other universities have blocked their students from partaking of ROTC training on campus.

"Yet Yale University is allowing a member or former member of a group that not only discriminated against gays, but actually stoned them to death," says one outraged Yale student.

On February 26, the New York Times Magazine reported that Yale admitted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban, into a non-degree program, with a chance to gain full degree status by 2006.

"In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world," Hashemi told the Times. "I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."

Prior to his arrival as a student, Hashemi was imprisoned at Bagram Air Base. He had been a member of the Taliban government, serving both in Afghanistan and in the United States as Second Foreign Secretary and Ambassador-at-Large. Yale has not commented on why the university, which accepts only ten percent of all applicants, granted admission to this former Taliban officer. One Yale official claims it's part of creating diversity on campus, but opponents of having a Taliban officer attend a premier college say that excuse has been used by colleges and universities to invite everyone including cop-killers to their campuses.

Hashemi possesses a 4th grade formal education, never took the SATs and advocated violence against homosexuals. As the mouthpiece for the Taliban, Hashemi advocated the oppression of women, gays and non-Muslims. The Taliban are known associates and allies of Al-Qaeda. Not surprising, one intelligence report indicates Hashemi attended an Al-Qaeda terrorism training camp in Afghanistan.

Yale alumnus, and former Army Captain Flagg Youngblood said, "That my alma mater would embrace an ambassador from one of America's declared and defeated enemies and in the same breath keep ROTC and military recruiters off campus shows where Yale's allegiance falls. Yale's actions show that they consider the US military more evil than
the Taliban."

While at Yale in the mid-nineties, Flagg worked with members of Congress and other Yale students and alumni to combat ROTC's second-class status on many campuses across the country. Flagg's frustration with the 70-mile drive to the University of Connecticut in order to participate in ROTC culminated in the passage of the Pombo and Solomon amendments which are currently before
the US Supreme Court.

Hashemi's enrollment at Yale was aided by CBS news cameraman Mike Hoover, who developed a friendship with the Taliban government apologist during several trips to Afghanistan, dating back to 1991. According to Hoover, he contacted an attorney in his hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That attorney, Bob Schuster, who had earned his undergraduate degree at Yale, brought Hashemi to the attention of Richard Shaw, the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions.

According to the Times, Shaw said of his interview with Hashemi, “My perception was,’ It’s the enemy!’ But, the interview with him was one of the most interesting I've ever had. I walked away with a sense: Whoa! This is a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world.”

Yale refuses to comment on how Hashemi's tuition -- almost $160,000 for four years -- is being paid.

John Fund, writing for the Opinion Journal does not view this admission as any great achievement, even though he quotes Richard Shaw as saying that...”another foreign student of Rahmatullah’s [Hashemi's] caliber had applied for special student status. We lost him to Harvard. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Fund does not agree, saying “This is taking the obsession that US universities have been promoting diversity a bit too far."

However, Yale's response to criticism appeared in their campus newspaper:

"This is our burden to tend to, and there is no better way to develop a clearer understanding of our differences and similarities to the Afghani people than to invite Hashemi to learn in our system. Despite our anxieties, we must maintain the energy and tolerance to seek the origins of other ideologies. If Hashemi's voice were absent from University discourse, we would risk crippling our perception of today's world."

"I suspect they're already mentally crippled on that [Yale] campus and having an official from the Taliban isn't going to change that mental infirmity," says a former Marine combat officer.

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27263864.shtml

 

[dilloduck]

Diversity? B.S. $160,000.00 Tuition? That is more like it.

-----

While most American parents can only dream of sending their kids to a first-tier university such as Harvard and Yale, a former ambassador for the oppressive and brutal Afghan Taliban is enrolled at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, even though he possesses none of the qualifications to attend such an institution for higher education.

"Yale University enrolls the Taliban's former spokesman as a student, but continues to prohibit other students from organizing a Reserve Officer Training Corps chapter on campus and also seeks to deny students the right to hear from military recruiters about employment opportunities," say members of the student group Young America's Foundation.

Under the guise of alleged sex discrimination as a result of the military's so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards homosexuals, Yale and other universities have blocked their students from partaking of ROTC training on campus.

"Yet Yale University is allowing a member or former member of a group that not only discriminated against gays, but actually stoned them to death," says one outraged Yale student.

On February 26, the New York Times Magazine reported that Yale admitted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban, into a non-degree program, with a chance to gain full degree status by 2006.

"In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world," Hashemi told the Times. "I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."

Prior to his arrival as a student, Hashemi was imprisoned at Bagram Air Base. He had been a member of the Taliban government, serving both in Afghanistan and in the United States as Second Foreign Secretary and Ambassador-at-Large. Yale has not commented on why the university, which accepts only ten percent of all applicants, granted admission to this former Taliban officer. One Yale official claims it's part of creating diversity on campus, but opponents of having a Taliban officer attend a premier college say that excuse has been used by colleges and universities to invite everyone including cop-killers to their campuses.

Hashemi possesses a 4th grade formal education, never took the SATs and advocated violence against homosexuals. As the mouthpiece for the Taliban, Hashemi advocated the oppression of women, gays and non-Muslims. The Taliban are known associates and allies of Al-Qaeda. Not surprising, one intelligence report indicates Hashemi attended an Al-Qaeda terrorism training camp in Afghanistan.

Yale alumnus, and former Army Captain Flagg Youngblood said, "That my alma mater would embrace an ambassador from one of America's declared and defeated enemies and in the same breath keep ROTC and military recruiters off campus shows where Yale's allegiance falls. Yale's actions show that they consider the US military more evil than
the Taliban."

While at Yale in the mid-nineties, Flagg worked with members of Congress and other Yale students and alumni to combat ROTC's second-class status on many campuses across the country. Flagg's frustration with the 70-mile drive to the University of Connecticut in order to participate in ROTC culminated in the passage of the Pombo and Solomon amendments which are currently before
the US Supreme Court.

Hashemi's enrollment at Yale was aided by CBS news cameraman Mike Hoover, who developed a friendship with the Taliban government apologist during several trips to Afghanistan, dating back to 1991. According to Hoover, he contacted an attorney in his hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That attorney, Bob Schuster, who had earned his undergraduate degree at Yale, brought Hashemi to the attention of Richard Shaw, the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions.

According to the Times, Shaw said of his interview with Hashemi, “My perception was,’ It’s the enemy!’ But, the interview with him was one of the most interesting I've ever had. I walked away with a sense: Whoa! This is a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world.”

Yale refuses to comment on how Hashemi's tuition -- almost $160,000 for four years -- is being paid.

John Fund, writing for the Opinion Journal does not view this admission as any great achievement, even though he quotes Richard Shaw as saying that...”another foreign student of Rahmatullah’s [Hashemi's] caliber had applied for special student status. We lost him to Harvard. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Fund does not agree, saying “This is taking the obsession that US universities have been promoting diversity a bit too far."

However, Yale's response to criticism appeared in their campus newspaper:

"This is our burden to tend to, and there is no better way to develop a clearer understanding of our differences and similarities to the Afghani people than to invite Hashemi to learn in our system. Despite our anxieties, we must maintain the energy and tolerance to seek the origins of other ideologies. If Hashemi's voice were absent from University discourse, we would risk crippling our perception of today's world."

"I suspect they're already mentally crippled on that [Yale] campus and having an official from the Taliban isn't going to change that mental infirmity," says a former Marine combat officer.

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27263864.shtml

Ahhh our centers of indoctination--I saw this guy almost duke it out with a FOX news producer. Colleges are WMD.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Yale alumnus, and former Army Captain Flagg Youngblood said, "That my alma mater would embrace an ambassador from one of America's declared and defeated enemies and in the same breath keep ROTC and military recruiters off campus shows where Yale's allegiance falls. Yale's actions show that they consider the US military more evil than the Taliban."

How did that guy even get into our country? He needs to be kicked out immediately. I hope that alumni who support that school pull their contributions.

 

[Abbey Normal]

Under the guise of alleged sex discrimination as a result of the military's so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards homosexuals, Yale and other universities have blocked their students from partaking of ROTC training on campus.

"Yet Yale University is allowing a member or former member of a group that not only discriminated against gays, but actually stoned them to death," says one outraged Yale student.

It must suck to be liberal. All those hypocritical inconsistencies to deal with.

 

[theim]

It must suck to be liberal. All those hypocritical inconsistencies to deal with.

I've always been amazed at the unholy alliance between the peace-loving, tolerant liberals and the murderous gay-hating theocrats. Truly, hatred of America does trump all.

 

[Semper Fi]

How did that guy even get into our country? He needs to be kicked out immediately. I hope that alumni who support that school pull their contributions.

I would want to leave the country if I were him. Do you know what a half-dozen pissed off Patriots can do?

 

[Annie]

Letters going out:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008157

Decision Day
Today Yale will reject 19,300 applicants. It may still admit a former Taliban official as a full student.

Thursday, March 30, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

"A demonstrated failure of moral sensitivity or regard for the dignity of others cannot be redeemed by allegations that the young man is extremely 'interesting."

--Kingman Brewster (1919-88), who served as Yale president 1963-77, on the qualities necessary for admission to the university

This week colleges all over America are sending out their letters of admission to high school seniors. Yale will allow applicants to learn their fate on its Web site starting today. More than 90% will be disappointed, as the college is rejecting 19,300 students seeking fewer than 1,400 slots. But the application of one special nondegree student, a former Taliban ambassador-at-large, for a place as a sophomore in the degree-granting program will be decided later.

A Yale official tells me that President Richard Levin's office has taken control of the final decision on Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi from the admissions office. This is not unusual in controversial cases, according to an official at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Yale insists the final decision will remain with the admissions office.

Of course, it's hard to ascertain what Yale's position on its Taliban Man is. It still has offered no defense or explanation beyond a vague 144-word statement that notes the State Department approved Mr. Hashemi's visa. When I visited campus last week, a tour guide told me that even guides were under instructions not to answer any Hashemi-related questions. "Welcome to the open university," quips one Yale faculty member. "Yale won't allow ROTC on campus, but it wants to act like the Pentagon when it comes to information control."

But there are valid questions that Yale alumni, students, faculty members are asking that merit answers. In addition, should Mr. Hashemi be admitted in the fall as a full sophomore, the 19,300 applicants whom Yale rejected will have a right to wonder what the university's priorities in admissions are.

Kingman Brewster, quoted above, knew what they should be. In 1967, the beloved Yale president (who the next year would open the university to women) set down its policy for undergraduate admissions. The Brewster statement is accorded such totemic importance at Yale that it appears on its Web site with the notation that it "is the foundation on which specific selection criteria are based. It offers the primary orientation to all those who will be engaged in the admission process."

When Brewster notes that "a failure of moral sensitivity or regard for the dignity of others cannot be redeemed by allegations that the young man is extremely 'interesting,' " he is speaking to the heart of the Hashemi case. That explains why the Yale College Council, the undergraduate student government, last night debated a resolution urging that in seeking to develop future leaders Yale must recognize that goal "can only be fulfilled by those individuals who possess a genuine moral concern and consideration for others unlike themselves." The Yale College Council debate ended last night with no resolution and will be continued. Several student representatives pleaded for "tolerance" for Mr. Hashemi even though he wasn't even mentioned in the mild resolution. But is there any doubt that by defending and promoting the Taliban's reign of terror, Mr. Hashemi fails Yale's own test of moral character?

There are also problems of equity that flow from any future status Mr. Hashemi would have as a Yale student. "You wouldn't believe the small things that can knock an applicant out in the final review," says a Yale official. He reports that when the final cut for the undergraduate class of 2010 was made last week, the determining factors included nuggets of fact gleaned from letters by high-school counselors or student essays that included an incident of shoplifting at age 12 and drunken behavior at one high school prom. "We do count moral character in the home stretch," says the official. "But that clearly wasn't done when Hashemi was admitted. He got in because of his background as an official with the Taliban."

Indeed, Richard Shaw, the former Yale dean of admissions until he took up the same post at Stanford last year, has more or less acknowledged that Mr. Hashemi got in because of his "interesting" background.

"When I first met him I was a little anxious," Mr. Shaw told the New York Times. "My perception was, 'It's the enemy!' But . . . I walked away with a sense: Whoa! This is a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world." He also told the Times that another foreign student of Mr. Hashemi's caliber had applied for special-student status but "we lost him to Harvard." The clincher argument for him was: "I didn't want that to happen again."

In e-mails to Haym Benaroya, a professor at Rutgers, last month after the Times profile of Mr. Hashemi was published, Mr. Shaw was more expansive and extolled his Afghan applicant's "personal accomplishments that had significant impact" and insisted those accomplishments had been "positive."

As for Yale's standard that moral character must be a component in the admissions process, Donald Kagan, a history professor and former dean of Yale College, told me, "Nobody can articulate these great ideals better than Yale. The people here believe what they say. But then they too often ignore it or are inconsistent about it in practice."

Take the selection process by which Mr. Hashemi was chosen for a special-student program whose participants are frequently mainstreamed into the normal undergraduate population. The Yale Daily News reports that admissions officials claim there is "a designated committee that evaluates candidates for admission as special students." But in practice, a Yale official tells me, Mr. Shaw rode roughshod over that procedure in admitting Mr. Hashemi. "By the time voices were raised against letting him in, Shaw was able to bully his way through," the official told me. "The system broke down, and it's not the first time by a long shot." Mr. Shaw won't return phone calls, and Yale declined to confirm or deny any information about admissions procedures, citing privacy concerns.

Another Yale official scoffs at his school's Nixon-like stonewall on the issue. He agrees there are legitimate privacy concerns, noting that celebrities such as actresses Jodie Foster and Jennifer Beals wouldn't have gone to Yale if they thought the school would discuss their presence, and many other students would have the same concern. "But that shield can morph into a smokescreen that's used to hide everything this school does," the official told me.

Mr. Kagan says there is growing anecdotal evidence that the supersecret world of university admissions often operates in such a capricious or unpredictable way that "people are justified in questioning the fairness of the process." He suggests that both public and private universities voluntarily disclose more of their admissions procedures to satisfy concerns that abuses are common. "If we have policies that we are proud of, then we should let people know how they operate," he told me.

The former dean supports Yale's policy of giving preference to athletic and minority applicants, but says he would like to see the school release aggregate data on how such populations do at Yale and whether they take the same course of study as other students.

Some Yale officials and faculty members say they would go even further. One told me that far more students than in the past are selected with input from coaches to fill out Yale's 32 sports teams. "Is that too many or too few? Let's have the data so we can decide," one faculty member told me. A current Yale official notes that entering students who come from minority backgrounds "are never told if their academic credentials are the same as those of other students. Wouldn't it be wise to find out if they do as well on average as other students?"

Many figures outside colleges, such as U.S. Civil Rights Commission member Peter Kirsanow, also think admission preferences should be made more public. "Let's let the sun shine in," he says.

The Hashemi case has also brought to the fore the kind of issues that currently stir up moral outrage at Yale. Last month, pressure from student groups and labor unions prompted the university to divest from seven oil companies operating in Sudan, whose government has practiced genocide and condoned slavery. This past Monday, some 150 protestors rallied to support divestment from a hedge fund that holds the stock of Corrections Corp. of America, the nation's largest operator of private prisons, in its portfolio. The protestors accuse CCA of abusing prisoners and cost-cutting measures.

But it is curious why there is no comparable student outrage over Mr. Hashemi, even factoring in last night's mild resolution at the Yale College Council. Last week, I attended a talk at Yale by Malalai Joya, a 27-year-old member of Afghanistan's post-Taliban parliament. She spoke in English about her concern about U.S. policies which she believes are indirectly supporting warlords and retarding women's rights in her country. She was applauded vigorously.

But after her prepared remarks, she denounced Mr. Hashemi's presence on campus. Her message could not have been more clear. "The freedom-loving people of the USA should raise their voice against existence of such criminals in your country," she shouted. After her remarks, the crowd of 200 was completely silent, until the moderator stepped forward and invited questions. None of the six questioners mentioned Mr. Hashemi, even though he had just been condemned in the strongest possible terms by one of his nation's most prominent politicians.

Why? Makai Rohbar, Ms. Joya's backup translator that evening, believes that the lack of reaction might be explained "because of it being easy to worry about something far away from campus, but not when it is right next to you." Other students I interviewed at the reception afterwards more or less concurred that discussing Mr. Hashemi was more difficult because, as one put it, "he's now part of the Yale community."

"The Yale community" was far less forgiving toward Kiwi Camara, whose participation this month in a symposium at Yale Law School prompted mass protests. In 2002, Mr. Camara, a first-year student at Harvard Law School, had referred to blacks as "nigs" several times in class notes posted on a Harvard Web site. The notes involved a discussion of a property case which helped end restrictive racial covenants. They were quickly taken down, but not before they touched off a firestorm that hasn't died down four years later.

When it was learned Mr. Camara would be speaking at Yale, a campus petition was circulated urging that his invitation be reconsidered. When he did show up, one-third of the audience--including law school dean Harold Koh--stood up and walked out in protest. Mr. Koh told the Yale Daily News he left because he considers "racist speech to be an affront to each and every person in our community."

Ironically, it was Mr. Koh who debated Mr. Hashemi on the issue of human rights when the Taliban ambassador showed up at Yale to defend his regime in March 2001. He has since bowed to the dictates of Yale's Office of Public Affairs and declined to return phone calls about Mr. Hashemi.

Mr. Camara is a legal prodigy. Born in the Philippines, he grew up in Hawaii and was only 17 when he used the offensive term as a law student--a decade younger than Mr. Hashemi is now. Mr. Camara was 19 when he graduated from Harvard Law School in 2004, and he now holds a research fellowship at Stanford Law School. He has repeatedly apologized for using the derogatory term and says he is "not going to try to justify it. It's quite right it should be condemned."

But none of that satisfied the Yale protesters. Peter Schuck, a Yale law professor, told the New York Times that "minority students that spoke [at the protest] almost all expressed feelings of having been wounded and attacked in some group sense." The Times went on to note that some students "say the Harvard incident called into question Mr. Camara's character." It quoted Curtis Mahoney, the editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal, as saying Mr. Camara was "under an obligation to show more public contrition" when the incident occurred back in 2002. Apparently, Donald Kagan, the former dean of Yale College, is right when he says that people at Yale "believe what they say" and "then they too often ignore it or are inconsistent about it in practice."

Yesterday's Yale Daily News featured a cartoon on the Hashemi case. It depicted Mr. Hashemi with his back turned walking past a statue of Yale alumnus Nathan Hale that stands in front of Connecticut Hall. On the statue are written Hale's immortal words, "I regret that I have but one life to give to my country."

Based on my visit last week to Yale, many on campus know little or nothing of Nathan Hale. Most that I spoke with were also surprised to hear how many Americans have given their "one life" in fighting the remnants of the regime Mr. Hashemi willingly served for four years. The total reached 139 yesterday after the Taliban attacked a coalition military base in Helmand province and killed one American and one Canadian soldier. The Pentagon hasn't yet released the name of the U.S. soldier, but the Canadian was identified as Robert Costall of Edmonton, Alberta.

The deaths of coalition soldiers in Afghanistan bruise the heart of Natalie Healy, an Exeter, N.H., businesswoman. Last year, she lost her own Navy SEAL son, Dan, when the Taliban blew up his helicopter with a rocket. "How can President Levin sit there and let a former official of the Taliban, and one who is largely unrepentant, study at Yale while his old friends are still killing our soldiers?" she asked me yesterday.

She has a right to be upset, and so too this week will many of the 19,300 students who will be rejected by Yale. Many of them will have a dream of several years standing burst. Some will now be watching to see how President Levin rules on Mr. Hashemi's application to join Yale's sophomore class this fall.

 

[Hobbit]

I keep thinking this is some sort of bad dream, and I'm going to wake up to find out that the guy who broke the story was Scandanavian, and that he meant to say the guy was going to 'jail.'

 

[Adam's Apple]

Because of the rather personal nature of this article, I am assuming that Katherine Bailey and Margaret Pothier were persons known to John Fund or his friends/colleagues, thus we are able to know their story. I wonder how many other Yale alums asked Yale for an explanation and said there would be no further financial support until an answer was received.

Ivory Tower Stonewall
By John Fund, Opinion Journal
April 3, 2006

A 9/11 survivor asks Yale to explain why it admitted the Taliban Man.

for full article:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008179

 

[Annie]

Because of the rather personal nature of this article, I am assuming that Katherine Bailey and Margaret Pothier were persons known to John Fund or his friends/colleagues, thus we are able to know their story. I wonder how many other Yale alums asked Yale for an explanation and said there would be no further financial support until an answer was received.

Ivory Tower Stonewall
By John Fund, Opinion Journal
April 3, 2006

A 9/11 survivor asks Yale to explain why it admitted the Taliban Man.

for full article:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008179

There's been quite a few anecdotal accounts:

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/ClintonTaylor/2006/03/13/189509.html

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008082

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110008051

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=32200

There's more, two of them are by Fund...

 

[Adam's Apple]

Thanks for the info, Kathianne. Maybe this ruckus will cause some Yale alums to start questioning the politics at Yale and will start withholding their donations. I love the old dodge being put out by Yale: "Yale is an educational institution, not a political one." Wonder how many people that fooled? Those who oppose Yale's admission of this "former" Taliban should respond that "Yale is supposed to be an educational institution, not a political one."