POLITICS: Yale's Taliban Community
Fund, John H.
POLITICS JOHN H. FUND Yale's Taliban CO ".4 demonstrated failure of moral sensitivity or regard for the dignity of others cannot be redeemed by allegations that the young man is extremely...
...There was no vote and further debate was postponed...
...Thus it is curious why there is no comparable student outrage over its Taliban Man...
...It quoted Curtis Mahoney, the editor in chief of the Yale Lawffournal, as saying Camara was "under an obligation to show more public contrition" when the incident occurred back in 2002...
...Yale Law School has relieved one of its development officials of his duties for calling the founders of NailYale, a group critical of Yale's Taliban connection, "retarded...
...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...
...After her remarks, the crowd of 200 was completely silent, until the moderator stepped forward and invited questions...
...Camara was 19 when he graduated from Harvard Law School in 2004, and he now holds a research fellowship at Stanford Law School...
...Rather than face the real issues, some at Yale have instead lashed out...
...They believe Yale's ostrich-like behavior and official silence is sacrificing its credibility...
...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...
...Take questions about admissions...
...Without even mentioning Hashemi, the resolution stated that Yale's goals "can only be fulfilled by those individuals who possess a genuine moral concern and consideration for others unlike themselves...
...Why...
...He has repeatedly apologized for using the derogatory term and says he is "not going to try to justify it...
...Yes, Congress led by Texas Senator John Cornyn, chairman of its Border Security panel, is pursuing that angle too...
...There is an inquiry into whether he used data from personal donor databases to attack them...
...When it was learned Camara would be speaking at Yale, a campus petition was circulated urging that his invitation be reconsidered...
...They were quickly taken down, but not before they touched off a firestorm that hasn't died down four years later...
...But Richard Shaw, Yale's former admissions dean, has all but admitted that Hashemi got in precisely because of his Taliban background...
...Makai Rohbar, 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...
...That's not the case...
...The Times went on to note that some students "say the Harvard incident called into question Camara's character...
...But none of that satisfied the Yale protesters...
...At least the YCC speakers took more of a stand than Yale President Richard Levin has...
...POLITICS JOHN H. FUND Yale's Taliban CO ".4 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, former president of Yale (1963-77), on the qualities necessary for admission to the university...
...None of the six questioners mentioned Hashemi, even though he had just been condemned in the strongest possible terms by one of his nation's most prominent politicians...
...In March, I attended a talk at Yale by Malalai Joya, a 27-year-old member of Afghanistan's post-Taliban parliament...
...Yale won't allow ROTC on campus, but it wants to act like the Pentagon when it comes to information control," one Yale professor quipped...
...But is there any doubt that by willingly defending the Taliban for four yea rs, former Am bassador Hashemi fails Yale's own test of moral character...
...Her message could not have been more clear...
...The issues raised can't be swept under a rug that easily, and it is not in the long-term interest of Yale or the country not to confront them...
...A Yale official told me that determining factors in making the final cut for the Class of 2010 included an incident of shoplifting at age 12 and drunken behavior at a high school prom...
...When he did show up, one-third of the audience-including law school dean Harold Koh-walked out in protest...
...The freedomloving people of the USA should raise their voice against the existence of such criminals in your country," she shouted...
...Camara is a legal prodigy...
...Moral character is factored in at Yale...
...He has since bowed to the dictates of Yale's Office of Public Affairs and declined to return phone calls about Hashemi...
...MAY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 39...
...But Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is now applying for a spot in the sophomore class of Yale's degree-granting program...
...In 2002, Mr...
...She was applauded vigorously...
...Is this how students, alumni, and the outside world deserve to have their legitimate questions treated...
...Yale has offered no defense of Hashemi's presence beyond a vague, 144-word statement that notes the State Department approved his visa...
...ANY AT YALE WISH TO "move on" from the debate over the university's decision to admit a former Taliban ambassador as a special student...
...But after her prepared remarks, she denounced Hashemi's presence on campus...
...policies are indirectly supporting warlords and retarding women's rights in her country...
...It's quite right it should be condemned...
...All of them want Yale to continue to be a great university...
...John H. Fund, The American Spectator's Politics columnist, is author of Stealing Elections" How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books...
...t~HE YALE COMMUNITY" was far less forgiving toward Kiwi Camara, whose recent participation ~_ in a symposium at Yale Law School prompted mass protests...
...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 Hashemi is now...
...But with its current set of priorities and sense of political correctness, Yale appears to be heading in a different direction...
...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...
...The notes involved a discussion of a property case that helped end restrictive racial covenants...
...Camara, a first-year student at Harvard Law School, had referred to blacks as "nigs" several times in class notes posted on a Harvard website...
...In March, the Yale student government representatives, the College Council, debated a resolution based on Kingman Brewster's admissions policy, a 1967 document that Yale itself says "offers the primary orientation to all those who will be engaged in the admission process...
...38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 2006 JOHN H. FUND In February, 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...
...The reason why two former Yale presidents, a former dean of Yale College, and many current officials have expressed concern about Hashemi isn't that they hate Yale...
...She spoke in English about her concern that U.S...
...Ironically, it was Koh who debated Hashemi on the issue of human rights when the Taliban ambassador showed up at Yale to defend his regime in March 2001...
...Yale senior James Kirchick has written that "outrage over religious fascism ought to be the province of American liberals...
...Yale officials have also privately attacked critics of their Taliban student decision as having an obsessive desire to do Yale harm...
...Let's hope that Yale, which just divested from genocidal Sudan with the support ofthe Yale College Council, can also now deal with the pending application of a former official of the murderous Taliban regime to join its sophomore class next fall...
...Other students I interviewed at the reception afterwards more or less concurred that discussing Hashemi was more difficult because, as one put it, "he's now part of the Yale community...
...But is there any doubt that by willingly defending the Taliban for four years, former Ambassador Hashemi fails Yale's own test of moral character...
...Austin Broussard, a senior and one of its authors, says several Yale College Council (YCC) representatives called for "tolerance" and giving Hashemi "the benefit of the doubt...
...Yale can still summon moral outrage...
Vol. 39 • May 2006 • No. 4
