Back when I was in college, I was naive. I thought that people in the US liked the US. I learned the error of my thinking after 9/11, when I forwarded Gordon Sinclair's 1973 broadcast to my fellow students and professors. The email backlash shocked my naive self, as students rushed to label me jingoistic and insensitive. One professor pulled me into his office the next day and offered me some wisdom I've never forgotten: "The last place it's OK to be American is in an American university."
I was reminded of that today when I read that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is currently a student at Yale. I have many of the same questions as Varifrank, such as "Are there any students at Yale whose mother or father died on 9/11? Any children of NYC fireman at Yale? Any non-Taliban Afghani refugees in Yale? Any of them women?" Mostly I just want to know who had the brilliant idea to invite this jackass to the United States and let "an ex-Taliban envoy with a fourth-grade education and a high-school equivalency" into one of our most lauded universities for the sake of diversity and oneupsmanship.
Why are our universities so durned un-American?
Posted by Sarah at March 1, 2006 10:09 AM | TrackBackAnd why did our State Dept. let this scum into are country?
Idiots are worried about wire taps, port security and the Patriot Act while the enemy studies at Yale.
Unbelievable!
Very good question...so sickening but so true. It's almost considered a mark of academic prowess...being anti-American. I'm all for diversity but diversity and fairness. What is fair and just about this? Nothing. Ugh.
Posted by: Nicole at March 1, 2006 06:02 PMOne hypothesis: because universities mass-produce cynicism, and cynicism (beyond a certain level) is not compatible with emotional attachment to anyone or anything, including one's country.
See my post An Incident at the Movies for more thoughts on this general topic.
Posted by: David Foster at March 2, 2006 01:18 AMMajor universities are no longer dedicated to intellectual pursuits. They are entirely politicized, pseudo-intellectual institutions run by a gang of spineless sophomorons who are afraid of the truth. The sooner the nation learns that they are entirely irrelevant, the better.
The Oracle
www.redskybrothers.com
Asking why Yale admitted him (into a non-degree program) seems like a deliberate attempt to deflect attention away from the fact that Bush Administration admitted him onto the country. Shouldn't the first question be why THAT happened? If the Bushies decided that the guy is okay, why is it wrong for a school to let him take some classes?
Posted by: Pericles at March 2, 2006 01:09 PM