Culture: March 2006 Archives

A few days ago I told you about Yale University's admission, as a special student, of an official from Afghanistan's brutal Taliban regime and about Yale alumnus Clint Taylor's creative way of expressing displeasure with the university.

To provide continuing coverage of the nailing of Yale and to keep public scrutiny and pressure on the university as they consider admitting Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi as a full-fledged undergraduate, Taylor and a few others have set up the Nail Yale blog at townhall.com. The blog's witty tagline: "Fighting the Talibanality of Evil in the Ivy League." You'll find a link in the blogroll on the right side of my homepage.

Defenders of Yale are accusing Taylor and other critics of SRH's admission of being xenophobic. Taylor responds:

"Xenophobia" is the weakest, most ridiculous attack against our campaign the Yale Taliban's few defenders have managed to come up with yet. It's baseless and desperate. Debbie and I have stated again and again that there are so many qualifed people in the Middle East--democrats and reformers instead of theocrats and fascists--who could have taken Mr. Rahmatullah's spot in Yale's special student program.

Our beef is about Mr. Rahmatullah alone. The man served the Taliban. That's evil. You know why we're having this discussion about Mr. Rahmatullah and not about any other foreign student in the special student program? Because Mr. Rahmatullah is the only one who has business cards from the Taliban bearing his name. That's not xenophobia. That's just basic moral clarity.

Hooray for basic moral clarity, and a hearty "Boola, Boola" to Yale alumni who are continuing in the proud tradition of God and Man at Yale.