From CNN: "Former Taliban ambassador denied Yale admission"
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) -- A former ambassador for Afghanistan's Taliban regime was denied admission to a degree-granting program at Yale, but he can continue studying at the school, one of his financial supporters said.
So he joins the legions of college students who never quite graduate, but never seem to go away.
Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, who had been studying at Yale in a special program that does not award degrees, became the topic of debate after a New York Times Magazine story in February described his life at the Ivy League school.
Supporters said the school was promoting understanding across cultures. But critics were aghast that Yale would open its gates to the 27-year-old who once represented a repressive regime that harbored al Qaeda.
Students in Hashemi's program are eligible to apply for admission to the Eli Whitney Program, which awards the same bachelor's degrees received each spring by Yale undergraduates.
Tatiana Maxwell, president of the International Education Foundation, which raised money and helped send Hashemi to Yale, said that Hashemi had informed her that he'd been denied admission, The New York Times reported Thursday.
If he hangs on for seven years, will they try to get him tenure?
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy would not confirm that decision. The school does not release the names of applicants who are accepted or rejected.
Maxwell was traveling out of the country Thursday. Messages left on her cell phone and with other members of the foundation were not immediately returned.
The debate over whether Hashemi should have been admitted to Yale in the first place played out on editorial pages and Web logs and in letters to the editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine.
One small group of alumni urged people to mail press-on nails to Yale officials, a reference to the Taliban's threat to pull out the fingernails of women who wore nail polish.
"This was a major victory," said Clint Taylor, a 1996 Yale graduate whose Web log originated the nail campaign. "I think Yale made the right decision. It's a shame they had to do it under so much pressure."
Fahad Khan, an incoming Yale senior who knows Hashemi, said he was unaware of the decision but said it was a shame if he was not admitted. He said having Hashemi at Yale is important "at a time when bridges need to be built."
"If true, it is clearly because of the controversy," Khan said in an e-mail. "His academic performance, which was supposed to be the only determinant, has been better than most students at Yale."
Amid the debate spurred by Hashemi's enrollment, Yale President Richard C. Levin ordered a review of the admission standards for the Eli Whitney Program and said its standards should be as rigorous as those for regular undergraduates.
Building a bridge to the Seventh Century. I did not...stone...that woman...
Looks like Harvard is now free to take him after all. Poor Yale.
I see a need to BURN these 'bridges' so the Islamic barbarians do not cross them and carry out their "religious" imperatives to obliterate our civilization and murder our people. Academic performance of jihadists in our homeland is completely irrelevant in this situation! Yale and the federal law authorities get an "F" for this one!!!!!
The Taliban jihadist of Afghanistan government murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians during the 1990s --if my memory serves me correctly-- and tortured countless others. Anyone voluntarily connected with it is guilty of crimes against humanity through such an association.
I cannot understand why this ex-Taliban member Hashemi is not penned up in Gitmo with the others.
I cannot understand why Yale University is not being prosecuted by the federal government for harboring a fugitive from the law (which is basically what he is).
This makes no sense whatsoever. None.
What's next? Let me guess- Perhaps Yale would like to furnish Hashemi with a commercial jetliner free of charge??
What in the world kind of bridges could be built by letting the taliban into Yale?
How long is this guy's Visa for? Has he overstayed it yet? Members of the taliban should be shot instead of enrolled at our universities.
I am happy that he did not get accepted to the degree awarding program.
Aside from that, I am repulsed by Yale for allowing him to study there and by this IEF group for allowing him scholarship money. How many US or International students were denied acceptance to Yale to accomodate this worthless taliban propagandist? I imagine quite a few.
Here is my advice for IEF: Give scholarships to VICTIMS of repression by Islam. You are bound to find a many that fit that bill.
Then again, I have a little bitterness here because I had neither the grades nor the money to get into any Ivy league school and still managed to generate $30k of school debt.
It sickens me that people willingly gave this man an opportunity that others could only dream about.
Where are the Taliban women at Yale?
Are any Taliban women being educated in the West?
Or are the women just at home being beaten up?
"One of his financial supporters...."
-- from a posting above
I can think of all kinds of people who deserve financial support. A very smart young girl who fled antisemitism in the Ukraine. A very tall boy, a member of the Dinka tribe, who fled anti-Christian massacres in the Sudan. An Indian from the Andes who has made his living by subway busking. An Afghani girl whose school was burned down by the Taliban long ago, and just burned down again by the Taliban.
A supporter of the Taliban, an active defender of, explainer-away of, and therefore participant in, their hideousness, is not among them. Why should he be? What are those "financial supporters" thinking? That he will come to "change" his mind because the experience will be so "broadening"? And what if it is? What if one such person, given every conceivable advantage, and had his room and board and tuition paid for, thus being given a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars over several years, does see things somewhat, or even a lot, differently?
So what? What if that same money had gone into translating, say, into Urdu and Farsi and Arabic, and then subsidizing tens of thousands of copies, of ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim" and "Leaving Islam." What if that money had been spent subsidizing translations of a book by Wafa Sultan or Ali Sina?
Money spent in such a way, on such a person -- that is not heartening. If it were to succeeed, it would be of no practical use because we cannot bring over one billion peopple to be spoiled recipients of an all-expenses paid several years of study at Yale University. Sorry -- even George Bush has not yet been that stupid, though his venture in Iraq is coming close.
We are now in what we have been in, but still have largely failed to recognize for decades: a new world-war, a war without end" those who promote Jihad. It was made possible because OPEC revenues supplied the finanicial wherewithal, and innocence of Islam permitted tens of millions to settle deep behind what they are taught to regard as enemy lines, even if we Infidels, so unwary, so ignorant, never considered them as such. Even if all acts of terror were to stop tomorrow, Jihad remains a mortal threat to us and our entire civiliztaional legacy, the fate of which we have no right to treat with such carelessness, such ungrateful insouciance. For its most effective instruments are not terror or outright combat, but Da'wa and demographic conquest, and the slow undoing of Western understandings, Western customs, Western laws, even Western history itself (which Tariq Ramadan is busy rewriting).
Changing the mind, if change is possible, on this or that aspect of Jihad or of Islam, of this Afghani, means nothing. Spending the same money to diffuse the testimony and articulate analyses of defectors from Islam is what counts.
Those "financial supporters" do not impress. Their "generosity" does damage to their fellow Infidels, to you and to me. No one should applaud them. No one should allow them to wallow in self-regard, to preen about all the good they are doing. They aren't.
Supporters said the school was promoting understanding across cultures.
The muslim culture is already understood, or should be. Just look at the map of the world and see what horrors they are committing daily by blindly following their koran.
Across the nation, at schools and colleges, these "students" are taking us for a ride, making us the laughing stock of their sick beliefs.
Can these"supporters" not see through them?
Amen to that, Hugh.
This guy has not just one "financial supporter" (how many athletic?), but evidently at least two. He was a major player in a murderous regime, and all his needs are taken care of in the country that's suffered tremendously because of his ideology.
Something's wrong with that picture, and it's not the haram graven images.
I and scores of my fellow students here in the College of Poverty and Solitude Studies at the University of Heck could sure use that kind of backing.
But I guess since we're not active enemies of the US government and Western civilization, we'll have to settle for our student loans and Wal-Mart catfish.
This is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. The alumni has successfully penetrated the castle walls and actually gotten their message across to someone who counts. Now, we need another Clint Taylor (or perhaps Mr Taylor himself) to carry the mantle on this charlatan juan cole debacle.
There are certainly numerous others who are citizens of the US who must be better candidates and more qualified for enrollment at Yale. Then again, there are people starving and homeless on our streets while our taxpayer’s money goes off to Egypt or to humanitarian crisis’s and other worthless causes around the world. We’d be better off dumping 100 dollar bills into massive shredders.
This Taliban cretin is simply studying our customs and ways and looking for chinks in our armor. He’s learning things, becoming smarter than your average sand-dwelling death monger and he can then take his knowledge back with him and spread it onto other delusionals back home.
He simply does not belong here. His kind started an entire war on our shores and through some perverted view of the world we’ve taken this murderous beast in and given him refuge. What a sick, twisted crime this is.
What’s he studying? Please tell me he’s going to take up the Javelin Catch…
Let me see you have a creep with a 4th grade Islamic education making better grades than most of the other Yale undergrads?
I wonder does this say something about
(1)the "education" you get at Yale (ask G W Bush?)
(2)or is this a Taliban-Brainiac
(3)or are there a bunch of dummies attending Yale this term?
Clearly, this is a matter for the FBI.
This guy, as well as his financial supporters
and his allies at Yale, must be seriously
investigated.
And another thing: how on earth did the State
Department give him a visa?!
Un-fucking-unbelievable.
As I write this, members of the Taliban (Taleban?)are actively engaged in combat with U.S. and British troops. Has Hashemi ever repudiated his membership in this vile organization? How crazy is it that he can study peacefully at Yale as bullets continue to fly?
MP
Just wait until he feels indignant enough and decides to blow himself up in the middle of the campus because of all of the suffering being inflicted on his Taliban brethren. Maybe a few of the schools who harbor these types of hate-filled parasites get blown to bits and you’ll stop hearing about what wonderful students they are...
Perhaps Hashemi has come up with a new "tafsir" like Thomas Haidon that locates the harmlessly chewy nougat center of Islam.
Can someone please enlighten me?
Is it true that muslims are only supposed to be in the west for two reasons?, jihad or da'wa?
I'm sure Harvard will take him.
A half-assed reply from a half-assed university. A simple abject apology woulda sufficed. My how the might have degraded.
610 * 623 * 732* 1066* 1215 * 1453 * 1492 * 1683 * 1928 * 1938 * 1948 * 1996 * 2001
Yale gave us George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John Kerry, and next up to Run The World is Hillary Clinton.
That's quite a lineup of ignorant dumbasses, if you ask me.
But, then again, with Al Gore and Teddy Kennedy so active on the scene lately, Harvard's coming on strong up the backstretch rail.
This once again proves the ideological empathies between the institutions of higher education in the West, and the enemies of western society, in this case a Taliban agent. Wheverever an enemy of the people can be found, he/she will be welcomed into these institutions. Truly a fifth column.
This also explains why our media is a fifth column, as well. When these people graduate, and some do, they go on to careers in the media institutions. Those that stay behind, and continue as part of the institution of higher learning, and many do, stay behind to welcome the next generation of enemy and to guard that fifth column.
The Eli Whitney Program?
what the hell is that?
What we need is the Eli Wallach program.
"You'll pay for this! I hope you end up in a graveyard... with the cholera, and the rabies, and the plague! I hope your mother ends up in a two-dollar whorehouse! Cut me loose! Cut me loose, you filthy bastard! "
More Taliban behaviour here.
Seems to me that foriegn exchange students were sent here to promote an understanding of America and her institutions, as well as offer an education. And what exactly are they learning within the ivy covered walls of our "finest" institutions these days?
Political and historical revisionist crap spewed by leftist activists, muslim apoligists, and anti-American anarchists. Oh, goody!
It wouldn't be so bad if they were being taught western history from an American perspective, as opposed to the "nuanced, worldly", (read leftist) that is prevalent on campuses today.
Or if they were taught the beauty of our democratic institutions and ideals that have gotten us this far this fast. But NO....
What these people are routinely taught is merely a reinforcement of their already dim view of America and the western way of life. I agree, send him home to Gtmo, but Yale is a private school, and private funds are financing this travesty. It's up to the alumni to apply proper pressure.
Pardon me, but my internal spell check turns off after X number of beers.
This is NOT a time to be building bridges.
This is a time to be BOMBING bridges.
Is it true that muslims are only supposed to be in the west for two reasons?, jihad or da'wa?
Mooching is their 3rd purpose.
somethingaboutislam-
"The Eli Wallach Program" -LOL!
For a few Taliban more...?
Didn't Eli Whitney invent the "cotton gin".
Isnt gin forbidden by Islam?
Throw Tali-boy out of the program immediately!
Oh, wait. Whitney was also a prolific gun maker, as This shows.
That explains it!
Hugh said
I assumed that the "financial supporters" were based somewhere on the Arabian peninsula, and their goal was not to "change" his mind, but to create yet another pulpit from which to disseminate the Religion of Peace.
The original article was conspicuously reticent about any information of who the "financial supporters" are, which always makes my spidey-senses tingle, kind of like when "youths" or "East Asians" start to riot.
Crikey! Am gobsmacked...Only explanation I can think of - CIA are trying to recruit the little weasel. As Hugh says there are so many others more deserving than a puller of women's fingernails. Especially ordinary Americans who can't afford to enter these posh places. Mind you ,reading the list of those who have been to Yale [reminds me of Yale keys] perhaps our Taliban friend detonating the campus when reading his Koran & getting turned on by verses instructing him to kill Infidels-isn't such a bad idea after all.
Can those who want Hashemi to be in Yale for the sake of intercultural understanding please explain how Sayid Qutub's educational sojourn in the USA for two years [around 1948-1951] helped produce such understanding? How did Qutub's stay in the USA help the USA or the cause of civilization?
Qutub was, by the way, the main ideologue of the second generation of the Muslim Brotherhood.