Yale University: Taliban Yes; US Military No

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 surprisingly, 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.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and
trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox
News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.us.