Taliban: Yale Welcomes You

If you're a high ranking member of the Taliban, Yale University welcomes you with open arms. However, if you are a patriotic American who would like to organize a ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corp) chapter at Yale, or want to speak to a military recruiter on campus, you're told to take a hike.

As sick and shocking as it may sound, that is exactly what is happening at Yale University. On February 26, according to the New York Times Magazine, Yale University admitted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban, to the University.

This is the same Yale University that actively prohibits students from organizing ROTC chapters and seeks to deny students the right to speak to military recruiters on campus.

This is no innocent bureaucratic SNAFU.

Hashemi may not be a fan of the United States, but he certainly loves it at Yale. As he told the Times: "In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world... I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."

And it would appear that Yale loves him too. Or at least his money—that is... if he's paying to go to Yale?

Here's what some members of the Yale community think:

Benjamin Gonzalez, a Yale freshman told the New York Sun: "If we didn't accept him and try to learn from him, how could we say we're this diverse body and institution of higher learning? If we just dismiss him, what does that say about us?"

Well for starters Mr. Gonzales, it might say that Yale students are patriotic freedom loving Americans.

Mark Oppenheimer, a Yale graduate and editor of the New Haven Advocate, told the Sun, "He sounds like a remarkable guy."

A statement like that makes you wonder what this young man thinks of Josef Stalin or Pol Pot.

Or how about this quote from the Sun taken from an interview with an official in the Yale admissions office? Richard Shaw said the admissions office had once had another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status. "We lost him to Harvard,'' he says. "I didn't want that to happen again."

Ruhmatullah? Apparently Shaw fancies himself as being on a first name basis with Hashemi.

Keith Urbahn, a senior at Yale told the Sun that even though there was a feeling of "consternation" among his conservative friends that "most people on campus are not really upset."

And what about our men and women in uniform?

It's no secret that our institutions of higher learning are out of control and being run—in many cases—by left-wing ideologues who seek to indoctrinate the youth of America.

According to columnist John Fund:"Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow [U.S. military cadets] on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder."

And we all know the story of Ward Churchill, who is still on the staff of the University of Colorado even though he makes statements against the United States and has been shown to be an academic fraud.

But in this case, Yale has simply gone too far. What kind of message does this send to our brave young men and women in uniform who fought and died to bring freedom to the people of Afghanistan?

What kind of message does this send to the families of the victims of 9/11 who lost loved ones in the fight against terror?

What kind of message does this send to the rest of the world?

—Bill Lauderback.