Steyn notes that "in this instance, Brandeis University is stiffing someone who's black, feminist and from Somalia. Which makes their decision the most explicit recognition yet that, in the hierarchy of identity-group politics, Islam trumps everything, including race and gender".
Correct.
Furthermore:
"There's nothing hypothetical about the danger she lives with. She and Theo van Gogh made a movie called Submission: He's dead, and the fellows who did it would like to kill her, too. But some tenured navel-gazing hacks and the prissy little trusty-fundy twerps they pretend to teach think she's the threat?"
(OMG that's a keeper, have I mention lately that I adore Mark Steyn?? Oh I have. Of course I have. Nevermind, carry on....)
"As for Brandeis president Frederick Lawrence and the others who took this decision, nobody's asking them to be as brave as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. They will never know what it's like to have their associates murdered and to be forced into living under armed guard. They will never have to "share the risk" that Ms Hirsi Ali faces every day of her life. All that was required of President Lawrence & Co was that they not be total craven, jelly-spined squishes who fold like a cheap Bedouin tent at the first hint of pressure."
Then from Barbara Kay, a fine writer, one of Canada's best:
"Brandeis core values are rotten to the core."
"A university spokesperson said that “we cannot overlook
certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis
University’s core values.”
"Core values, eh? And what would those be?"
"Was it core values that guided Brandeis’ 2007 hiring of Professor
Natana J. DeLong-Bas – a strident defender of Saudi-style extremist
Muslim ideology, who is on record denying that Osama bin Laden was
behind the 9/11 attacks?
"Was it core values that prompted Brandeis then-president
Jehuda Reinharz to call mainstream anti-Islamist Daniel Pipes a “weapon
of mass destruction” because his talks provide an excuse for Islamist
activists to make trouble?"
"Was it core values behind Brandeis University’s initiation
in 2008 of a long-term, intimate relationship with Jerusalem’s radical
Al Quds University? Al Quds hosts the Abu Jihad Martyrs Museum, which
pays homage to Palestinian terrorism and, according to a 2007
Palestinian Media Watch report, hosts student branches of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad on campus."
This episode is absolutely disgusting. I wonder if the current blowback, which has not even reached its peak level, will be enough to shame Brandeis into doing the right thing. Or will they double down on the Dhimmi Stupid?
Can't wait to hear the fart-catchers' clean up strategy for this dog's breakfast of a PR mess.
This is another reason why you must laugh in the face of any university that talks about "safe" space.
When a campus is only "safe" for those who support terrorism, and not "safe" for those who fight tyranny, repression and actual, rather than imagined misogyny, then we are in grave danger indeed.
And I mean it about danger.
It's not just unpleasant, or distasteful.
Democracy is a very young, and very fragile human experiment. I mean our modern democracies of course, not democratic episodes in the ancient world.
People don't seem to realize how easily we might lose, to paraphrase Churchill, the most horrible system of human governance ever, except for anything else!
Brandeis is appalling, but this action must be viewed in the greater context of the erosion of free speech, individual liberty and Western freedom. It cannot be viewed in isolation.
To reject and attempt to humiliate a woman of such exceptional bravery, with such unique credentials is to embrace the very evil that she spends her entire life fighting.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali responds:
Hirsi responds to Brainless Brandeis.
"They simply wanated me to be silenced."
EXIT QUESTION:
Why, pray tell, are liberal Jews MUTE on this subject?
Their silence means that they are fine with the idea that a black, African, women's rights activist has been treated in this fashion by Brandeis.
Hirsi might be the right colour for their exquisitely precious, sensitive sensitivities, but she has the wrong politics.
And that is the ONLY thing that matters to liberal extremists. Especially the Jewish ones.
