NEW HAVEN, Conn. — In the past year, Yale University enrolled a former Taliban official with a fourth-grade education into a non-degree program. The reason? To promote diversity.
The University of California allegedly attempts to discriminate against students educated at Christian high schools. DePaul University “makes war” on the free speech rights of conservative students and faculty.
These schools are among the recipients of this year’s 9th annual Campus Outrage Awards, handed out by the Collegiate Network, a part of the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
The incidents, according to the group, are numerous.
“Stanford University and the College of the Holy Cross attempt to silence the powerful independent voices of their respective established alternative (conservative) newspapers,” a news release said. “On the fourth anniversary of 9/11, Canisius College tries to avoid commemorating the victims, while the University of Iowa opts to hold a ‘Peacefest,’ inviting numerous radical groups including socialists and pacifists, instead of honoring the victims of the national tragedy.”
The awards are an attempt by the Collegiate Network to shine a light on “diversity run amok, suppression of free speech, and discrimination against Christians, conservatives, and patriots continue to be the norm in American higher education.”
Those singled out for 2006 awards included:
• Yale University, which enrolls a former Taliban official with a 4th grade education into a non-degree program. “I'm the luckiest person in the world,” said Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban. “I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale.”
The Collegiate Network placed Yale in first place in part because of the “hypocrisy” of the school for claiming to promote diversity while barring ROTC from its main campus.
• DePaul University, which the CN claims “has essentially declared war on free speech on campus.” According to the award citation, “the university suspended—without a hearing—a veteran adjunct professor for daring to debate students handing out pro-Palestinian literature on campus.
Next, the administration branded as ‘propaganda’ a College Republican protest of a Ward Churchill speech on campus.” College officials also shut down an “affirmative action bake-sale” sponsored by the campus conservative club and charged the club member who organized the event with harassment.
“Apparently, free speech is allowed at DePaul only as long as it accords with the political views of the university administration,” the network said.
• Third place was a tie between Stanford University and College of the Holy Cross. At both campuses, conservative alternative newspapers ran afoul of administration officials.
• Officials of the University of California system got the 4th place award.
“The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools of the UC Faculty Senate is refusing to award credit to high school students in Christian schools who take courses using textbooks published by A Beka Book and other conservative Christian presses.”
• Fifth place was also a tie, given to two colleges for their reaction to 9/11 commemorations. The University of Iowa chose not to honor appropriately the 3,000 Americans killed that day and instead held a “Peacefest” on Sept. 11, 2005.
The celebration was sponsored by leftist groups, including the International Socialist Organization, War Resisters League of Iowa City, University of Iowa Antiwar Committee, the University of Iowa College Greens, and the Women for Peace Iowa.
• Canisius College’s College Republicans asked the school’s administration whether the group could place 3,000 small American flags on the quad as part of a 9/11 remembrance, a college official said it would damage the college's expensive sprinkler system.
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