Brandeis University appeases Islamists-rescinds honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Brandeis University appeases Islamists-rescinds honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Those of you who read my posts regularly will know that there are two things I cannot abide. One is hypocrisy and the other is hypocrisy that seeks to pacify those who would tell the ugly truth about radical Islam. This week Brandeis University really set my hair on fire when within the span of a few days they decided to honor a woman I deeply respect by choosing to confer upon her an honorary degree in Social Justice-and then turned around faster than a child’s top and insulted her-and the collective intelligence of women across our nation-by reversing that decision.

The woman in question is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, activist, true feminist (in that she promotes the education of women across the world and speaks out against the rape culture of the Middle East), and truth teller about the tragic existences of women and girls under radical Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali-true feminist and women’s rights advocate

It seems that the liberal faculty at Brandeis objected to her past criticism of radical Islam, which Ali correctly points out was available to them online with a simple Google search. Actually the school was reacting to a petition launched by students on Change.org protesting the University’s decision to confer an honorary degree on Ali at their commencement this year. This struck me as odd for a number of reasons, but let’s just review the top five by examining her own words on each point.

1) Ali speaks out against the anti-woman, rape culture of the Middle East

“In the middle of the east, most women are banished from the public rooms, and when they are glimpsed at all they are covered from head to toe in garments dark and ugly. Many never learn to read or write; they are forced into marriage and seem to live pregnant ever after. They have no reproductive rights. If they are raped, the burden of proof lies on them to show their innocence, and in some rooms, women and girls as young as 13 are publicly flogged and stoned to death for sexual disobedience.”

2) Ali is what I refer to as a “true” feminist-one who speaks out for the equality of women and girls, especially when it comes to their rights to living as whole people without bearing the scars (both physical and psychological) inflicted by radical Islam.

“In what should have been beautiful courtyards are shallow unmarked graves, wherein lie girls who died because they were deemed not worth feeding. In the east, some girls are transported as property–often with their parents’ connivance–to gratify adults’ sexual desires. Girls work the land, fetch water, tend to livestock, cook and clean from dawn to dusk with no pay. Others are beaten with impunity. Hundreds of thousands die while giving birth because they lack the most basic hygiene and health care.”

3) Ali survived the evils that she stands against, all in the name of radical Islam, including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

“I am familiar with this debate (regarding FGM) in two ways. First, I come from a culture where virtually every woman has undergone genital cutting. I was 5 years old when mine were cut and sewn. Second, while serving as a member of parliament in the Netherlands, I was assigned the portfolio for the emancipation and integration of immigrant women. One of my missions was to combat practices such as FGM.”

4) Ali sees promise in the small “wins” by women in the Muslim world

“When I see millions of women in Afghanistan defying threats from the Taliban and lining up to vote; when I see women in Saudi Arabia defying an absurd ban on female driving; and when I see Tunisian women celebrating the conviction of a group of policemen for a heinous gang rape, I feel more optimistic than I did a few years ago.”

5) She can, and does, show the West how to combat the scourge of radical Islam

 “But I believe it has created an opportunity for traditional forms of authority—including patriarchal authority—to be challenged, and even for the religious justifications for the oppression of women to be questioned.

Yet for that opportunity to be fulfilled, we in the West must provide the right kind of encouragement. Just as the city of Boston was once the cradle of a new ideal of liberty, we need to return to our roots by becoming once again a beacon of free thought and civility for the 21st century. When there is injustice, we need to speak out, not simply with condemnation, but with concrete actions.”

So, tell me, how do the five points above not embody the essence of working for Social Justice? Oh, wait, silly me! Of course! It is because they tend to mirror a more conservative view of social justice-meaning the pursuit of a society of law and order where people are held accountable for their sins against others with real consequences instead of being automatically excused for following a path prescribed by a religion that has wrought death, destruction and fear on this earth since the 5th century.

Oh, sorry, my mistake. I guess it’s ok then-NOT.

Written by

17 Comments
  • In addition to the obvious hypocrisy there is also an undeniable element of racism at work in Brandeis University’s decision. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a black atheist feminist who does not conform to the stereotype the leftist faculty and students have created for black women worldwide. Liberal racism is real, and is the primary motivating factor at many colleges and universities today.

    But as for me: I stand with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

    • VALman says:

      We would expect that with all their collective education they would not so position themselves.

      • Dana says:

        Their collective education? They have been educated in stupidity: they are, almost literally, refusing to see the forest, so that they can focus solely on the trees.

    • Dana says:

      But that’s just it: the proudly liberal faculty and students at Brandeis should absolutely celebrate a black, atheist feminist! Mrs Ali has struggled and escaped oppression, she has become well-educated, she has traveled the world, she supports equal rights for women, she opposes female genital mutilation, she has done everything that they could ever picture as being successful.

      Racism? No, I’d guess not: they’d absolutely celebrate a black woman who has accomplished all that she has done. Her great sin was to take things one step further, to look at these issues, and see how they intertwine . . . and they intertwine around Islam.

    • Jennifer says:

      Recovering Lutheran,
      I stand by Ayaan and you as well.

  • VALman says:

    From classrooms to newsrooms, from internet blogs to the oval office, from renowned academicians to the halls of Congress, we are bereft of reasoned and civil discourse and decision-making. So overcome are we that even when a movement is made in the direction of learned discussion this is met with various derisive responses. “America the Beautiful” is ever the more becoming, and it appears gaining in rapidity, “America the Ugly.” I can only hang my head in sadness and tear-glistened eyes at the corruption of the American spirit and soul.

    We just can no longer be like little children, who run and jump in bed with a pillow over their heads in hopes that the “monsters’ will go away. We are to, each of us, ask ourselves how we might be contributing to a national “climate” that manifests in such an act as the Brandeis one. Who are the ones who clearly model how a civilized society conducts itself in time of uncertainty, turmoil, and crisis? Is it too much to think that within academic circles we would find at least some of such leadership?

    From graduation from high school to college to graduate work, I can not remember a word of any commencement address. No, I wasn’t sleeping. In the case of one speaker, I could have named several professors much preferred than the one selected.
    Another one was selected, no doubt, because of “celeb” status. To me the address was bland, an embarrassment, and wouldn’t have qualified for even a “D” in speech class. Still another was so ideological in content and improper because of the setting, I nearly walked out. I always thought that graduation was to be a “crowning” moment, rather than something to be endured.

    Having read a transcript of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s intended remarks, I can truly say that an address by her would have been unwelcome. Yes, unwelcome. I would have, however, remembered at least some of it had she been a commencement speaker at one of my graduations. Why? Because I would have disagreed with her and some of what she stands for? Yes, by all means you hear that right.

    You see, some of my greatest learnings, and most enduring ones, have come from ideas and persons with whom I originally disagreed. This in itself, whether in the classroom or daily living, is one of the “rewards” of learning. Thus, it is with dismay that I witness, time and again, a person or persons claiming, across so many venues, tell me what I only want to hear and agree with. How is learning to be achieved with such an attitude? How can we have a solid foundation unless our ideas and thinking is challenged and tested in the “arena” of honest study and respectful erudition?

    Today, I can affirm who Ayaan Hirsi Ali is and what she is about. Yet, I cannot do so without recognizing that there were those persons who told me what they thought and believed despite the consequences, who suffered with me in my ignorance, and rejoiced when I demonstrated learning and growth as a person. How terribly sad and disappointing Brandeis University will miss such an opportunity at this year’s graduation.

  • Jennifer says:

    VALman,
    Beautifully stated. I could not agree more with your statements above. Thank you for your erudite confirmation of everything I was thinking and feeling when I wrote this piece!

  • Dana says:

    Our oh-so-intellectual friends on the left absolutely decry all of those things Ayaan Hirsi Ali opposes . . . individually. You won’t find a single leftist who supports female genital mutilation, or reduced (or nonexistent) rights for women, or rape, or the evil patriarchy, but Mrs Ali’s gravest sin was that she put all of those things together, that she told the truth, that she connected them with Islam. That can’t be done, because it offends multiculturalism, because it says that some cultures really are better at providing economic success, societal freedom and individual liberty than others. If they went along with Mrs Ali, why they’d be accepting the same things as we wicked reich-wingers.

  • Dana says:

    And, of course, if things are put together and are critical of Islam and the cultures under which most Muslims live, why that might be seen as critical of the Palestinians and, inter alia, supportive of Israel.

    In the United States, we have almost complete separation of religion and state, and that’s the way the left believe things just naturally should be. But despite the education of so many of the leftist elites, they are so thoroughly ethnocentric that they can’t really accept the notion that religion and culture and society are all intertwined everywhere, with the force of law thrown in in so many other places. The cultures which accept the things Mrs Ali opposes — and suffered — would not exist as they are without the heavy influence of Islam, any more than Islam could thrive there without a culture and society which supported it. The left have had the common sense educated right out of them.

    • Jennifer says:

      Dana, I agree with your most recent statements as well. You are right, 100%. It is amazing how intolerant those on the left can be when someone’s views-even when based on PERSONAL experience-conflict with their world view.

  • C. says:

    The only thing I would disagree with is your use of the words “radical Islam”. What Ali is speaking out against is Islam, pure and simple. A “moderate” Muslim is not a true Muslim at all. What you are describing as “radical” Islam is the true Islam as described in the Qu’ran and lived by the “prophet” Mohammad.
    http://www.amazon.ca/The-Truth-About-Muhammad-Intolerant/dp/1596985283

    • Jennifer says:

      C.,
      I am a fan of Robert Spencer’s work but I would also encourage you to check out Dr. Zhudi Jasser’s website and work. He USA true patriot and someone who wants to see an evolution of his faith-which includes the expelling of the radicalism. His views are decried by groups like CAIR, but to me that just reaffirms that he is right.

      • C. says:

        But “an evolution of his faith” and the “expelling of the radicalism” would be something different than Islam, then. It would be his own (and the people who agree with him) ideas, not Islam. That’s like people who identify themselves as Christians, but don’t believe in the resurrection or the Trinity. That’s not Christianity then, that’s something completely different. Islam *is* radical. There is no moderation. If it evolves, then it is no longer Islam.

        • Michelle says:

          Well said. Mohammed himself said that there can be no revision of Islam. He further stated that the Koran was written by Allah rather than any human. It is perfect for all time and the later parts supersede the earlier ones if there is a discrepancy. Islam is islam.

  • Xavier says:

    I blame liberals. In less than a generation they’re taken our educational system from the pillar of free speech to a dissent squelching thought control Gulag. Next, private schools and home schooling will be targeted for regulation or banning.

    • Jennifer says:

      Xavier,
      I share your concerns, especially with the dawning of the educational fascism known as #CommonCore.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe
Become a Victory Girl!

Are you interested in writing for Victory Girls? If you’d like to blog about politics and current events from a conservative POV, send us a writing sample here.
Ava Gardner
gisonboat
rovin_readhead