Let me say up front that I don’t read many newspapers, aside from USA Today while on a business trip, because I don’t have the time/money to waste on print media. So I honestly don’t know how much the news media is covering the Taliban-member-at-Yale kerfluffle. But Yale continues to hide behind a wall of silence while working hard to encourage alumni to continue giving.

In today’s Opinion Journal, John Fund talks about said kerfluffle, and one Yale administrator’s inappropriate response to some critical comments.

Seems some dissatisfied alums have launched a protest called “Nail Yale.” You can read about it at Townhall.com Their premise is that since among other atrocities, the Taliban would yank out the fingernails of women wearing nail polish, how about if all those Yale supporters, instead of sending money this year, send Yale a fake fingernail, preferably painted red.

I especially liked the part where the authors of the commentary stated:

If you do have some connection with Yale, please tell them so in your letter and explain that you are withholding your donations until they end the disgrace of allowing America’s unrepentant enemy an opportunity which thousands of smart, deserving kids in Afghanistan, America or anywhere, who have been studying diligently instead of shilling for a brutal regime of retrograde, misogynist, terrorist-abetting, drug-running, Buddha-blasting, gay-murdering, freedom-hating tyrants, never received.

Feel free to point out the hyprocrisy of Yale’s decision to admit Sayeed Rahmatullah Hashemi, who supported a regime that killed homosexuals, stoned women, tortured/killed many, and destroyed Buddhas, even though Yale keeps ROTC off campus and files briefs with the Supreme Court protesting the military’s right to recruit on campus.

Most importantly, send your money somewhere else. While Yale made a choice to embrace an unapologetic supporter of a regime which oppressed women and sheltered Osama bin Laden, we prefer to aid organizations that support the troops who defeated that barbarous regime.

That last paragraph was followed by several links to projects that support the troops, such as Operation Valour-IT.

Well.

It seems that not everyone who read said column were as intrigued by it as I was. One Yale administrator sent an anonymous email to the column’s authors, asking them if they were “retarded.” The full text of the email is in the Opinion Journal piece. The authors used Yale’s public IT database to track the anonymous email back to its originator, Alexis Surovov, assistant director of giving at Yale Law School. John Fund was able to talk to the Mr Surovov, and his column today details that conversation.

Yale, of course, is continuing its wall of silence. Mr Surovov acted in a private capacity, even though he used Yale’s equipment to do so. No one has yet answered the question of how Mr Surovov found out the giving records of the 2 authors (he references it in his email to them), or how he found out one author’s maiden name or her private email address.

“Yale is practicing a most unusual media strategy,” says Merrie Spaeth, a public relations executive whose father and uncle went to Yale. “I’d call it ‘Just say nothing.’ ” Another PR expert characterized Yale’s strategy as “Trust that people will lose interest in the questions if there are no answers.”

All in all, it was an interesting read. Oh, Fund also quotes Yale’s official response in its entirety (easy to do, since it’s so short). I especially like the opening sentence:

Ramatullah Hashemi escaped the wreckage of Afghanistan and was approved by the U.S. government for a visa to study in this country.

He escaped the wreckage he helped create, and somehow our immigration folks granted him a Visa. Did we not know he was a Taliban member? Should we not be cancelling his Visa? After all, didn’t we deport an elderly formerly Nazi Guard when he was discovered here, almost 50 years after WWII ended? If so, why is this Taliban official (surely a more important person than a Nazi prison guard) still in our country?

Thoughts? Comments? Am I all wet, or *should* we be hearing more about this, until Yale decides to break its wall of silence? How far should tolerance and understanding go? Should we ever draw a line and say “this far, but no farther?” If so, where should that line be?

Just thinking out loud, and wondering what others are thinking…