Mark Steyn on Brandeis’ backtracking on their decision to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Today, Brandeis University announced that it was reversing its decision to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, following complaints from faculty, an online petition, and pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which represents nobody but is flush with Saudi cash. The biases of the academy are well known: Robert Spencer is in no danger of getting an honorary degree any time soon, nor Douglas Murray. Nevertheless, in this instance, Brandeis University is stiffing someone who’s a black feminist atheist from Somalia. Which makes their decision the most explicit recognition yet that, in the hierarchy of identity-group politics, Islam trumps everything, including race, gender and secularism.
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So getting an honorary degree at Brandeis, like serving on the board at Mozilla, is open only to those who make sure they never cross the Conformity Enforcers.
Which is interesting, because, on the one hand, they oppose someone like Brendan Eich for being, in their opinion, anti-homosexual – but they oppose Ms. Ali for criticizing Islam – and it’s not as if homosexuals are better off in Islamic countries. One suspects they simply hate Christians and traditionalism, but would be fully fine with living under sharia.
