NEW YORK - A prestigious American university with a focus on liberal arts has dropped plans to give a Somali-born woman rights activist an honorary degree, saying some of her anti-Islam statements do not match the school’s “core values.”
Brandeis University, a private educational institution, said in a statement that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would no longer receive the honorary degree, which it had planned to award her at the May 18 commencement.
Ayaan Hirsi, a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making fierce anti-Islam comments.
IN an interview with Reason Magazine in which she said of Islam: “Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars.”
Brandeis, outside Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts, said it was not aware of Ali’s statements earlier. The university was founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian Jewish community-sponsored coeducational institution on the site of the former Middlesex University. Officials at Brandeis in the Boston suburb of Waltham announced the decision Wednesday. Hirsi Ali is currently a fellow at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
After Brandeis announced its plan to honour Hirsi Ali last week, the decision was criticized with an online petition saying she has “extreme Islamophobic beliefs.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group, said Tuesday that she is a “promoter of religious prejudice.” After the degree was withdrawn, the Washington-based Muslim group welcomed the university’s decision.
“She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world,” Brandeis officials said in a statement. “That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values. For all concerned, we regret that we were not aware of these statements earlier.”
Hirsi Ali, 44, was born in Somalia where her father was a prominent politician, and lived in Kenya, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. She lived in the Netherlands for many years and worked with filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, later reportedly killed by a Muslim extremist, on the film Submission. She was brought up as a Muslim and in her teenage years embraced the conservative Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. She has said that she became an atheist in 2002.
CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, requested that Ms. Ali not be honoured in a letter to Brandeis President Frederick Lawrence.
“We welcome the recognition by Brandeis University that honouring an anti-Muslim bigot like Ayaan Hirsi Ali would amount to an endorsement of her hate-filled and extremist views,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “We would like to thank all those who took part in the effort to expose Ali’s extremism and to convince the university to take corrective action.”
Awad added: “This victory over hate was achieved because the American Muslim community joined with interfaith partners in presenting a unified front to challenge Ali’s intolerance.”
He offered specific thanks to the Brandeis Muslim Students Association, the editors of The Justice student newspaper at Brandeis, Tikun Olam blog editor Richard Silverstein, Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the Islamic Council of New England, Brandeis Professor Joseph Lumbard, and the many Jewish activists and academics who joined in demanding that Brandeis University withdraw its invitation to Ali.