Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born a Muslim in Somalia. She was forced to suffer the sexual mutilation that Islam inflicts on women. Her family tried to force her into marriage with a relation. To avoid it, she fled to the Netherlands in 1992. In a very short time  she learnt to speak fluent Dutch and became a  member of parliament. In 2004 she made a film, in partnership with Theo van Gogh, about the enslavement and savage treatment of women in Islam. A Muslim, deeply offended that anyone should tell the truth about his cruel and violent religion, killed Theo van Gogh on the street, and left a note on his body threatening her with murder too.

Mark Steyn wrote:

She lived under armed guard and was forced to abandon the Netherlands because quite a lot of people want to kill her. And not in the desultory behead-the-enemies-of-Islam you-will-die-infidel pro forma death-threats-R-us way that many of us have perforce gotten used to in recent years: her great friend and professional collaborator was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam by a man who shot him eight times, attempted to decapitate him, and then drove into his chest two knives, pinning to what was left of him a five-page note pledging to do the same to her.

She now lives in the United States. She speaks fluent, excellent English. She has established an organization that works to help oppressed women immigrants in the West – including of course Muslim women.  (The very real and cruel oppression suffered by Muslim women even in Western countries is not recognized or in the least objected to by American feminists. They have a vast accumulation of petty grouses to attend to.)

In her book Infidel she writes:

I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and emancipation. After making this voyage I know that one of these two worlds is simply better than the other. Not for its gaudy gadgetry, but for its fundamental values. 

She came to America because it is the land of liberty that protects free speech.

If ever a person deserved to be honored, she does. And Brandeis University prepared to honor her. She was invited to address a commencement ceremony and receive an honorary degree.

But a mob of Muslim men and their submissive women, inside and outside the university, objected. So the university administrators withdrew their invitation, refused to honor her after all.

Brandeis president, Fred Lawrence, joined with some 85 professors, including the Women’s Studies academic staff (no surprise there), and issued this statement by way of explanation:

Following a discussion today between President Frederick Lawrence and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ms. Hirsi Ali’s name has been withdrawn as an honorary degree recipient at this year’s commencement. 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. 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.

Commencement is about celebrating and honoring our extraordinary students and their accomplishments, and we are committed to providing an atmosphere that allows our community’s focus to be squarely on our students. In the spirit of free expression that has defined Brandeis University throughout its history, Ms. Hirsi Ali is welcome to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue about these important issues.

Brandeis University was founded in 1948, named after one of its founders, Supreme Court Judge Louis Brandeis, in order that Jews excluded by quota limits from other schools could get a university education. It is not a “faith school”, however, and admits students of all denominations and none. It no doubt prides itself on its tolerance.

But it  does not seem good at judging who should and should not be honored.  It made a fine judgment when it saw that Ayaan Hirsi Ali had earned honor, before it changed its mind.

It honored one Tony Kushner in 2006, for or despite his much published hatred of Israel, his belief that it has no right to exist, his insistence that it is a menace to the world, and his false accusations that it is guilty of racist persecution on a massive scale.

In 2000 it honored the despicable Bishop Desmond Tutu, a notorious anti-Semite who insists that Israel is a viciously “apartheid” country.

Brandeis University had planned to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali at its commencement ceremony this year, but after a smear campaign led by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic supremacist groups, on Tuesday the university issued a statement announcing the predictable result: the honorary degree would not be given.

Now we quote, from Front Page, a column by Robert Spencer.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brandeis assured the world, “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.” However, as compelling as Brandeis may have considered that work, ultimately it didn’t matter: “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.”

Who brought these statements – which had been openly made and are  unmissable by anyone exploring Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s biography –  to the attention of the Brandeis ivory tower?  Why, none other than the energetic Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, that iniquitous, terrorist-supporting organization – along with the Muslim students and the Women’s Studies professors and the rest of the local mob who passionately support the side of Ayaan’s, America’s, and freedom’s enemies.

The Brandeis statement did not mention CAIR, and probably university administrators are unaware of its Hamas ties or its record of opposing any and all counter-terror efforts. Nor did the statement specify exactly what in Hirsi Ali’s past statements was “inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values”. CAIR, however, did so in its press release (also issued Tuesday; Brandeis snapped into line quickly) which quoted Hirsi Ali from a 2007 interview saying: “I think that we are at war with Islam.”

Ironically, CAIR spokesmen have said the same thing: “The new perception is that the United States has entered a war with Islam itself,” said then-CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed in July 2007. The only difference is that Hirsi Ali and CAIR are on opposite sides of this war. Is it unacceptable at Brandeis, a contradiction of its core values, to oppose the global jihad? Apparently so.

In the same interview, Hirsi Ali also called for the closing of Islamic schools in the United States. While that is indeed a severe and questionable recommendation …

We don’t think so. We think Islam is an evil ideology, like Nazism, and any measure taken to expunge it is good. It  should be strongly and persistently opposed. Robert Spencer goes on to say as much:

… it should be remembered that Ayaan Hirsi Ali attended Islamic schools in her native Somalia. She no doubt also has seen the reports from all over the world showing hatred and violence being taught in all too many Islamic schools. In that same interview she said:

Asking whether radical preachers ought to be allowed to operate is not hostile to the idea of civil liberties; it’s an attempt to save civil liberties. A nation like this one is based on civil liberties, and we shouldn’t allow any serious threat to them. So Muslim schools in the West, some of which are institutions of fascism that teach innocent kids that Jews are pigs and monkeys — I would say in order to preserve civil liberties, don’t allow such schools.

Is calling for the schools that teach hatred and contempt of an entire group of people against the core values of Brandeis University? Apparently it is. …

All [CAIR] wants is to shut down any and every individual who opposes jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, in any venue. Generously funded and well-staffed, it pounces on anyone and everyone who dares raise a critical word against jihad terror, and mounts a smear campaign intending to get the Islamocritical speaker canceled and discredited.

In acceding to these smear campaigns, event organizers and – in this case, Brandeis University administrators – apparently make no attempt, even a simple Google search, to discover the intentions of the people behind the campaign. They appear indifferent to CAIR’s unsavory connections or its advice to Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. The organization’s own claims that it is merely a civil rights organization are accepted uncritically and without examination. … CAIR routinely blindsides officials and places on the defensive by its attacks, and so simply to avoid controversy they usually gave the “civil rights group” what it wants: the cancellation, demonization and marginalization of every speaker who is remotely critical of Islam. …

Someone really ought to teach the Brandeis administrators how to use the Internet.

Anyone and everyone who dares to oppose jihad and Islamic supremacism will become a target for a CAIR smear campaign. The real agenda of Islamic supremacist groups in the United States is clearly not to distinguish legitimate resistance to jihad from bigotry and hatred, but to stigmatize all resistance to jihad as bigotry and hatred, and clear away all obstacles to the advance of that jihad.

And they have made great headway, stigmatizing resistance to jihad in the eyes of large segments of the general public, and even of government and law enforcement officials, as “bigotry.” Yet while it has become generally accepted that standing up to jihad terror is “bigotry,” no one has ever clearly explained why. A highly tendentious and politically manipulative perspective has been foisted upon the American people as accepted wisdom, in which opponents of jihad terror are cast as bigots and efforts increased to rule their perspective altogether out of the realm of acceptable public discourse.

The one certain result of this will be more jihad terror in the U.S. – some of it emanating from hate-preaching Islamic schools that Ayaan Hirsi Ali so heinously suggested should be closed.

Finally, here is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s dignified response to Brandeis University’s decision:

Yesterday Brandeis University decided to withdraw an honorary degree they were to confer upon me next month during their Commencement exercises. I wish to dissociate myself from the university’s statement, which implies that I was in any way consulted about this decision. On the contrary, I was completely shocked when President Frederick Lawrence called me — just a few hours before issuing a public statement — to say that such a decision had been made.

When Brandeis approached me with the offer of an honorary degree, I accepted partly because of the institution’s distinguished history; it was founded in 1948, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, as a co-educational, nonsectarian university at a time when many American universities still imposed rigid admission quotas on Jewish students. I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin. For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings”,  and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices. So I was not surprised when my usual critics, notably the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), protested against my being honored in this way.

What did surprise me was the behavior of Brandeis. Having spent many months planning for me to speak to its students at Commencement, the university yesterday announced that it could not “overlook certain of my past statements”,  which it had not previously been aware of. Yet my critics have long specialized in selective quotation – lines from interviews taken out of context – designed to misrepresent me and my work. It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree.

What was initially intended as an honor has now devolved into a moment of shaming. Yet the slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles. The “spirit of free expression” referred to in the Brandeis statement has been stifled here, as my critics have achieved their objective of preventing me from addressing the graduating Class of 2014. Neither Brandeis nor my critics knew or even inquired as to what I might say. They simply wanted me to be silenced. I regret that very much.

Not content with a public disavowal, Brandeis has invited me “to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue about these important issues”.  Sadly, in words and deeds, the university has already spoken its piece. I have no wish to “engage” in such one-sided dialogue. I can only wish the Class of 2014 the best of luck — and hope that they will go forth to be better advocates for free expression and free thought than their alma mater.

I take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported me and my work on behalf of oppressed woman and girls everywhere.

This incident will add more honor and glory to the reputation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Brandeis University will bear the shame of it always.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Here’s the email address of Fred Lawrence, president of Brandeis. Tell him what you think.

 [email protected]