Wall Street Journal
maria.o...@yale.edu
the Wall Street Journal. Here is a link to the column:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/
A letter in response to this was written by the President. Feel free
to read both the op-ed and the response. It is copied below:
To whom it may concern:
We would like to set the record straight about references made to the
Yale Political Union in John Fund,s op-ed ,,Sayed and de Man at
Yale‰ (Wall Street Journal Online, March 20th).
Mr. Fund,s claim that he was invited ,,to debate both military
recruitment and the Rahmatullah case‰ is simply false. Flagg
Youngblood of the Young America,s Foundation was invited to speak on
military recruitment at Yale, in defense of the Solomon Amendment. Mr.
Youngblood accepted, and asked if he could bring Mr. Fund along as a
debate partner. We agreed, and also invited a Yale Law School
professor to speak in opposition. It was only at this point that Mr.
Youngblood suggested changing the topic of the debate to include the
presence of an ex-Taliban official at Yale.
In light of the fact that we had already made arrangements with another
guest to debate the military recruitment issue, it was necessary for us
to reject this proposal. Mr. Fund is therefore completely wrong to
suggest that our goal was ,,discouraging discussion of the subject.‰
Even had Mr. Fund and Mr. Youngblood not tried to force a change at the
last minute, we would have reservations about a debate on Mr. Hashemi.
We anticipated that the debate would degenerate into a trial of an
individual student, rather than a constructive discussion about
political litmus tests in university admissions. The YPU exists to
facilitate high quality student debate on important political issues.
We are not afraid of controversy, nor are we trying to protect
anyone,s feelings.
Making untruthful statements to win a debate is considered
unacceptable at the YPU. We hope the Wall Street Journal will adopt
similar standards in the future.
Sincerely,
Meredith Startz
President of the Yale Political Union
Daniel Thies
Vice President of the Yale Political Union