God and Terrorism at Yale

Looks like bad times for Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the Taliban spokesperson who once boasted: "In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world, I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."

It now appears he'll won't be back for his sophomore year.

Yale is about to establish tougher standards for the program under which he
is applying to become a degree-status sophomore next fall, and the consensus is
that Mr. Hashemi won't measure up.

But don't think that Yale has turned over a new leaf.

Meanwhile, Yale faces a new challenge. In the next few days the university may
hire Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, to fill a new
spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies. Mr. Cole's appointment
would be problematic on several fronts. First, his scholarship is largely on the
19th-century Middle East, not on contemporary issues. "He has since abandoned
scholarship in favor of blog commentary," says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate
and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Cole's postings at his blog,
Informed Comment, appear to be a far cry from scholarship. They feature highly
polemical writing and dubious conspiracy theories.