Yale University Embraces Sharia Law

It’s normal for colleges and universities to be liberal, but you can only lean so far to the left before you fall over. And with Yale’s recent decision to establish a Sharia law center, I’d say it’s close to falling.

Earlier during the 2014-2015 school year, Yale surprised us by hiring a #BlackLivesMatter protestor to teach a class on the movement. On Friday the Ivy League school announced the decision to erect a Sharia law center on campus using a $10 million donation from a Saudi Arabian billionaire.  

According to NBC News, the $10 million comes from Abdallah S. Kamel, the CEO of a Saudi real estate company who has donated money to Yale in the past. The new center will feature Kamel’s name and be used to bring in Sharia law experts for seminars, lectures, fellowships, and guest professorships. 

Abdallah S. Kamel is following in the footsteps of King Fahd, a Saudi who in 1993 helped fund an Islamic law center at Harvard.

Yale officials have said they want their new Sharia law center to be the best in the United States – possibly the world. But why? I fail to see how understanding Islamic law will be helpful to American lawyers… 

On top of that, many believe that the wealthy Saudis who are now trying to infiltrate America’s top schools with Sharia law are the same people who funded 9/11. 

Has liberal propaganda replaced Yale’s sense of purpose?

Yale Professor Anthony Kronman defended the school’s controversial decision to NBC News: “The contemporary challenges of Islamic law are broadly relevant to political events throughout the entire Islamic world and those are developments that are watched by a much larger audience of people who in many cases have not much knowledge at all of the history and traditions of Islamic law.”

“It’s the responsibility of universities to teach and instruct and that obligation applies with particular force where an issue or a subject tends to be viewed in an incomplete or inadequate or even caricatured way,” said Kronman. “There the responsibility to teach and enlighten is even stronger.”

Yale President Peter Salovey and Yale Law School Dean Robert C. Post have high hopes for the new center, even going so far as to say that it will “benefit the entire world.” 

 “The creation of this center reflects the growing interest at Yale and other academic institutions in a deeper understanding of Islamic law, history, and culture,” said Post. “Islamic law has a long and proud tradition, which encompasses great intellectual achievements. It is also a subject of immense contemporary importance. There is a tremendous need for an interdisciplinary center to support scholarship in the field. The Abdallah S. Kamel Center meets this need…It will enable our students and faculty to form lasting connections with scholars and experts in the Middle East and elsewhere.”