Diana West: Yale chose Shariah over U.S. Constitution

By: DIANA WEST

Examiner Columnist

October 11, 2009

Last week’s column was about something that doesn’t exist — a multilevel strategy to combat the advance of Shariah (Islamic law) across the West.

The strategy doesn’t exist because there’s little understanding that the entrenchment of Shariah in the Western world poses a threat to liberty in the Western world.

This understanding doesn’t exist because the critique of Shariah (a legal system best described as sacralized totalitarianism) required to devise a defensive anti-Shariah strategy is not considered possible.

Why not? The main obstacle is, well, the advance of Shariah across the West. In other words, we cannot criticize the spread of Shariah simply because Shariah’s influence has spread. Thus, the reflex reaction to critical commentary — even a newspaper page of political cartoons — is to follow Islamic law and stop it (or try), or just shut up.

That’s certainly what Yale has done, as events beginning in August demonstrate. That’s when news broke that Yale and its press were omitting the Danish Muhammad cartoons (and other Muhammad imagery) from a forthcoming Yale University Press book expressly about the Danish Muhammad cartoons.

This sudden act of censorship, Yale said, was due to fear of Muslim outrage over the Muhammad cartoons again turning into Muslim violence. (Roger Kimball, Stanley Kramer and I have laid out evidence that Yale’s censorhip was also due to fear of alienating Muslim donors.)

via Diana West: Yale chose Shariah over U.S. Constitution | Washington Examiner .