[Via: Wake Up From Your Slumber]
Satire: Harvard law school expels star student for 'holocaust denial'
CAMBRIDGE, Mass (AP) What began as a minor citation in a scholarly work ended up causing Noor Aljiem to be expelled from Harvard Law School. Aljiem, a third-year student majoring in criminal law, submitted a paper that examined Nazi travesties of criminal law, and received an ‘A' grade. She was set to graduate Summa Cum Laude at the end of this semester, but the university law school was forced to reconsider her status when criminal law professor Alan Dershowitz criticized Njiem's scholarship.
"She could have used any number of sources for her paper," Dershowitz' explained, "but for some reason, one of her citations mentioned the book Did Six Million Really Die? by imprisoned Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel."
"I admit there were misunderstandings," Njiem says. "But I did not actually quote the book. I quoted a German legal reference that happened to be cited in the book. Also, the citation was only one of three hundred miscellaneous citations in my paper, and I was commended for the thoroughness of my research. Furthermore the author of Did Six Million Really Die? was not Ernst Zundel, but Richard Verrall, whose pen name was Richard Harwood. Zundel merely helped Harwood to get Harwood's book published."
Saul Rubin, Dean of Harvard Law School, submitted the matter to an academic review board. "The German legal reference was obscure, and Ms. Njiem could have citied it directly, or through some other work," Rubin says. "That fact that her paper's bibliography mentioned Zundel's Did Six Million Really Die? is indicative of carelessness or maliciousness. Either way, we were forced to take Ms. Aljiem's status under advisement."
A series of further misunderstandings ensued, at the end of which the review board ruled against Najiem. Harvard Law School was forced to revoke her academic status, which had the effect of expelling her.
"Zundel's book has been outlawed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and most of mainland Europe," Dershowitz explains. "To take a hate-filled reference that has been outlawed in so many nations, and cite it in a scholarly work, strikes me as more than a coincidence."
Alhiem, who is a Muslim, asked the law school if it would expel a student for citing Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which has been outlawed in most Muslim nations.
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"They told me they would not, because Rushdie's book does not deny the Holocaust. They also objected to my use of a book that has been banned in several countries. My position is that many banned books turn out later to be literary classics. The Soviet Union banned Orwell's novel 1984. England banned Orwell's Animal Farm, plus Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. America banned Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Iran banned Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. Is America the same as the Islamofascists?"
"That's a clever argument," Dershowitz says, "but none of those books killed six million people. Moreover, a book like Rushdies' Satanic Verses merely questions theology and belief, while Zundel's book is a hate-filled assault on well-documented truth."
Njiem submitted a formal apology, and offered to rewrite the paper without the citation, but dean Saul Rubin said the review board's decision was final, and was out of his hands.
"I can see the board's point," Rubin explains. "When a person commits a robbery, do we excuse her merely because she says he's sorry? As an aspiring criminal attorney, Ms. Njiem surely realizes that all of us must take personal responsibility for our actions."
After her expulsion, Njiem applied to other law schools in the hope of finishing her education, but she says they all rejected her because of the incident at Harvard.
"Now I have no way to pay back my school loans. Harvard wants to make an example of me. They also want to separate Muslims from the rest of American society by creating the illusion that only Muslims deserve to be attacked. In reality, many people are attacked; not just Muslims."
"That's a typical blame-the-victim response," Dershowitz says. "Whenever hate is exposed, its perpetrators claim that their people are singled out as a group for unfair treatment. This is only my opinion, but it seems to me that all Muslims over-generalize, especially about Jews. Also, it is absurd for Ms. Njiem to claim that only Muslims are held accountable. Is Zundel, the book's author, a Muslim? We see this kind of illogic and selective memory all the time. Frankly, I find it hypocritical."
Aljiem plans to sue the university law school to reinstate her academic status. Representing the law school will be a team led Alan Dershowitz, who was not part of the review board.
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FYI: The above article is a satire.
Hi Haitham,
this is actually a satirical piece. The story didn’t really happen. I think you should put a note on that near the end or the beginning of the post.
Yeah, Hamzeh is right. I just tried to look for more information on this, and found nothing. Going back to the link you provided, many of the commentators mentioned that it’s satire, check the tags at the end of the post.
Done!
Is it just me, or is Noor Aljiem’s last name spelled three different ways throughout this article??? It says her last name is Aljiem, but throughout the article is spelled as ‘Najiem’, and at one point is even written as ‘Alhiem’.
Assuming these are mistakes, as I don’t know what else it could be, it’s obviously this is a satire…and a poorly spell checked one at that!(I’d expect more from Harvard students ;) )
As a new graduate student, I once had hoped to apply for Harvard/Yale but I soon found out their closed minds. I have sine got my PhD anfd my opinions of thoser two US schools have been confirmed. The USA can get fucked.
This is all over the Internet as REAL! Isn’t there enough Jew hating nuts out there? You had to creat more? Will you please go to Snopes and tell them it isn’t true, so they can start telling everyone that it is SATIRE? Please.
Even if the student’s paper was indeed antisemitic, that is still no excuse for her expulsion. Aljiem has a constitutional right to her views, no matter how shocking or preposterous they may be. So long as her scholarship was honest and up to par, her views are irrelevant.
Having been subjected to and harrassed over accusations of antisemitism myself in academia, I hope the ACLU takes up the case, and she wins.
Alan Dershowitz and those other tenured parasites in the ivory tower deserve to be paraded naked on campus, being forced to wear dunce-caps and placards reading: “I am a McCarthyist.”
Ordinary Jewish-American are innocent, and need to be protected against any hate backlash. But there is a tiny but powerful clique of older,white male Jews in high places that is really running things in academia like an old boys’ club.
Dershowitz and his ilk belong in the days of the Spanish Inquisition. The halls of learning have been turned into the whorehouses of political correctness.
Isn’t satire supposed to be amusing?
Ok…For the last time, is this story true or not ?