New York University recently announced plans that it will open a campus in Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates.
Considering the federation’s prohibitions on “homosexual acts,” it should come as no surprise that NYU garnered some queer criticism for the decision.
President John Sexton got grilled at town hall meeting last week, during which two gay students raised their voices against the dubious Abu Dhabi decision.
NYU journo Sergio Hernandez reports:
At a town hall meeting last week, two students sharply questioned NYU president John Sexton about the plan and voiced their concerns about LGBT students at NYU Abu Dhabi.
…
In an interview with WSN following the announcement, Sexton said the university had “addressed all of the issues that one would want to address in the course of our conversations” but did not comment on specific concerns.Kerwin Kaye, a bisexual doctoral student in NYU’s American Studies program who mentioned the issue at the town hall, said he was unsatisfied with Sexton’s vague answers.
“I think he basically dismissed the concern and said it’s not going to be a problem – I don’t think he thought about it for more than the 10 seconds the question was asked,” Kaye said.
Hoping to sooth concerns, University officials insists students would be safe on the “bubble-like” campus, but made no guarantees of what happens beyond the ivory towers. Department of Public Safety spokesman John Beckman told reporters:
How about we take this to the next level?
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There is no blanket immunity that NYU – or any other entity (including the U.S. government, for that matter) – can offer from the laws and customs of the many countries in which members of our community pursue their scholarship.
That’s very true. NYU – and other universities – have set up shop in a host of anti-gay countries, like Ghana, but it’s ultimately up to the students to decide whether they want to take risks in inhospitable countries.
Kaye, the student who questioned Sexton, wants the world to know that his objections have nothing to do with prejudicial sentiment, saying:
In bringing up these issues, I do not wish to exacerbate anti-Islamic or anti-Arabic prejudices. As with the status of women, the status of homosexuality in Middle Eastern countries is extremely complex, and people should avoid the idea that the West is inevitably more tolerant or accepting.
Ain’t that the truth.
Scott Berwitz
Amazing…In the UAE, homosexual acts are banned. During a private meeting with at a UK-Based peace conference, when questioned his countries execution of homosexuals, a top Iranian official that homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured.
But don’t dare infer from this that the U.S. is more tolerant than these countries? Are you kidding?
Seriously, when is this self-obsessed moral relativism going to end?
Scott Berwitz
Amazing…In the UAE, homosexual acts are banned. During a private meeting at a UK-Based peace conference, when questioned about Iran’s execution of homosexuals, a top Iranian official declared that homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured.
But don’t dare infer from this that the U.S. is more tolerant than these countries? Are you kidding?
Seriously, when is this self-obsessed moral relativism going to end?
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
Moral relativism – as it did in your country when it no longer was pc to support apartheid regime in South Africa – is an illness born of the one virus that higher education institutions (now R&D labs for international corporatism) – greed and power.
The UAE will be the central staging ground for the New World Order western base of operations led by the US fascists. Halliburton is already there. Qatar is the military Guantanamo.
Fundamentalist theocrats, whether “Christian or Muslim” have one answer…incarceration and murder…where we are concerned.
Our role is simple. We must concentrate upon the fundamentalist Christofascist and recognise that we are in a life and death struggle with unbridled capitalistic fascism. In this system, all but a few are eventually victims. The trick with them is to betray one friend at a time while that “friend” betrays another of their opponents.
There is nothing about Christ in capitalism. The only thing that Christian capitalists were able to do was contain and bridle its rape of the masses by providing certain socialistic programmes intent on eventually destroying even those programmes given in expediency.
Jewish Germans were integrated into society. There were many culturally and non-observant Jews who married Gentiles. Yes, the early Nuremburg laws had to describe how much Jewish blood constituted a Jew. Few escaped the nation. Unlike their Eastern European cousins pogrommed and forever on the run, these men and women were quite successfully slaughtered by the Third Reich.
This fascist reich or regime has an enemy….you and me…and oh, when they say LG they also mean B and definitely T. It was said that Hitler despised the centrists and pragmatist neo-liberals more than the Communists, whom he hated. He murdered the German Communists, and then made a pact with Stalin.
Bill Perdue on this list is the John the Baptist whom too many Salomes’ will dance in order to have Herod behead him here. He is a “voice crying out in the wilderness” and I wonder when before you are in a gulag being slowly murdered will you really understand the battle we are all really in??
Leland Frances
Gee, Rev, we’re really sorry that none of the great universities of the world accepted your application for Resident Genius so you’ve taken up residence at the University of Qs. Maybe if you kept your sagging jowls out of the communion wine before writing anything you wouldn’t read like a bloated windbag with a desperate need to show off his alleged erudition.
Ash
Hmmm…I’m surprised. I’m an NYU undergrad and this campus has been so gay-friendly since my first day of freshman orientation. The LGBT office has many programs, almost all the faculty and administrators participate in “Safe Zone.” The straight girls gripe about how all the guys are gay. The lesbians gripe about how we never seem to be able to identify each other. The gay men fuck, because that’s what they do. (kidding). It’s always been a very welcoming, supportive place for queerness, in fact being at NYU was when I finally realized I was gay, so I am eternally grateful. So I dunno what Sexton’s pulling, I want to know more about this program and why this decision was reached…and if my tutition money is going to be paying for any of it.
WWH
I’ve been to the UAE. Westerners are ghetto-ized into housing complexes and office parks. As long as you do your homo bit with another westerner, it seems not to be a big deal. Perhaps the NYU “campus” will be a small but incrimental step in opening their minds over there.
hells kitchen guy
Hey, good idea: Every institution, coroporation, body of any kind that has any ideological beef with any government anywhere, shoulnd’t be there. That would limit us to … um … Norway and um Lesotho.
Qjersey
NYU is a for profit university, enough said
Jim
What ridiculous PC moral relativism. I’m as liberal as they come but the insane statement that the West isn’t any better than the broadly misogynistic, homophobic Arab-Islamic world is plainly wrong. God forbid we criticize Arabs or Muslims for their often violent, prejudiced homophobia. It’s much better to find fault with Western countries where homophobia is, while prevalent, becoming less and less tolerated than to criticize the poor aggrieved Arabs. Let me cry.
Ash
I think you’re missing the point, hells kitchen guy. It’s not so much a question of an “ideological beef,” it’s a question of safety. There is a high LGBT population at NYU. Will they not take advantage of this opportunity because they fear for their safety? They wouldn’t be going to a place that just frowns on gays, bans gay marriage, etc. It’s a place where the government believes gays should be tortured and killed! Queer students studying there would be in serious danger.
Scott Berwitz
Rt. Rev,
I don’t have the slightest idea about how what I wrote drove you to respond in anti-capitalist, anti-Christian tirade that involves, at different times, Hitler and communism.
My issue is simple: Are Americans incapable of making a solid moral judgment, i.e., Not killing people because they are homosexual is morally superior to killing them?
If people – like the NYU student quoted in the post– can not make that judgment, than it is quite clear that moral relativism has reached insane heights and is an increasing danger to our society.
It is one thing for people to be intolerant of homosexuality. It is quite another for a country to legislate KILLING people because they are homosexual. It is not anti-Muslim to say that Western society is more tolerant of homosexuality, and every decent person should have the courage of their convictions enough to stand up and articulate a plain truth like this without fear of being labeled as such.
It pains me that the current dialogue forces me to point this out.
Ash
Ok, I just checked my email, there’s one from the “vice chancellor” of NYU. The subject?
“Startup Programs at NYU Abu Dhabi: A Call for Proposals”
Ash
Here is the text of the email, including a link for more information about the program:
Beginning in early 2008, NYU will sponsor academic programs in Abu Dhabi under the
auspices of the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute. The Institute will operate in temporary facilities
while the new NYU Abu Dhabi campus is under construction. NYUAD will enroll the first
class of students in September 2010.
Faculty and students of NYU are invited to submit proposals for a wide range of startup
academic activities, including conferences; research projects; colloquia with international
scholars, including those from institutions in the Gulf and Middle East; and short-term
academic residencies. For information about funding opportunities and the Call
for Proposals, please see
http://nyuad.nyu.edu/startup.initiatives/call.proposals.html.
More information about NYU Abu Dhabi is available at http://nyuad.nyu.edu.
Mariët Westermann
Vice Chancellor
NYU Abu Dhabi
Hilary Ballon
Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs and Campus Planning
NYU Abu Dhabi
Ash
Ok, sorry to keep posting, but I just checked the website. Here is a vomit-inducing snippet from the NYU in Abu Dhabi website:
“The agreement to build NYU Abu Dhabi is the happy outcome of an alignment of NYU’s goals for global education with the forward-looking vision of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Emirate’s leadership is deeply committed to creating a world-class research university driven by NYU, and to funding the entire endeavor, including the design, construction, and operation of an entirely new campus. This historic partnership and the projected role of NYU Abu Dhabi within NYU’s global network are described in NYU Abu Dhabi and the University as Global Network.”
Forward-looking vision???? This is appalling. I am so ashamed of my school.
WWH
Well, look at the bright side. I think the gays in the UAE are imprisoned, not killed.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
Goodbye ! Bishop, Nigel and Norbert
Mr. B
Hey Ash, thanks for the heads-up.
I didn’t go to NYU, but my brother did. So I get alumni stuff in the mail sometimes, but I hadn’t heard about this.
hells kitchen guy
“it’s a question of safety. There is a high LGBT population at NYU. Will they not take advantage of this opportunity because they fear for their safety?”
Huh? the students will be in their own little western cocoon. I konw lots of fags who’ve been to AD, and they actually talk about how much homosex goes on among the upper classes and how it’s tacitly not discouraged at all. (& the NYU students will be upper class there, believe me.) AD is all about $$, not morals, trust me.
stella
Hello Dear,
My name is Stella Sigcau, the elder daughter of Mr. Zac sigcau of Zimbabwe, I am 22 years old with my younger brother (Micheal), we are in Ghana as refuge/asylum since we lost our parents because of the recent war that occurred in our country.please do go through this web page for better understanding with full details:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2000/0418/zimbabwe.html
I got your esteem contact and particulars out of desperate search for a business minded personality in your country, who will honestly assist my younger brother and I to realize our inherited funds into your account and as well as invest it into a lucrative business.
During the recent war against the farmers in Zimbabwe from the supporters of our President, Robert Mugabe to claim all the white -owned farms to his party members and his followers, he ordered all the white farmers to surrender all their farms to his party members and his followers.
My father being one of the few rich and successful black farmers in our country was also victimized because of his opposition to Mugabe’s policies. And because he did not support Mugabe’s ideas, Mugabe’s supporters invaded my father’s farm and burnt everything in the farm, killed my father and made away with a lot of items in my father’s farm. This action was taken because my late father felt the growing tension on the farm issue, but I guess he never anticipated the tragedy that brought their brutal and sudden death.
However with the benefit of hindsight, owing to the looming but deteriorating crisis in my country, Zimbabwe, my father, before his unfortunate death deposited with one of the Security Company in Accra Ghana the sum of US$ 14MUsd (Fourteen Million United States Dollars),and 250kg of alluvial gold with the sole aim of acquiring and buying some dredging equipments in setting up of a dredging firm with his partner. With his death and all his assets seized at home and accounts frozen, the family is now in a very difficult situation.
After the death of my father, my brother and I escaped to the Republic of Ghana where he had deposited the money in the Security Company as a family valuable property. And we were permitted to reside here as Political Refugees.
So Because of our present and unpleasant status here we decided to contact an overseas firm / individual that can assist us to move this money out Of Ghana because, as asylum seekers, we are not allowed to operate any financial transaction of such amount within Ghana and also to assist in providing me and my brother a permanent residential permit in your country after the money must have been transferred to your account.
We have agreed to offer you 30% of the total sum for your assistance, and the rest will be for my brother and I, to Invest in your country.
All I want you to do is to furnish me with your entire details including your readiness to assist me achieve this transaction for investment purposes in your country under your supervision. Please further details on how to achieve this transaction. Also, send your direct phone and fax numbers for further easier communication.
I have to re-assure you that this transaction is 100% risk free and should be treated with absolute confidentiality. All the vital documentation/certification that has to do with the origin of the fund is with me for the security reasons.And I will send them to you when we progress.And I guarantee you that this fund is not government fund, drug money, or from arms deals.
I will detail you more about the security company immediately I receive your acceptance response. I hope this is the beginning of a prosperous relationship between us.Thanks and God bless you
REGARDS
STELLA SIGCAU
Reply to:
Jon
@WWH:
In recent years TOURISTS who have been arrested as homosexuals have served anywhere from 3-5 years in an UAE prison before being exported.
UAE citizens who are caught face imprisonment, chemical castration and possible capital punishment.