From the article:
“We’re all very upset right now,” said Daniel Ray, 24, in his third year of the divinity master’s degree program. Ray said he feels like the school wants to recruit Muslim students and take their tuition, but deny them the opportunity to openly worship. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
This gets to what this issue is all about. Universities have to give huge discounts (scholarships, grants etc) to attract American students, but they can charge foreign students full price and get it. Just like our Republican politicians, higher education institutions in the USA will cheerfully whore themselves out to Muslims for some cash.
The only reason Duke changed it’s mind in this case is that enough Alumni donors threatened to withhold funds, and some beancounter there figured out that they would lose more money from donations than they would get from rich Muslim students.
If only the same strategy would work with the Republican party.
Someone should ask these Muslim students if they would allow Christians to hold worship services in their mosques, and force them to give a straightforward answer.
As an alumnus of Duke who donates generously every year, they wouldn’t see another dime from me if they had gone through with this. My experience at Duke (I attended graduate school there) was not just revelatory from an academic/professional standpoint, but the reason I hold my time there in such high esteem was that the place was grounded in the Methodist faith. Having that grand cathedral at the center of campus with a large and healthy congregation with sermons that weren’t watered down from Protestant tradition - that was an important part of my experience there and helped fill me out to be the man I am today. Every time I return to campus and walk by that cathedral, it re-centers me and reminds me who I am.
Having Muslim chants ringing out from that tower would’ve tainted and sullied the CHRISTIAN symbol that it rightly serves as. I’d never view the place in the same way again. Simply put, it’d never feel holy to me again. Is it too much to ask for us to have such things? Lord knows the followers of Islam don’t spare us an inch “over there.” But I guess it’s okay when you come to our home, and underlying it is a larger objective to stamp us out in any way possible.