U.S. university drops plan to honour activist critical of Islam

BOSTON (Reuters) - A private university outside Boston has decided not to award an honourary degree to a Somali-born women's rights activist who has branded Islam as violent and "a nihilistic cult of death."

Brandeis University said it had decided not to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch parliamentarian who has been a prominent critic of the treatment of women in Islamic society.

Hirsi Ali said in a 2003 interview with a Dutch newspaper that by modern standards, the Muslim prophet Mohammed could be considered a paedophile, and in a 2007 interview with the London Evening Standard called Islam "a destructive, nihilistic cult of death."

"We cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values," the university said in a statement late Tuesday. "We regret that we were not aware of these statements earlier."

The move followed an open letter from the Council on American-Islamic Relations to the university's president, Frederick Lawrence, saying that to do so was "unworthy of the American tradition of civil liberty and religious freedom."

Nihad Awad, the group's national executive director, said that "offering such an award to a promoter of religious prejudice such as Ali is equivalent to promoting the work of white supremacists and anti-Semites."

Hirsi Ali could not be reached for immediate comment.

Imam Talal Eid, the Muslim chaplain at Brandeis, said he and a group of Muslim students had been "very upset" about the planned award and had discussed their concerns with the university's president.

"I'm so happy to hear that the president rescinded his invitation," he said on Wednesday. "It is a relief."

Before the reversal was announced, the Brandeis student newspaper, The Justice, had published an editorial calling on Lawrence to disinvite Hirsi Ali from the commencement ceremony.

"She has the right to her opinion ... (but) an honorary degree is an endorsement," Glen Chesir, the newspaper's managing editor, said on Wednesday, adding that he and his colleagues were happy about the decision.

Hirsi Ali, a supporter of atheism, has been a prominent critic of the practice of female genital mutilation, the partial or total removal of external female genitalia. The cultural practice, which causes health problems, is prevalent in 28 African nations, as well as parts of the Middle East and Asia.

Located in the Waltham suburb of Boston, Brandeis was founded in 1948 with a Jewish tradition and has about 3,600 undergraduate students, according to its web site.

The school came under fire in 2009, when the school's then-president proposed selling the $350 million art collection at its Rose Art Museum to raise money in the midst of declining enrolment during the global financial crisis. In the face of criticism from alumni and donors who had provided much of the art, the university backtracked in 2011 opened a renovated facility to show off its collection.

(Editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid and Grant McCool)