Abrar Omeish, a 23-year-old Libyan American from Fairfax, Virginia, had woken up nervously on Tuesday, expecting the ruling to come down in the morning.
“I felt a pit in my stomach as I heard it,” she said.
Omeish, who has campaigned against the ban for months in the nation’s capital, got married last weekend. More than a dozen members of her wife’s close family, all living in Libya, were not able to attend the ceremony due to the ban. She was devastated.
Read MoreIt’s Friday evening at the Afro-American Cultural Center, and the 100 students in the room have just listened to a 50-minute speech delivered by Dalia Mogahed, a writer for The Huffington Post and author of books on spiritual development. Unopened trays of food sit in the back, and Abrar Omeish ’18, president of the Muslim Students Association, announced that the time had finally come to eat, signifying the end of Yale MSA’s Islam Awareness Week.
Read MoreREPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW HAVEN -- Mahasiswa Muslim Association Student (MSA) Universitas Yale tidak membiarkan Presiden AS Donald Trump memfitnah iman dan identitas mereka. Mereka mengkampanyekan foto-foto untuk memberitahu Amerika tentang arti menjadi seorang Muslim.
"Kami menyadari orang takut untuk mengaitkan dirinya dengan Islam, kampanye kami ialah cara mendorong orang lain berdiri dengan umat Islam, demi mengatakan tidak ada yang salah dengan itu," kata Abrar Omesih, Presiden MSA, seperti dilansir Identities Mic, Sabtu (4/3).
To mark the program’s first successful decade, this year’s student director, Abrar Omeish ‘17, collaborated with Yale alumni in the D.C. area for a gala celebration on July 30, sponsored by OCS. More than 200 Yale students, alumni, and friends of the program attended the gala, held at The Metropolitan Club in D.C. Special guests included Yale Professor Akhil Reed Amar ’80 ’84 J.D. and Margaret Warner ’71, a former trustee of Yale and chief foreign correspondent of the PBS NewsHour. Nelson Cunningham ’80, a co-founder of the Yale in D.C. program, introduced Amar and Warner who engaged in an interview-style discussion of Amar’s new book “Law of the Land”and highlighted the relevance of a Yale education for service to the nation.
Read MoreAyaan Hirsi Ali — a Somali-born American activist known for her women’s rights advocacy and critical remarks about Islam — is slated to give a lecture titled “Clash of Civilizations: Islam and the West” on Sep. 15 as part of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program speaker series. The daughter of a Somali politician and opposition leader, Hirsi Ali has publicly voiced criticism of practices such as female genital mutilation and has also voiced support for atheism and women’s rights. The MSA’s letter does not ask for a withdrawal of Hirsi Ali’s invitation, according to MSA board member Abrar Omeish ’17, but rather draws attention to her allegedly hurtful anti-Muslim statements and her lack of qualifications to speak broadly about Islam. Despite this, Buckley Program president Rich Lizardo ’15 said the group intends to proceed with its original plans for the event.
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