Some right-wing angry alumni (who can’t be all that conservative, since I don’t know them), are proposing a new form of protest over the presence at Yale of special student Sayed Rahmatulah Hashemi, former spokesman for the Taliban.

Clint Taylor ’96 and Debbie Bookstabber ’00 report receiving the idea by email:

One email stood out from the rest — “I won’t give Yale one red cent this year, but maybe I will give them a red fingernail instead!”

She was referring to the Taliban’s policy of pulling the fingernails off of Afghani women who dared to wear fingernail polish. Some of these women even had their thumbs sliced off as punishment. To date, Mr. Rahmatullah has not apologized or taken responsibility for his support of this brutal regime, though he told the Times he wished he’d been “a little bit softer” in his advocacy.

If you’d like to show your outrage at Yale’s decision to admit the Taliban’s spokeman, join us in “giving Yale the finger.” It would be disgusting— not to mention really painful — to mail your own fingernails, but you can buy glamorous, decadent, shameless-hussy-scarlet press-on nails (ask for “nail tips”) from any drug store or beauty shop. They’re cheap; a box costs about $5.00. (Caution to Harvard-educated readers: do not eat the press-on nails. Sure, they look tasty, but they will make you sick.)

Send them to Yale’s Office of Development, along with a polite (or not-so-polite) letter explaining what you think of their decision to admit Rahmatullah:

Yale University
Office of Development
P.O. Box 2038
New Haven, CT 06521-2038

What’s more, you can also send a nice red fake nail or ten to Yale’s President, Richard Levin, at:

President Richard C. Levin
Woodbridge Hall
Yale University
New Haven Connecticut 06520

Well, that will certainly show them.