If there was ever a sign that someone was radicalized, it’s when you learn that they have switched from Catholicism to Islam. That change is like comparing apples and bowling balls. Yet Yale’s president, Maurie McInnis, decided to whitewash that truism, calling Mattson a “bridge builder and a champion of peace.” She went on to commend her “integrity and wisdom,” and then addressed her directly, saying:
“Compassionate and powerful force for good in a troubled world, Yale wishes you a thousand blessings as it honors you with the degree of Doctor of Divinity.”
In a 2013 interview with Commonweal, a liberal Catholic journal founded in 1924, Mattson discussed her conversion but did not explain it. She described her childhood in Waterloo, Ontario, as a devout Catholic.
“I would go to church every day during Lent on my lunch break, and in Advent, I would go more. In those days, little kids were allowed to go around by themselves, so I would just go. Very often, I would go by myself to do the Stations of the Cross. I was really into it.”
She went on to describe that on a college trip to France, “she befriended a group of Muslim students from Senegal and Mauritania, she met at an outdoor concert. They were her first exposure to Islam. She followed them to West African dance clubs and listened as they discussed authors they were reading, including Frantz Fanon and his impassioned indictment of colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth. Mattson was captivated by the group’s company and conversation. ‘A lot of them spoke Arabic to each other even if that wasn’t their mother tongue.’”
How that encounter convinced her to jump from Catholicism to Islam indicates she was not as devout as she claims, and her antisemitism already existed.
Last month, a report from the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education opened with the following statement:
“Universities exist to preserve, create, and share knowledge,” and warned that “diffusion of purpose has contributed to distrust.” It also said, “Echo chambers do not produce the best teaching, research, or scholarship.”