This year, the administration has apparently decided to reverse course from last year's enlightening commencement speaker. After choosing a woman who has devoted her life to furthering civil rights-Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall-the University is bringing a man who has spent his life denying people's rights. Addressing the Class of 2006 will be Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, part of the inner circle of that country's monarchy. Brother of the former king and uncle to the current one, Prince Hassan is inextricably involved in the Jordanian government's questionable human rights record and suppression of political opponents.During Prince Hassan's long tenure as a prince, the kingdom has been consistent in repressing political opposition, censoring newspapers and swiftly punishing dissenters of all stripes. Criticising the royal family (Prince Hassan included) is a serious crime that will likely land the offender in jail and at the mercy of the regime's torturous intelligence services.

Moreover, despite the monarchy's claims of reform, serious problems persist. According to Amnesty International, the king can detain its citizens without charges, and suspects in state custody are often tortured. Amnesty International also notes that so-called "honor killings" of women persist in Jordan, and the government has largely condoned the practice.

If you were to read the fawning description of the prince on the Brandeis Web site, however, you would not know any of this. In the press release announcing the prince as a speaker and recipient of an honorary degree (just like the one the Dalai Lama was given in 1998), Prince Hassan is portrayed as a progressive intellectual, not as a man who has played an instrumental role in shaping the policies of a repressive government. The press release dwells upon the work he has supposedly done to advance religious freedom, lauding him as "a leading international advocate of interfaith dialogue and understanding."

Indeed, Prince Hassan has spoken frequently of religious tolerance, but the record of his government belies this.

The 2002 International Religious Freedom Report issued by the State Department reveals a number of alarming facts. In Jordan, as in Afghanistan where the prosecution of Christian convert Abdul Rahman generated international outrage a few weeks ago, Muslims are forbidden from converting to other faiths. The government appoints imams and forbids them from criticising the government. Muslim opponents of the regime are frequently detained with baseless accusations of terrorism. Furthermore, members of the Druze and Baha'i minority faiths in Jordan routinely face discrimination, with the government embarking on a vicious campaign to officially deny and suppress the religions. I wonder how Prince Hassan explains that when he attends his international conferences on religious understanding.

Although Jordan is considered a "moderate" government by Middle East standards-meaning that it looks good in comparison to Syrian Ba'athists or Saudi Islamists, which isn't that hard to do-it is a repressive state in regards to political freedom, human rights and women's rights. By inviting a prominent Jordanian government figure, Brandeis is engaging in an unfortunate but all too typical form of condescension toward Arabs. Put another way, if the British or French governments were as repressive and undemocratic as Jordan's, Brandeis would certainly not invite a British or French leader to speak. The Arab world, however, is held to a different standard, one that acts as though universal human rights mean a different thing to people in the Middle East. Thus, Arab regimes such as Jordan's are given a pat on the head as long as they make reforms while running closed autocratic states.

Brandeis would be well-advised to reverse its decision to welcome Prince Hassan as a commencement speaker. For a university founded upon the principles of justice and tolerance, this choice is odd at best and offensive at worst.