Yalies Jailed For Burning Old Glory

Three Yale students have been arrested on charges of setting fire to an American flag. The arrests were not a throw back to less tolerant days, the burning flag was hanging from the porch of a house until police removed it to prevent the fire from spreading.

According to the Yale Daily News, two of the three were foreign students:

Hyder Akbar ’07, Nikolaos Angelopoulos ’10 and Farhad Anklesaria ’10 were arrested for charges including first-degree reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal mischief, second-degree arson, breach of peace and conspiracy to commit second-degree arson, the New Haven Register reports today. The two freshmen are both foreign citizens, and Akbar is a United States citizen, though he was born in Pakistan. Akbar worked as an informal translator for U.S. forces during the invasion of Afghanistan and later published a memoir, “Come Back to Afghanistan,” based on his experiences there.

The three students admitted that they lit the fire.

At their arraignment in Superior Court a few hours after their arrests Tuesday, bond was kept at $25,000 for Angelopoulos and Akbar, but was reduced to $15,000 for Anklesaria. They remained jailed Tuesday night.

Do young adults stupid enough to do such a thing deserve a Yale education?

Comments

[California Yankee]

Jay, I'm a big supporter of the First Amendment, if these miscreants were engaging in free speech, I would defend their right to do so. Even the flag burners' lawyer claims these miscreants weren't trying to make a political statement.

[jay hariton]

YES