SJS – though MO may claim that they are the followers of Hirsch, they are not. Their claim has no more credence than the Neturai Karta claiming to be the followers of the Stamar Rebbe. Would the Satmar Rebbe embrace the rosho of Iran? CH”V No. Would Rabbiner Hirsch have endorsed MO (I won’t outline the details of the follies of MO, for I don’t want to insult anyone here openly)? CH”V No. And whom do you mean by MO? He is certainly not the father of the Young Israel movement (and their ilk, in the US), and no one claims that he is. So you must be talking about YU.
Torah U’Madda <> Torah Im Derech Eretz. Were you educated in YU? I doubt that your husband heard this in Darchei. That institution seeks validation by sticking out their feet and claiming to be disciples of someone whose greatness they do not understand. At best, they are disciples of JB, though I doubt that they can even claim that at this point in their downward spiral. They are certainly not following the Hirschian ideals.
And while “contemporary” rabbonim are ALL by definition, “modern”, when we say “Modern Orthodox” we do not mean “Contemporary Orthodox”. Rather, we are referring to a branch of “Orthodoxy” that compromises on Halacha. CH”V to say that Hirsch founded such an idea.