A NOT-SO-ACADEMIC DEBATE

You won't read much about the crisis at Columbia University in The New York Times. But the crisis is real, as the assiduous reporting of The New York Sun and the New York Daily News makes clear. Over two decades, Columbia has become America's chief outpost of anti-Israel polemics disguised as serious scholarship and teaching. As some Columbia luminaries themselves admit, the university's program in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures is a scandal. Columbia's most eminent Arabist, Rashid Khalidi, has cannily steered clear of his colleagues' antics. He is the Edward Said professor of Arab studies, faithful to the now-uncertain reputation of the name on his endowed chair, but punctilious in his academic demeanor. Unfortunately, others are not so careful: Joseph Massad, a tenure-track professor, stands accused by Jewish and other students of disparaging them for holding views different from his own on Israel. Hamid Dabashi, among other acts, recently canceled a class so that he might attend an anti-Israel rally. After years of being intimidated, students have finally raised their voices--and now, even an underground filmmaker has documented their subject. At the outset, Columbia President Lee Bollinger did not take the grievances seriously. Then, a few months ago, he began to listen--more to the point, he had his provost, American historian (and frequent tnr contributor) Alan Brinkley, listen--and take them seriously.

Many faculty said the students' charges amounted to a witch-hunt and constituted a threat to academic freedom. But, in fact, a university with ideologically uniform appointments on a subject as controversial as Middle Eastern history and politics itself threatens scholarly standards and intellectual liberty. And it is those who bludgeon students into silence or conformity who are the true little dictators of the moment. Bollinger has recently appointed a five-person committee to look into the matter. Two of those appointed--Jean Howard, professor of English and vice provost for diversity initiatives, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, professor of English and comparative literature--were signatories to the petition to have Columbia divest from companies selling military hardware to Israel. A third is Lisa Anderson, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. She is on record (in the current Harvard Magazine) as dismissing Daniel Pipes, a learned scholar of Islam and the Arab world, as "a conservative polemicist" with "anti-Muslim bias." Anderson accuses him and others who want to examine the narrow range of "respectable" academic opinions on the Middle East of posing "a serious threat to our scholarly integrity." And she complains that "self-appointed guardians of the academy now use websites like CampusWatch to 'invite student complaints of abuse, investigate their claims, and (when warranted) make these known' presumably to university presidents." By announcing that she feels threatened by the very questions the students have raised, Anderson has disqualified herself from sitting on this panel as well. Bollinger should go back to the drawing board. His initial indifference to the student grievances has harmed Columbia enough. A suspect committee judging them will only exacerbate the damage.

That the New Republic has attacked Columbia for its lack of political diversity is very important. This may be the first time that liberal alumni and parents accross the county are exposed to the realities at Columbia. Moreover, that a major liberal priodical has called Columbia's hiring practices a threat to academic liberty. Bollinger and Abrams can grasp at the first Ammendment (an arguement brilliantly ripped apart in a parody in the NY Sun ) but they are left only in a deadly embrace with the radical left. It is my hope that the Board of Trustees, perhaps with the encouragement of alumni, will step in before this affair damages Columbia.

I agree with the New Republic that the make-up of the committee is an embarrassment for the university, and that it would be in the best interests of the school for the Board of Trustees to reconstitute the board quickly.

I also am disturbed that the Vice Provost for Diversity (I can only imagine what that means) signed the petition in favor of divestiture from companies selling military hardware to Israel.

Finally, Lisa Anderson has a very diplomatic mien herself, and has bought into the internationalist school of international affairs. Her analysis is that the US has maintained three policies in the Middle East for decades, and she seems comfortable with this approach: stability of the region (rather than human rights, for example); access to oil; and to do no harm to Israel.

Anderson's slam at Daniel Pipes seems to be an endorsement of CAIR's claim that Pipes's criticisms of Islamic extremism are, in fact, a criticism of Islam as a whole, and that this criticism cannot be countenanced.

If she were a US diplomat and I were Secretary of State, I would show her the door.

My brother attended Columbia in the seventies. It was very heavily Jewish back then. I am amazed at the brazeness of the anti-Semites to invade that university. I am far less amazed at the unwillingness of liberal administrators to stand up to that transformation.
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I was at Columbia back in the 70's. I don't think the ethnic composition of the school has changed much since then. While the campus was vaguely anti capitalist and vehemently anti vietnam, the term flyover country had not yet been invented--but that was an appropriate term for the way everything between the coasts was viewed.

At the time I did a film for the admissions office in which I interviewed Edward Said. I don't recall the details of the conversation. My impression of the guy back then was that he was token arab on the campus faculty. As opposed to many on the campus who were anti american--Said was anti western. A strange bird indeed. You'd have to have had a grasp of western history for the last couple millenium and the final collapse of the european overseas empires in the 1960's to understand where Said was coming from. Not many did.

The views of the guy who now occupies Said's chair are likely not much different from Said. What's changed is the American and Columbian view of these anti western types.

I have not looked at The New Republic for a long time. It was always a Leftist publication, perhaps a shade less intellectual in its approach from the Left than the Nation, which though as far Left, seemed to have a tad greater objectivity.

All of that said, it is certainly something to note, when The New Republic questions the academic integrity of one of the major academic players in driving America to the Left throughout much of the Twentieth Century.

Frankly, I think the butchering of real Academic Freedom in America is not just a result of deliberate Leftist tactics intended to suppress real debate. It could not be accomplished--not to the extent that it has been--without the background of a general dumbing down of the discourse on political and social issues. To intelligent people, "politically correct" started out as a joke. It will never be more than a joke to anyone who can reason. Unfortunately, much of the population seems to have been put to sleep.

In an other era, a faculty married to a fixed position on a "hot" topic would be openly challenged and forced to debate its assumptions. Apparently the bastions of "Higher Education" in the East, today, do not understand the concept either of Academic Freedom, or free inquiry. Unfortunately, neither do most of those elsewhere in America. Although the areas of suppression may vary somewhat with the institution.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

Ditto 57-61 about the large numbers of Jewish students. There were probably two reasons: 1.Some Ivies were still showing their anti-Semetic bias in admissions. 2. Columbia tried to recruit 1/3 of each class from NYC and environs, 1/3 from upstate and the east, and 1/3 from the rest of the country if they could get 'em. A lot of the NYC guys were Jewish.

Then one year (Class of '64?) they threw out the diversity model and simply took the top 3000 SAT scores that applied. What a monster class that was :-) More geniuses than could get along with each other. And it was heavily from NYC and Jewish.

I've been amazed that the Jewish vote has stayed with the Dems-- despite their long history as liberals. Over the years, the left has increasingly gone for the Arab position and condemned Israel.

Must make many of my old classmates uncomfortable to be in the DEM party. And they must really be wondering about their old school. I wonder how the recent publicity has hurt recruiting and donations from alumnai?

I think that more than 50% of the brighter lights among the jews have shifted over to vote republican and among the columbia grads of the 50's 60's & 70's the percentage may be higher--and that would account for the 15% of jews who voted for bush in 04. its still a cerebral or canny exercise for jews to vote republican.

Say you must have been around when columbia began the longest football losing streak in college football about 1961. When I was there in the 70's the losing streak still had another 10 years to run. My brothers went to UVa and Penn State. When the talk turned to football--I had to leave the room. I learned then that there's a significant correlation of meanings between morale and morals. I think that was a lesson learned by many guys from the 70's.

How dare you SIRRAH! As a former Varsity C man in football who graduated in '61 I take deep umbrage at the mere mention of a long losing streak. :-) It's...It's...unpatriotic!

By the way, my old roommate, Bill (Ballsie) Campbell '63, heard Alma Mater's call and left business for a while to coach the Lions--to no avail.

I did some recruiting in Texas for awhile, but we simply never were able match enough brawn with enough brains to overcome the limitations of a small school with very high academic standards.

I remember a John Wayne movie where he was brought in as coach of a failing school to earn some money and he recruits all these semi-professional wild men with no brains as mercenaries to play and lead the school to football glory. Hmm. Mercenaries? I'm for it!

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