Bollinger's Blindness (Hatred and Anti-Semitism at Columbia Univ.)

New York Sun ^ | October 22, 2004 | New York Sun Editorial Staff

[Founding Father]

Bollinger's Blindness New York Sun Staff Editorial October 22, 2004 "I think something extremely important is happening on our campuses. They are now turned into sites for cultivation of critical judgment for responsible citizenship in what we hope will remain a free republic. Even as late as five years ago no one would have dared stand on the steps of the Law Library on Columbia Campus and condemn the military thuggery of people like Ariel Sharon. Innocent people in Jenin, Kandahar, Shalamcheh, or Baghdad are brutally massacred and no one would have dared to condemn these acts publicly. But not anymore." - Hamid Dabashi, speaking to the Electronic Intifada online magazine, September 30, 2002 Professor Hamid Dabashi, chairman of Columbia's notorious Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures department, is quite correct to point out that "something extremely important" is happening on our campuses. While Mr. Dabashi would celebrate this change - summarized as a growing hatred for America and Israel among students and faculty members - we believe it represents one of the most troubling trends in higher education and a critical problem for Columbia University. It has become increasingly clear that Columbia's standing as one of the great research universities in the nation is jeopardized by a contingent of professors whose disdain for Israel, America, democracy, and freedom has a remarkable influence over Columbia's curriculum and quality of its research. To appreciate how commonplace and accepted anti-Israel sentiment has become at Columbia, one simply has to take a look at the Web site Columbiadivest.org, the home page of a recent effort at the Morningside Heights campus to persuade Columbia's administration to divest its holdings in companies that sell arms and military hardware to Israel.

[Founding Father]

A once great university swirls around the toilet bowl.

[383rr]

These people need to be dealt with

[ReadyNow]

These people are NOT driven by irrational antisemitism. They are driven by their religion.

[jimtorr]

Even as late as five years ago no one would have dared stand on the steps of the Law Library on Columbia Campus and condemn the military thuggery of people like Ariel Sharon.

This really isn't true. People could and did. The rot at our Univerisities goes back farther than a mere five years.

[jperspective]

The liberals who support these types of Iseologies hate Israel and America for the same reasons. They detest the power that both countries have. They loike to pull for the supposed "underdog" and the arab terrorists have successfully been painting themselves as the oppressed minority on our campuses.

[four more in O 4]

These people need to be dealt with

Can't we send the Viking Kitties to take care of this nonsense? -- Fly in low with Wagner turned way up -- Flight of the Valkyries ... Da du du da da...