[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Valin]

But Pipes and others say that misses the point: It's not the number of professors studying Israel versus other areas, but the political orientation the professors bring to the classroom that matters.

"I'm not interested in having Israel studies; I'm interested in having balance in Israel studies," Pipes says. "Where it counts - diversity of opinion - it's locked down and it's one outlook."




Bingo, we have a winner.


Deena Shanker Gets an attaboy
ATTABOY!

[dennisw]

Muslim moonbat bullies of academia.

[Malsua]

Two Words:

Hidden Cameras

[ghitma]

"The Middle East is an area of enormous ignorance in American public life, an area of great misinformation," says Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia. "People in essence are trying to shut down the flow of information about an important part of the world. This ignorance only reinforces the status quo."

Same old sh!t. Once again it is the Americans that are ignorant. It is the Americans that have to "reach out" and understand these miserable Arabs scum and their American hating advocates, like Rashid Khalidi.

[foofoopowder]

Parents should not send their kids to Columbia or similar universitites that discriminate against Jews, conservatives, Republicans, or anyone else. If you're a parent, make sure your child doesn't go there. If you're one of the alumni, don't contribute one dime. Write to your Congressmen and insist that Federal funding to Columbia and similar schools be stopped immediately. They preach "affirmative action" and "diversity", but they really want uniformity of political thought and behavior, just like Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, the terrorists, and the Neo-Commie DemoRats.

[rmlew]

Columbia Ping

[dervish]

“And while the committee the university administration has appointed is charged with investigating only the latter charge, critics say the issue of anti-Israel bias at Columbia is the more important one. It's also the one more easily ascertained, given that eyewitness accounts of specific classroom incidents are subject to interpretation, sketchy recollections and lack of verifiable evidence. “

I ‘m not sure that is true. I think student and faculty intimidation, and bias in hiring in the first instance, may be the larger problems.

“Massad agrees that the MEALAC department is unbalanced, but he believes it actually favors studying Israel. MEALAC, he says, is charged with covering one billion south Asians, 300 million Arabs, tens of millions of Turks, Iranians, Kurds and Armenians, and six million Israelis. To that end, MEALAC has devoted three full-time professors to cover Israel and Hebrew, four full-time professors to cover the Arab world, and two full-time professors to cover South Asia. The proportions hardly seem fair.”

That’s like saying Israel is favored at the UN because most of the resolutions condemning countries are about them.

Two other organizations working on Academic Freedom are Students For Academic Freedom (David Horowitz)

FIRE

Both are pushing for something called the “Academic Bill of Rights” which would guarantee student academic rights at school. They have had a number of successes.

[FierceDraka]

It's long past time to purge higher education of socialists, Arabists, Stalinists, anti-American Americans, and anti-semites.

They are not only fanatical "activists" on the public payroll, they are fanatical "activists" who are entrusted to teach our best and brightest! And the fact that the most prestigious universities in America have become nothing but high-dollar indoctrination and re-education camps run by totalitarians and neo-communists is an abomination against common sense, justice, and national self-preservation

We can't play patty-cake with this pack of "enlightened and nuanced" fanatics. They preach the ways of Marx and Stalin, cry for the destruction of America, and then shriek the mantra of "academic freedom" whenever anyone dares to stand up to them and disagree.

If they love their precious Third World "brothers" so much, I say we fire them, strip them of their American citizenship, and ship them off to the Third World sh*t-hole of their choice - barred from return on pain of execution.

And don't think for one second that they haven't wished something similar, if not worse, on those who dare to love and take pride in our accomplishments and country.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[FreedomPoster]

Columbia has a recent history of not dealing with internal issues forthrightly, so I guess this example should be no big surprise.

Columbia's "prestigious" Bancroft Prize for historical non-fiction was given to Michael Bellesiles several years ago, for "Armed America", a book that made the case that early America wasn't as firearms-oriented as we have been led to believe. Almost immediately, the book was seriously questioned. References said the opposite of what Bellesiles claimed, were non-existent, etc. When challenged, Bellesiles essentially responded with "the dog ate my homework". Eventually (with much prodding), he was dismissed from the faculty of Emory University due to the inaccuracies and outright lies in the book. I don't know if Columbia ever repudiated their prize. I think they did, but if so, it was with much foot-dragging.

[wildbill]

Where are the voices of Jewish professors and other fair-minded professors at Columbia? If the Middle East Institute has been taken over by one point of view--then there should be some outcry for balance and an end to anti-
Semitism.

[Convert from ECUSA]

And I thought it was bad when I was in college in 1973-77! Columbia and similar places that allow such........need to have their accreditation revoked, their charters voided, and a major fumigating after all the carpetbaggers are given the left foot of fellowship out the college door.