Posted on 01/15/2005 9:21:08 PM PST by nickcarraway
Ping!
Interesting. When I was at the University of Chicago, it was about 40% Asian and 25% Jewish. That meant that even us white Christians were in the minority. None of us really cared as we were too busy STUDYING to concern ourselves about racial issues.
BTW: I wish Jewish alumni of Columbia would hold their donations until this matter is cleared up.
President Bollinger:
He looks over the offending paragraph in Dabashi’s essay in Al-Ahram. “I want to completely disassociate myself from those ideas,” he says. “They’re outrageous things to say, in my view.” He leans back in his chair and pushes the essay away. “But what a faculty member says in the course of public debate, we will not take into account within the university. That’s a dangerous slope. All I can do is express my views.
“I have to be careful, as president, because my disagreeing can be taken as a form of chilling speech,” he admits. “But I have free speech, too.”
The President of Columbia University is an incoherent, morally bankrupt, gibbering idiot, for the record and on the record, and no one cares. How much do parents spend to send their darlings to this guy to become educated?
I read this article in detail several days ago. The author seemed to do his best to obfuscate the issue by making it look like a he said--he said. But from what I divined, the main theme is that the arabist professors and the administration are shocked that the jewish students actually have the gall to fight back. And that simply doesn't fit their worldview.
And they are totally discombobulated.
So the Jews are the ruling class, the Arabs are the victims, and anything that the Arabs do has to be seen in the context of their oppression by the nasty Jews.
And this is from Rashid Khalidi, who, a colleague says, is smarter than the smartest person anyone else can think of.
I wonder if President Bollinger would feel the same way if Dabashi had said 'We need to kill as many ni***** as possible.'
He'd be out of CU so fast his head would still be spinning.
The lack of coherent thought on the part of a University President is astounding.
L
Leftist, socialist, racist. All of them are.
As a Jewish alumnus of Columbia University (college, journalism and law school), and a passionate defender of Israel, I have no intention of withholding my donations on account of this issue. I gained an enormous amount of knowledge from my years at Columbia, and I have seen no indication that this issue involves more than the MEALAC department at Columbia.
Moreover, in my view, a complaint by a giving alumnus carries more weight than a complaint by one who has not given in several years.
I think that, now that this issue has seen the light of day, the situation will be corrected.
Unfortunately the Jewish liberals created this monster. They embraced every 1960's anti US, anti capitalism, multiculturalism, political correctness. Today their grandchildren and our country are bearing the brunt of the hate. The sad part is these liberal Jews will still support academic freedom even if the professor is calling for the destruction of their homeland (the US), their only refuge from prosecution (Israel) and in the end their race (the Jewish people and liberals Jews not excluded).
"I think that, now that this issue has seen the light of day, the situation will be corrected."
Really? Based on what? It sounds more like a wish than a thought.
True. ... extremist clap-trap is the harvest that was sown by the red diaper baby generation 30 years ago.
"As a Jewish alumnus of Columbia University (college, journalism and law school), and a passionate defender of Israel, I have no intention of withholding my donations on account of this issue."
LOL. And the extremist pro-PLO professors wont go anywhere either.
And sheep will get shorn.
Sadly, I am in total agreement with your statement.
It is wishful thinking, but I don't think unreasonable.
There has been so much publicity that it has become a major distraction to the administration. It is sullying the reputation of the school, and so has to be fixed.
Massey is up for tenure this year, and if he doesn't get it, this result will silence some of the most vociferous criticism. In addition, I read in another article that many alumni are threatening to withhold significant contributions unless the situation is resolved.
I don't think that Bollinger (a fairly new president) would want to sacrifice Columbia's reputation on the alter of pro-Palestinianism.
These aren't red diaper babies. These are Arabs.
I was beside myself reading some of the diarrhea spewn by some of these professors.
According to the article, this isn't the case. Lionel Trilling -- who was not a radical liberal -- brought Edward Said to Columbia. In a sleight of hand, while Said was a tenured professor in the English departent, he used his influence to fill the Middle East studies department with anti-Israel Arabs.
The article does not imply that Columbia itself has become a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment. In fact, it says that one of the Israelis, Ariel Beery, is the president of his class. Moreover, Columbia has a very active Jewish community, including many Orthodox Jewish students who proudly wear their yarmulkes in public without fear of assault or battery.
I hope you are right that the situation will be corrected. Obviously the university President and the professors are worried about their "academic freedom". But, what exactly is "academic freedom"? Are professors not to be teach their students all sides of an issue? Are they not to teach and impart knowledge, rather than propagandize? If they are deprived of the right to propagandize, have they lost their academic freedom?
I do not advocate interfering with a professor's freedom of speech, but doesn't a professor assume the responsibility of restricting his speech to some extent when he accepts the position of professor? I believe CEOs of corporations probably censor themselves in what they say to employees and to the general public to avoid lawsuits and problems in the competitive marketplace. It seems that some discretion should also be expected from a professor.
Certainly, when a professor deals with a student, there is a power difference and, usually, a knowledge difference. Yet, Zachary Lockman, the chairman of the MEALAC department says "There's also a piece of this that suggests students are really stupid. But they're not. They have a capacity to filter things and to figure out where their professors are coming from." While I agree that students are not stupid, they are usually young, impressionable, less educated than the professors and subject to the professors' whims on grades. Mostly, it seems students should be learning, not "filtering" and trying to "figure out where their professors are coming from."
Perhaps most disturbing to me was President Bollinger's reaction to the writing of Hamid Dabashi, former chairman of MEALAC, in the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly. As base and horrific as Mr. Dabashi's statement is, President Bollinger says that "what a faculty member says in the course of public debate, we will not take into account within the university...". Apparently even if the statement the faculty member makes seems to reveal deep-seated anti-Semitism, "academic freedom" excuses it.
ps. Pirhana, I suggest that see what Ariel Beery has to say.
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