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Posted on 04/08/2003 8:32:06 PM PDT by FlashBack
This is a response I sent to the head of Columbia University after the reply I got from a "Conservitive Alert" e-mail that I signed and sent to the University:
Mr. Bollinger,
I have to say that I find your response to this situation
very disappointing to put it mildly. To defend one who
wishes "A Million Mogadishues" onto citizens of
his own country is beyond comprehension, no matter where
such a thing is spouted...he does have the right
to speak as you say, but there should be
consequences and accountability for what one says also.
Gene Hinders
Citizen
United States Of America
This is what I was replying to:
"I want to acknowledge your email message concerning Assistant Professor De Genova's remarks. I have a deep respect for the members of Congress and appreciate their concerns. I too am appalled by Assistant Professor De Genova's outrageous comments. I want to assure you that his comments in no way represent my views nor anyone with whom I have spoken at the University. His comments were not made in a classroom, but rather at a teach-in, an informal gathering where faculty and students come together to discussand debate the pressing and important issues of the moment. They are not authorized or officially sanctioned classroom experiences. Assistant Professor De Genova was exercising his freedom of speech when he made those remarks. However, free speech does not insulate him from criticism. Our faculty and students, regardless of their position on the war, have not been silent in their denunciation of his remarks.While Nicholas De Genova's words properly invite anger and sharp rebuk! While, there are few things more precious on any University campus than freedom of thought and expression. That is the teaching of the First Amendment and I believe it should be the principle we live by at Columbia University. I appreciate your adding your voice to those who have expressed their opinions. At a time of war, when American troops are in harm's way,his comments are especially disturbing. I am particularly saddened for the families of those whose lives are at risk and who must endure the pain provoked by his statements. Sincerely, Lee C. Bollinger President Columbia University"
Not really, as this kind of mush-mouthed PC nonspeak is typical for what passes as debate in academia these days.
Though they will never admit it, there IS a common language that these university administrators share with us, and that is MONEY. Only when their endowments are threatened, only when the alumni start holding back the big fat checks, will guys like Bollinger take any action against anti-American filth like DeGenova. The only way we're going to give DeGenova the pink slip he so richly deserves is to keep pressuring Columbia's donors.
here is my initial thread with my intial email to De Genova and Bollinger HERE
Then, after recieving the same email reply you got, here's my next response to Bollinger like yours ... HERE
All of this has resulte din a massive email campaign using all of our email lists, asking them to write and then forward to their entire lists. We crossed paths with some irate Alumni and they extended the campaign to the entire Alumni, many of which are witholding donations until De Genova is fired.
The Congress has gotten involved as well. A letter is circulating in the House of Reps calling for De Genova's termination over this. Over 100 reps have already signed. We hope they will vote to cut Columbia's funding.
Keep after ti, we need to keep the pressure up on this.
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De Genova, on the other hand (Email address: npd18@columbia.edu (although it seems not to be working right now - I wonder why that is?), phone number: (212) 854-0199)...well, check out his description of what he does for a living:
The central concerns of my research and teaching include: labor and class formation, racialization, the production of urban space, nationalism, the politics of citizenship, and transnational social processes, especially migration. My ethnographic research explores the social productions of racialized and spatialized difference in the experiences of transnational Mexican migrant workers within the space of the U.S. nation-state. More specifically, I examine transnational urban conjunctural spaces that link the U.S. and Latin America as a standpoint of critique from which to interrogate U.S. nationalism, political economy, racialized citizenship, and immigration law. This work contributes to a reconceptualization of Latin American, Latino, and "American" (U.S.) Studies. Likewise, I am interested in the methodological problems of ethnographic research practice and the limits of anthropological disciplinary forms of knowledge and modes of representation.
It will not surprise those who follow such things to discover that Professor De Genova has been published in Stanley Fish's Social Text. Duh! Of course he has!
What do you bet nothing happens to this pig. He gets tenure. He gets a book deal. Hell, he even gets a half hour interview with Katie Couric on Today.
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