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www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/10/3e954d1f6b863

'MOGADISHU' PROF BACK AT COLUMBIA


By JENNIFER FERMINO

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April 9, 2003 -- The Columbia University professor notorious for his anti-American rants returned to class yesterday under extraordinary security, vowing he would "not be silenced."
Two campus guards were assigned to Nicholas De Genova as he taught his first class since March 27, when a storm erupted over his call for "a million Mogadishus," a reference to the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" battle in Somalia that left 18 GIs dead.

De Genova, who teaches anthropology and Latino studies, told a class he'd been lying low because he got death threats, one student told The Post.

"He made the point adamantly: 'I will not be silenced,' " said the student, who requested anonymity. She added that he did not apologize for his comments.

Dissent WIthout Dignity

by Colin Probert
April 08, 2003

I ought to be able to feel proud of my school. The most basic justification for this entitlement is that I pay tuition to attend, and that by accepting these funds the University agrees to hold itself to a standard by which it continues to earn them. However, perhaps more significantly, I believe that Columbia has a duty to maintain my confidence in the scholarship it offers, since the academic background it provides contributes to the future success of its students (from which the University benefits as well). Today I remark with some sadness that I do not feel proud of my school, for it has failed in both of these charges. Indeed, Columbia University has handed over its dignity to Nicholas De Genova.
Crucial to the idea of undergraduate scholarship is the role of the educator: an intellectual who encourages and respects independent thought. Before he was a demagogue, Nicholas De Genova was, in fact, an educator, but his plea for a "million Mogadishus" was neither intellectual nor respectful. Instead, it was filthy and abusive, a verbal mortar shell lobbed indiscriminately from a distance too remote to be challenged by any honest standard. When De Genova gagged up Husseinian propaganda all over the interior of Low he did so as a member of the faculty, polluting the peaceful message of the "teach-in" with a craving for the deaths of millions of Americans--some of whom are parents of Columbia University students. This is a profound betrayal of trust between student and teacher, and it is unacceptable at a place such as this.

One of the cruelest realities of war is what it does to independent thought, brutalizing minds with a storm of propaganda until every free-thinking individual has been beaten into one simplistic position or another. To be sure, this condition is troubling enough without having one of our own faculty members perpetrating the beating; times like these demand that we not abandon our reason and conscience, yet that is exactly what De Genova did. His tirade was far from logical and far from conscientious, instructing us all that murder was not only necessary, but heroic. Words like "outrage" are meant for times like these.

Indeed, De Genova has proven himself more vicious than intellectual, and he has failed his students on a multitude of levels--from personal to professional. The administration is wrong to keep him on the payroll when it has a choice. Money talks--and what it's saying is undignified.

No doubt, however, many would prefer to let De Genova off the hook for his failures, and retreat into the mercurial ideal of academic free speech. While I admire President Bollinger's dedication to this principle, it does not miraculously transform the language of hate into intelligent dialogue; those who thrive on the former have no place on a campus built for the latter. Of course it is true that the professor has first amendment rights--no one is suggesting that he should suffer any legal penalty--but that does not exempt the administration from its obligation to enforce standards of employee integrity. The fact that the event at which he spoke was labeled a "teach-in" does not somehow render De Genova's appeal to violence academic. One can dissent without being filthy and, in failing to do so, he abandoned every pretense of candid rationality that the "teach-in" label was designed to connote. If he had called for the butchery of Russians because they were Russian or Australians because they were Australian, he would have found himself out on Broadway so fast the traffic wouldn't have had time to stop; it should be no different with Americans.

Similarly, if he had stood in front of those hundreds of attentive faces and unveiled some sick brand of Constitutionally-permitted pornography--undoubtedly a lesser evil than the carnage of Somalia--he might not have made CNN, but he surely would have been fired. Such an act would not meet the guardian standard of academic free speech, so why is his call for "fragging"--the assassination of a higher ranking soldier by a lower ranking one--so protected? The answer is: it's not, it shouldn't be, and any attempt at such a categorization is merely a plug for an agenda that the president is very concerned with, regardless of the relevant facts.

Like any other sort of smut, De Genova's comments deserve the protection of the Bill of Rights but not that of academic free speech; he overshot political opinion and spouted off perversion. Praise of a massacre is below the dignity of the students here and should be below the dignity of the University itself--his were not the words of an educator. Whatever your feelings on the war, you cannot call his remarks responsible, you cannot call them intellectual, and you cannot call them academic. As such, you shouldn't have to call him "professor."

I think that we all deserve better than that.

The author is a Columbia College first-year.

Columbia's Mogadishu?

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Posted: April 10, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com


It's a good thing that Gen. Tommy Franks and not the Republicans in Congress are running the war effort in Iraq. Left to the Republican leadership in Congress, Saddam Hussein would now be occupying the Oval Office, and "Chemical Ali" planning the 2004 Republican Party convention.

I'm glad the spirit in the Grand Old Party isn't entirely dead. I just wish the flesh was a bit more willing, and the mind more fully engaged in the battle. If so, perhaps we could mount a more effective charge and capture a hill or two in the cultural battles facing America here at home.

The particular skirmish I'm referring to is Columbia University's anti-American faculty, represented – if not led by – lowly graduate teaching student Nicholas DeGenova. In concert with two dozen other Columbia faculty, Mr. DeGenova told a group of younger undergraduate students during a six-hour "teach in" that "U.S. flags are the emblem of the invading war machine in Iraq today. They are the emblem of the occupying power. The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military."

Mr. DeGenova then encouraged U.S. soldiers to kill their own officers, and pleaded "for a million Mogadishus," where vastly outnumbered U.S. troops were dragged through the streets and butchered.

That Mr. DeGenova is guilty of historical ignorance, generic leftist hatred toward all things American, and exceedingly poor judgment which should disqualify him from a faculty appointment – anywhere, ever – is beyond dispute. A strong argument could be made for mounting a prosecution for sedition as well.

As Americans, we have the right to disagree with the war. We do not have the right use our position and influence to give aid and comfort to our enemies in conducting the war by encouraging others to engage in treason or murder. Does anyone think for a moment that Mr. DeGenova would still be a free man had he encouraged the murder of blacks, Hispanics, Jews or homosexuals?

The Republicans in Congress, bless their collective heart, rose to the challenge and wrote a letter to Columbia University president in which they demanded Mr. DeGenova be fired. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, however, declined to take any disciplinary action against his American-hating faculty on the grounds it would violate the concept of academic freedom, which appears also to guard general historical ignorance and blind hatred of all things American, except, of course, paychecks.

What the Republicans have failed to grasp is that they chose the wrong target in their battle. Mr. DeGenova is an academic private in the culture wars, who made a bold raid into the press limelight, where similar sentiments exist. The focus of the battle needs to be the general or commanding officer – in this case, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger.

In any organization, even one as racially diverse as Columbia (for intellectual diversity no longer exists in academia), the organization and its employees reflect the views of the man or woman at the top. The political equivalent of Gen. Tommy Franks in the Republican Party would know this. He or she would not have been distracted and taken pot shots at a dawn raiding party led by a private. He would have recognized that the plan for the incursion came from the top. Then he would have drawn up a battle plan to take back the ground that the enemy had seized. That ground is the university itself.

The strike against Columbia needs to be directed not at Mr. DeGenova, but at Dr. Lee Bollinger – and the university hierarchy. There is no point in picking off a private or two when the command center remains intact, the funding and supply lines open, and the assault against America and its values continues, all with taxpayer assistance.

A viable strategy to regain the ground lost in the academy would center around financial battles. Columbia, like nearly every other university public and private, has enthusiastically embraced federal grants and loans for students, and research grants from the Centers for Disease Control and the Defense Department.

This federalization of the university has been used by American leftists to promote racial quotas, discriminate against qualified white and Asian students based on their race, and create nonsensical departments such as gender studies, where tenured anti-American wackos use the classroom as a forum for their own confused ramblings on history, society and gender – all under the guise of "academic freedom."

A competent general would immediately realize that there is no reason the university cannot be purged of its vile leftist hatred for America and seditious tendencies by applying the same measures in reverse. Congressional Republicans should start by demanding the firing not of Mr. DeGenova, but of Dr. Bollinger, if the university is to retain its federally funded research grants and student-loan status. Since leftists have a severe aversion to working for a living and contributing to the private sector, this would get their immediate attention.

The Republican Congress can use the university's rapt attention to explain that restoring intellectual diversity to the university is now a top priority, that military recruiters will from this moment forward be welcomed on campus, and that leadership from the university president on down to the DeGenova shock troops need to re-implement intellectual diversity so they can once again serve America.

Universities have grown fat, leftist and lazy on a diet of taxpayer dollars. A bit of military discipline seems like just the thing to restore vigor and intellectual prowess. Let's start with Columbia.

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Craige McMillan is a commentator for WorldNetDaily. He is the founder of CC&M, an exciting new initiative to reshape the way America looks at and interacts with people of faith.

Secretary Dr. Rod Paige
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

April 2, 2003

Dear Secretary Paige,

I am writing to express my outrage at the recent comments of Professor Nicholas De Genova, at last Wednesday’s "teach-in" at Columbia University. Professor De Genova told a crowd of 3,000, "Peace is not patriotic. Peace is subversive, because peace anticipates a very different world than the one in which we live--a world where the U.S. would have no place." He continued his anti-American diatribe: "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military. I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."

It is unfortunate and disgusting that De Genova is actually representative of many professors and instructors in universities all across America who shares this same self-destructive sentiment. Contempt for America and a Marxist socialist view is taught directly or indirectly on a daily basis to America’s youth, and has been for decades. The organizer of the Columbia event, Professor Eric Foner, the head of Columbia’s prestigious history department, was an anti-American Stalinist in the 1960’s.

What are professors such as these doing at Columbia? They are teaching our children what to think. Not how to think…what to think. Instead of joy of achievement, they teach entitlement. Rather than instructing in the effectiveness of teams and unifying a campus, the emphasis is paid to separate groups encouraging divisiveness then labeling it diversity. It is no wonder many businesses today actually prefer hiring candidates without a college degree. For them, it is worth the cost of training an individual, versus hiring a person poisoned by ignorance and possessing an elitist attitude.

As you know Dr. Paige, these same universities are funded with taxpayer dollars in the form of grants, research, and other programs. This practice must stop, and must stop immediately. All government funding of any kind, should immediately be pulled from any institution or instructor that advocates these views. While they have a right to free speech, there is nothing in the US Constitution mandating the public must pay for it.

The actions and rhetoric coming from these professors and universities is at best destructive, at worst, akin to treason. I urge you to take immediate action on this. As the Secretary of Education, you have an opportunity to make a difference before it is too late. I implore you to seize this opportunity for America’s sake. Stop funding the very people who wish to bring this country down. We The People deserve better.

Sincerely,

Pamela A. Morgan

April 7, 2003, 7:15 a.m.
Liberate the Universities
Fair and open faculty hiring would foster educational diversity.

By Candace de Russy



hat a Columbia University professor should publicly wish upon the U.S. military “a million Mogadishus” should come as no surprise. True, professor Nicholas De Genova’s malediction at an antiwar teach-in is exceptionally despicable. But his loathing of this country is shared, as Daniel Pipes of Campus Watch has shown, by many Columbia professors. It is also of a kind, ideologically, with the anti-Americanism rampant among radical leftist academics throughout the country.

Although radicals are not necessarily a majority on faculties, their politically biased voices speak the loudest. They now control entire academic fields and indoctrinate untold numbers of students. The radical animus against this country worms its way into the minds of millions of people at home and abroad. It erodes the national unity we need above all in this time of war, and it lends moral support to terrorists and terror states.

For these reasons it is significant that De Genova is not just a “prof of something or other,” as the New York Post dismissively described him. He teaches anthropology and Latino studies, which have produced distinguished scholarship but which are now largely co-opted by radicals. Professor Edward Said, also employed by Columbia, has greatly influenced these disciplines and others, such as English, history, and women’s studies. Said, a radical Arab-American literary critic and a long-time activist for the Palestinian cause, has made a life’s work of singling out and demonizing the West and America — in his words — “for imperialist attitudes from ancient Rome to Vietnam.” American foreign policy, Said instructs, is driven by the West’s “untrammeled rapacity, greed, and immorality.”

While vilifying and refusing to acknowledge the achievements of America and the West, professors of Said’s bent turn a blind eye toward the faults of non-Western cultures. Historian Keith Windschuttle observes that they exhibit a “kind of relativism not seen since the days of Lenin and Hitler when class-based and race-based hatreds were morally sanctioned by radical politics.” Thus many radical academics cannot bring themselves to condemn cultural practices repellent to most Westerners, such as human sacrifice, cannibalism and female genital mutilation — for fear of demeaning the culture that fostered them.

This pattern of denial applies particularly to the events of 9/11 and the war on terror. In the 1980s and 1990s, for example, prominent professors of Middle Eastern studies excused away the growing threat of militant Islamism and terrorist attacks on American soil. Almost all of these academics simply refused to study such militancy — or even Islam itself! Prior to the 9/11 attacks, for instance, a Sarah Lawrence College professor accused “the terror industry” of fomenting an “irrational fear of terrorism by focusing…on far-fetched horrible scenarios.”

Even what is still called “American” studies is riddled with anti-American prejudice. Cultural critic Alan Wolfe has surveyed these studies, and he ironically concludes that current academics in the field, such as those at Dartmouth and Duke, display “a hatred of America so visceral that it makes one wonder why they bother studying America at all.” Like Said and his acolytes, these professors condemn the United States as imperialistic. They attack even the concept of our national unity, pronouncing this country to be an “imagined national community” and defining their role as “fracturing the very idea of an American nation, culture, and subject.”

Another school of radicals does some imagining of its own. It envisages an international political monolith with which to replace America and indeed all of liberal democracy in the West. These yearnings are embodied in a doctrine called “transnational progressivism,” which is gaining prominence in law schools, for example, at Princeton and Rutgers. As John Fonte of the Hudson Institute points out, professors in this camp argue for the establishment of a new transnational regime, or world government, that is post-liberal democratic and, in the American context, post-Constitutional and post-American. Within such a regime the key political unit would not be the individual citizen who voluntarily associates with fellow citizens but the racial, ethnic, or gender group into which one is born.

What can be done to counter this widespread academic radicalism? How do we return to intellectual pluralism in our colleges and universities?

A first step lies in reforming the autocratic hiring and promotion practices that permit the likes of De Genova to replicate their ranks and to cement their control of ideas. In an essay titled “Academic Corruption” published in The Monist, John Kekes, a professor at the State University of New York-Albany, explains how this process has been tainted. The choice of new faculty members is now commonly driven by the prejudices of those academics making the selection — not by how qualified the applicants are to uphold the truth as teachers or researchers. Hiring is furthermore influenced by something called “collegiality,” which is a code word for whether the attitude of the applicant — that is, regarding Left-wing causes and social transformation — is to the liking of the committee.

The right of extremist and antiwar professors like De Genova to spew forth their anti-American venom must be protected. But students also have a right to hear the views of traditionalist scholars, and those who would defend our national identity and this country. Fair and open faculty hiring would foster educational diversity on campuses. It is urgent that faculties and higher education governing boards ensure such openness.

— Candace de Russy is a member of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York. She chairs the board’s Committee on Academic Standards. De Russy was appointed to the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy by President George W. Bush in 2002.

I just reviewed an article that stated De Genova will keep his job at Columbia. Another article said that Columbia receives 300 million dollars in federal funding.

DeGenova, as a review of the tape would show that not only did DeGenova call for "a million Mogadishus," but he also praised Asan Akbar, the army sergeant who rolled several grenades into an officers' tent in Kuwait two weeks ago in the first "fragging" incident since Vietnam.

"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Those Who Threaten It."

Thomas Jefferson

An American College under siege, namely Columbia University by the leftist/marxist regime will be liberated from the so called professors there. Then the other Colleges and Universities will suffer the same fate.

Another hot story...

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-prof0402,0,1431551.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-manhattan

You might want to check this story out...

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/02/3e8aca102c6cf

Do you know who the trustees are?

De Genova's email address is no longer in service or his mail server is full.

Since Bollinger appears to be doing nothing about this, maybe we should ask the trustees to replace him as president of Columbia University.

Has anyone contacted the F.B.I. about the possibility of filing federal charges of treason, sedition and hate crimes? This guy fits into the terrorist category. wonder who his backers are? What organizations does he belong to?

I don't think any college or university would take him after all this. Right about dogging him for the rest of his life.

Many of Columbia's alumnus withdrawing monetary support to CU according to emails received by "Columbia Daily Spectator."

Many of Columbia's alumnus withdrawing montary support to CU according to emails received by "Columbia Daily Spectator."

He looks like an Iraqi!!!

Let's hear more from our special brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. You make up who we are...Americans and proud of it.