NYT Joins Witch-hunt of Columbia University Professors

[tedzbear]

http://wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/colu-a09.shtml


"In its lead editorial on April 7 (“Intimidation at Columbia”), the New York Times issued an extraordinary attack on academic freedom, calling for Columbia University to crack down on professors who give “politicized courses.”

The newspaper urged the university to take action against professors in its Middle Eastern and East Asian Languages and Culture (MEALC) department who are critical of the policies of Israel—in effect, sanctioning a purge of the department.

(snip)

The panel was set up as a concession to pressure from right-wing Zionist groups. Its report, released March 31, concluded that allegations against Massad were “credible,” declaring that in one instance he had exceeded the “commonly accepted bounds” of behavior. The panel reached this conclusion despite its inability to reliably substantiate any of the incidents in which the professor supposedly intimidated students, and its own acknowledgment that Massad never penalized students for their views. Indeed, the panel affirmed that Massad was extremely open in allowing students to raise different points of view in his classes."

[Wind Dancer]

1. More info from Democracy Now.

PROF. RASHID KHALIDI:

snip

Now, what is the current environment in which the so-called crisis at Columbia has developed? And I agree fully with one of the previous speakers, this is an utterly artificial crisis created from without the university for purposes that are, in fact, much larger than the university. The first element of this larger environment is a campaign that is nationwide in scope, against the autonomy of the universities in the broadest sense. It's a campaign taking place in state legislatures. It's a campaign taking place in the columns of newspapers. It's a campaign which argues that there must be balance in universities. It's a campaign that based on an utterly spurious argument that the universities are strongholds of radical and liberal ideas. Would that they were strongholds of radical and liberal ideas. Would that the medical schools and the pharmaceutical schools were challenging the stranglehold of industrial medicine, of the industrial pharmaceutical industry. Would that agriculture schools -- would that agriculture schools or business schools were challenging the reigning orthodoxies. Would that economics departments, would that engineering schools, would that schools of international affairs were vigorously challenging the reigning orthodoxies in their fields. Would -- I could go on and on and on. We should challenge these ludicrous assertions, which are permeating not just the columns of the right wing press, but which we find before important state legislatures today.

more

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/06/1421213

[sir_captain]

2. I'm conflicted on this matter

particularly knowing parties on both sides of the issue. I do think, however, that some of the stuff said by some of the Profs is really terrible. Let me be clear: they should be allowed to say whatever they want, and without penalty, provided they do not mistreat students within a classroom. On the other hand, it is still perfectly acceptable to condemn certain comments. For instance, Hamid Dabashi, the chair of the MEALAC department at Columbia, has said:

"Half a century of systematic maiming and murdering of another people has left its deep marks on the faces of these people. The way they talk, the way they walk, the way they handle objects, the way they greet each other, the way they look at the world. There is an endemic prevarication to this machinery, a vulgarity of character that is bone-deep and structural to the skeletal vertebrae of its culture."

That's a really awful and racist thing to say, and there is nothing wrong with saying so. As liberals, we *ought* to speak against this sort of blatant hate speech.

That said, it's a free country. Obviously no professional action should, or will, be taken against him.