Category: Academics Under Attack

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Juan Cole | Salon | 22 April 2005 A witch hunt against a Columbia professor, and the New York Times’ disgraceful support for it, represent the gravest threat to academic freedom in decades. A member of the U.S. Congress calls for an assistant professor at a major university to be summarily fired. The right-wing

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Mark Roberts and M. Junaid Alam | Znet Magazine | 16 April 2005 Introduction by M. Junaid Alam Readers who have been following the attacks on Arab professors at Columbia University may have read my recent investigative article on the subject. The piece elicited many positive responses, including from Columbia staff and students. One

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Douglas Davis | The Spectator | 14 April 2005 [Site Editor’s Comment: another racist contribution from the Zionist lobby] Pay attention, Professor. If you support the proposed academic boycott of Israel — and if you are to remain intellectually honest — prepare for a radical lifestyle change. Firstly, unplug your computer. Good. Now switch

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Ed Herman | Znet Magazine | 16 April 2005 The New York Times has never been a very courageous newspaper in times of political hysteria and civil liberties threats. When Bertrand Russell was denied the right to fill his appointment at CCNY in 1940, following an ugly campaign by a rightwing Catholic faction opposed

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Joseph Kay and Barry Grey | World Socialist Web Site | 9 April 2005 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

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Liel Leibovitz | The Jewish Week | 8 April 2005 Columbia president says he’ll revamp procedures for student complaints; committee chair defends panel as Jewish students charge ‘whitewash.’ Reacting quickly to a Columbia University committee report which found little evidence that professors in the Middle East studies department had intimidated pro-Israel students but sharply

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Robin Finn | New York Times | 8 April 2005 IF intimidation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, Joseph A. Massad, the Columbia University professor implicated last week by a faculty panel investigating charges of intimidation of students by pro-Palestinian professors, is apparently on his best behavior as he sits on

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Nathanial Popper | Forward | 1 April 2005 Urged on by conservative provocateur David Horowitz, lawmakers in several states are pushing legislation requiring unprecedented government oversight of teaching on college campuses. In Florida last week, a key legislative committee approved the so-called “Academic Bill of Rights” in an 8 to 2 vote. The decision

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Joseph Massad | Electronic Intifada | 5 April 2005 In late 2004, claims of intimidation in the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) of Columbia University hit newspapers around the world after an unreleased documentary, “Columbia Unbecoming”, which purported to reveal incidences of intimidation and anti-Semitism in the classroom. The

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Russell Jacoby | The Nation | 16 March 2005 The Yale student did not like what he heard. Sociologists derided religion and economists damned corporations. One professor pre-emptively rejected the suggestion that “workers on public relief be denied the franchise.” “I propose, simply, to expose,” wrote the young author in a booklong denunciation, one