Columbia Univ. Defends Committee Findings on Anti-Israel Bias
by Jim Brown and Ed Thomas
April 15, 2005
(AgapePress) - A committee at Columbia University is being accused of bias in its report investigating complaints that professors in the Middle East Studies Department bullied and humiliated pro-Israel, Jewish students. But the public affairs liaison for the university denies the accusation.The committee concluded that one professor "exceeded commonly accepted bounds" of classroom behavior, but found no evidence of large-scale anti-Semitic bias in the department. It also accused overly aggressive pro-Israel students of disrupting lectures, and confirmed there were insufficient grievance procedures. The report follows the recent unveiling of the film Columbia Unbecoming, in which students accuse professors in the Middle East Studies Department of harassment and intimidation in the classroom. (See earlier story)
Students and professors who had included bias in their complaints said the conclusion was reached because committee members were either linked to a divestiture campaign against Israel from last year, or tied to the professor accused of student intimidation. Columbia public affairs director Susan Brown says that is not so.
Brown acknowledges that professors might very well harbor "political views that would ordinarily be considered circumstances that might dilute the objectivity of the person." But it is a longstanding tradition among the faculty, she adds, to put those views aside -- "and they're very good at doing that."
Brown insists the committee members accomplished the narrow scope given for their investigation, and laid the groundwork for a newly released grievance procedure policy and a council on student affairs that reports to the university president. But pro-Israel students and faculty members continue to insist that Columbia president Lee Bollinger has not acknowledged problems of anti-Israel bias in the Middle Eastern Studies Department.
The Other Side
Charles Jacobs, president of the David Project in Boston, says the committee did not do its job. Instead of throwing sand on the fire, he says, they threw gasoline on it.
"The main thing they did is that they neglected -- they ignored completely -- the real problem, which is the teaching of lies and propaganda in the classroom," Jacobs says. He adds that it is unfortunate that the committee also "upbraided" other professors who helped the students make the complaints.
According to the David Project leader, the department is filled with anti-Semitic professors who deny the Jewish state's right to exist.
"It is essentially captured by the Palestinianist point of view," he charges. "So what happens is you've got people taking courses about the Middle East that don't really focus at all on the real problems in the Middle East -- that is, Arab tyrannies. You've got Christian slaves in part of the Middle East; you've got women oppressed, you've got apostates being killed, dissidents being suppressed."
Jacobs says while Bollinger is to be commended for introducing a new grievance procedure policy for students, he needs to get legitimate Middle East scholars into the university.
Jim Brown and Ed Thomas, regular contributors to AgapePress, are reporters for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
