From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Shlomo Shamir | Haaretz Daily | 26 January 2005 Columbia University President Lee Bollinger informed Israel's consul general in New York, Arie Meckel, on Wednesday that a university-sponsored conference, "Revisiting the Middle East Peace Process," scheduled to have taken place on Thursday, was postponed indefinitely. The conference was postponed due to heavy pressure by Jewish groups, who claim the motives for hosting the conference were questionable.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) George Saliba | The Columbia Spectator | 3 November 2004 As one of the faculty members of MILACA who has been recently slandered in a film that was screened behind closed doors, I feel a statement rebutting those slanderous charges is in order. After receiving the transcript of the film through the courtesy of The New York Sun, I read the statements of a Ms.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) N. R. KLEINFIELD | The New York Times | 18 January 2005 As students resume classes at Columbia University today after their winter break, they will face the telltale summonses of college life: Go to class, surf the Internet, sleep, pursue romance, sleep. And a new one: Testify about the alleged misconduct of their professors. Every Monday and Friday until its work is done, a novel faculty panel will make itself available to hear narratives from students and faculty members in the hope of sorting out a virulent dispute that has rattled the university for months.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Jennifer Senior | New York Metro | 17 January 2005 A new documentary accusing Arab professors of intimidating Jewish students has touched off a fierce war—of words—on the Upper West Side. Where does free speech end and bullying begin? Of all the political documentaries that have ignited controversy in the past year,Columbia Unbecoming is by far the shortest, sparest, and lowest-budget. Still, it quickly attracted an illustrious audience.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Stevenson Swanson |Chicago Tribune | 1 January 2005 NEW YORK -- The Upper West Side of Manhattan may be half a world away from the Middle East, but a bitter war of words has turned the narrow campus of Columbia University into a miniature Gaza Strip, riven by divisions between supporters of the Israeli and Palestinian sides. Jewish students charge that three professors in the university's Middle East & Jewish Studies department have ridiculed and intimidated them for making pro-Israel remarks, violating their rights as students to express opinions contrary to those of their professors.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) ATARAH HABER | The Jerusalem Post | 7 December 2004 An international conference entitled "Resisting Israeli Apartheid," held at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London on Sunday, was predictably nothing more than a "one-sided rant against Israel," Gavin Gross, chairman of the SOAS Jewish Society told The Jerusalem Post. The conference was organized by the university's Palestine Society and was attended by Palestinian and Jewish intellectuals from various countries, all of whom spoke on the conflict in the Middle East.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Liz Fink | Columbia Spectator | 8 December 2004 Press Conference Yesterday Offered First Highly Visible Student Response to Attacks in Columbia Unbecoming One month after the controversial release of Columbia Unbecoming, pro-Israel students aren’t the only ones claiming they are being harassed and intimidated. A group of approximately 50 students, faculty, community members, and alumni held a press conference yesterday in Earl Hall to protest what they called the stifling of voices critical of Israel.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Bill Bishop | Juan Cole Website | 4 December 2004 Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer settled a libel suit out of court with University of Oregon instructor Douglas Card. They had accused Card of being anti-semitic (i.e. a racist) and of being a leftwing extremist. Pipes has a history of levelling wild charges against academics, and of being unreliable (he said in 2002 that Saddam was 2-5 years away from having an atomic bomb).
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Oliver Kamm |The Times Online | 4 December 2004 ALL SCHOLARLY disciplines have jargon. Specialist terms are mocked by populists, but they can be a useful shorthand. They are not a target of this series on buzzwords. Deliberate obscurity cultivated for the appearance of profundity is another matter. The attractions of obscurity are beautifully depicted in Malcolm Bradbury’s comic novel The History Man. Annie Callendar, lecturer in English literature, explains to the radical sociologist Howard Kirk how she approaches her subject.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee | Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee | 24 November 2004 ADC expresses its deep concern over increased attempts to silence free speech and academic freedom at Columbia University. Professor Joseph Massad, an untenured junior faculty member in the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) has been the target of a campaign designed to intimidate academics critical of Israel and U.