Student involved in 'steering' incident at Columbia interviewed
The Orthodox Jewish Barnard College student who was 'steered' away from a course at Columbia University has given an anonymous interview, which has been published in the Tablet, an online Jewish magazine. In her first interview since the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched an official inquiry into possible anti-Jewish discrimination late last month, the student gave Tablet Magazine a description of the incident that sparked the federal investigation. (The Office for Civil Rights confirmed in an email that it is “investigating a complaint alleging Columbia University discriminated against a student of Jewish ancestry/ethnicity on the basis of national origin.”)I'm bothered by this case even if the student 'wins.' Let me explain why.
“I went to her to speak about the major and talk to her about classes that I was looking at,” the student, who asked not to be named, said of a January, 2011 meeting in which she sought advice from McDermott, the longtime chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures Department at Barnard. “I mentioned a course taught by Joseph Massad.”
“Oh, he’s very anti-Israel,” McDermott responded, according to the student. “And I said, ‘That’s fine, I’ve heard anti-Israel things before, and I’m fine if it’s a culture clash.’ ”
But McDermott insisted Massad’s course would make the student “uncomfortable,” the student said in the interview. In the end, the student, then a sophomore, took the Jewish history class instead.
...
The student, now a Middle East Studies major, knew about Massad’s reputation....
And so, the student said, she wasn’t much surprised by McDermott’s advice until last May. That month, she met Peter Haas, a professor of Jewish studies at Case Western University and president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a network of pro-Israel academics and professors, and told him about what happened. Another member of the pro-Israel professors’ network, Judith Jacobson, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s School of Public Health, followed up by calling the student. Jacobson wanted to know if the student was interested in talking to Kenneth L. Marcus, who heads the group’s legal task force. The student agreed.
Marcus, the director of the Anti-Semitism Initiative at the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, headed the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the agency currently investigating Columbia, in 2003 and 2004. According to Marcus, what happened at Barnard was an instance of “steering”—a term that typically refers to housing discrimination, when a real-estate agent tells a black family that it would feel “uncomfortable” in a particular neighborhood because of its predominantly white population. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 to outlaw the practice.
What McDermott allegedly did, according to Marcus, who handled cases of alleged steering as the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in 2002 and 2003, was a form of steering and thus violated the Jewish student’s civil rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He said in an interview that he knew of “no other steering cases in an educational context,” but that if the student’s allegations are verified, “it would be extremely difficult for Barnard to say that any steering would not have any harmful effect.”
McDermott clearly had the student's best interest at heart. And when she told the student not to take the course, unless I have misunderstood something, she gave advice that was in the student's best interest. The issue here is not that the student was steered away from Massad - it's that Massad doesn't belong on the faculty of a major American university, and certainly not as a tenured professor.
I wouldn't want the McDermott's of the world to be chilled from giving advice that is in students' best interest. The real issue here - which is once again being avoided - is that a professor who treats students as Massad does should not be on the faculty.
I tried to find even a trailer of "Columbia Unbecoming" - the 2005 documentary of interviews of students who had taken Massad's course - to give you some idea of what the man is like. All I could come up with is this short video.
Let's go to the videotape.
As many of you may recall, I graduated from Bir Zeit on the Hudson, and Mrs. Carl graduated from Barnard. If the student involved wishes to be in touch, she can (have someone) send me an email and I will give her our US phone number.
Labels: Bir Zeit on the Hudson, Joseph Massad, liberal academia
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:15 AM
4 Comments:
private university
they can hire any idiot they want
sad when advisors have to steer students away from certain profs
that is the evil of tenure
btw,
a much better question is why Saree Makdisi is employed by ucla...a state supported university
the man is a blatant jew hater and sociopathic liar
sad thing is, the uc system is filled with nakdisi's
"Massad doesn't belong on the faculty of a major American university, and certainly not as a tenured professor." Professor Massad has published three major Middle East studies in just six years. His first book was based on his PHD dissertation, "which won the Middle East Studies Association Malcolm Kerr Dissertation Award in 1998." His second "received praise from scholars Ilan Pappé and Ella Shohat as well as from Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi." And his third "won Columbia University's 2008 Lionel Trilling Book Award, awarded by a jury of students on the grounds that it “offers a probing study of representations of Arab sexuality" and is "an important and eloquent work of scholarship that the committee feels will have a lasting impact on the field.....received critical praise from academics for its contributions both to the analysis of Arab culture and to the theory of sexuality." All these raves, and many others, are easily available in the Wikipedia article on Professor Massad.
The above said, I googled the Wikipedia article on "Zion" after listening to Prof. Massad stating that "Zion" means "Penis". There are 2000+ words in the Wiki article: the word "penis" - or "male organ" etc. - does not appear.
"Massad doesn't belong on the faculty of a major American university, and certainly not as a tenured professor." Professor Massad has published three major Middle East studies in just six years. His first book was based on his PHD dissertation, "which won the Middle East Studies Association Malcolm Kerr Dissertation Award in 1998." His second "received praise from scholars Ilan Pappé and Ella Shohat as well as from Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi." And his third "won Columbia University's 2008 Lionel Trilling Book Award, awarded by a jury of students on the grounds that it “offers a probing study of representations of Arab sexuality" and is "an important and eloquent work of scholarship that the committee feels will have a lasting impact on the field.....received critical praise from academics for its contributions both to the analysis of Arab culture and to the theory of sexuality." All these raves, and many others, are easily available in the Wikipedia article on Professor Massad.
The above said, I googled the Wikipedia article on "Zion" after listening to Prof. Massad stating that "Zion" means "Penis". There are 2000+ words in the Wiki article: the word "penis" - or "male organ" etc. - does not appear.
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