More Dirty Truths and Rumors

by: Paula R. Stern
October, 2007 

It's hard to know what is the truth and what is rumor at Columbia University these days. Weeks ago, rumor had it that Columbia was going to finally rid itself of Joseph Massad, who turned out to be an embarrassment to the university and brought mostly negative comments and opinions.

To attempt to balance this apparent insult to those who like the idea of an anti-Israel professor being granted tenure, Lee Bollinger's Columbia University would grant tenure to a Palestinian American professor currently teaching at Barnard - Nadia Abu El Haj. El Haj's sole claim to supposedly deserving tenure is a single book filled with inaccuracies, twisted assumptions and hate-filled innuendos.

Up until a few months ago, few had even heard of El Haj and even fewer cared. She has done no research of merit, produced no great scholarly work and her one book, Facts on the Ground, is about anything but the real facts on the ground she clearly does not know. The tenure process pushed its way forward at Barnard, ignoring all evidence that El Haj's credentials were sadly lacking and that she, like Joseph Massad, has a history of hatred towards the Jewish state and in fact to Jews in general (as evidenced by her latest research into Jewish genetics).  

So the deal was struck - Massad would go and El Haj would stay. Barnard's administration, lead by the soon to be departing Judith Shapiro, granted tenure to El Haj, leaving Columbia to ratify the decision. El Haj's thesis advisor, Virginia Dominguez (currently at University of Illinois) is so confident that her protégée will succeed at Columbia, she is already telling people that tenure has been approved and Columbia is simply sitting on the decision, perhaps waiting for a less embarrassing time to announce it.  

What Columbia probably didn't count on was how negative the publicity would be about its invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To follow that by an announcement that it was offering tenure to an incompetent professor who has similar views to Ahmadinejad can't help but hurt the university. Like Ahmadinejad, El Haj denies Israel's right to exist and says its creation "in effect furnished a political solution for Europe's 'Jewish question'." (page 4 of her book, Facts on the Ground) 

What Columbia also probably didn't take into account was the wide-spread opposition that many Barnard and Columbia graduates would show towards both Massad and El Haj. More than 2,500 people have signed a petition against the El Haj tenure, a very large portion of whom are the very graduates to which the university expects to turn in the future for ongoing support.  

Several key donors have indicated that they will not donate to a university in which scholarship is not required, where honesty and integrity are not valued, and where lies and half truths are rewarded with tenure.  

Perhaps Virginia Dominguez and others know more than we do - after all, Columbia University is refusing to even admit that they are considering tenure for El Haj, let alone admitting the dirty deal that would leave Nadia Abu El Haj available to promote her political agenda in the future as she does now.

Columbia may succeed in getting rid of Joseph Massad, but if they do indeed intend to keep El Haj, the damage she will cause the university's reputation will likely make Ahmadinejad's embarrassing spectacle appear like a picnic in Riverside Park.