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A Free-Speech War
Columbia critic of Israel banned from a program for NYC teachers by
Joel Klein
by Nat Hentoff
Village Voice
March 11, 2005
This item is available on the Campus Watch website, at
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1734
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0511,hentoff,62031,6.html
On February 15, The New York Sun, in a front-page story, reported: "A
Columbia University professor who has called Israel a 'racist' state
with an 'apartheid system,' and who has supported attacks by Palestinian
Arabs on Israelis, is scheduled to lecture a group of New York City
public school teachers on how to teach Mideast politics to schoolchildren.
"The professor, Rashid Khalidi, is director of the Middle East Institute
at Columbia University. His professorship is named in memory of Edward
Said, a divisive scholar, and is paid for in part with a donation from
the United Arab Emirates."
Three days later, the Sun, in a celebratory editorial, "The Klein
Example," lauded the New York City Department of Education (DOE) and its
chancellor, Joel Klein, for "promptly severing" its relationship with
Professor Khalidi. Klein's press secretary, Jerry Russo, explained:
"Considering his past statements, Rashid Khalidi should not have been
included in a program that provided professional development for DOE
teachers, and he won't be participating in the future."
The free-speech war began. In a February 25 story in the weekly Forward
("N.Y. School Board Bans a Controversial Arab Professor"), mayoral
candidate Anthony Weiner, a Democratic congressman from Brooklyn, and
the American Jewish Committee agreed with Chancellor Klein. They believe
it was right to expel Khalidi from this 12-week program in which, each
week, a different Columbia professor, paid by the university, talks
about a different aspect of the Middle East.
Disagreeing, however, with Klein's removal of Khalidi were Columbia
president Lee Bollinger, who threatened to pull out of the program, and
Marc Stern, director of legal affairs at the American Jewish Congress.
Marc Stern is on my list of First Amendment experts whom I call on for
questions of church-state, free speech, free assembly, and other issues.
Said Stern, for the American Jewish Congress, to Forward:
"It's not as if we're rejoicing that Khalidi gets an audience. But we
don't think the way to go about it is by treating Khalidi as if he is
not qualified to teach on the Middle East."
At the most basic core of the First Amendment is the precept "The answer
to bad speech is more speech." Agreeing with Marc Stern that Klein
summarily violated that precept by flunking Khalidi is Greg Lukianoff of
the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), of whose
advisory board I'm a member.
In quoting Greg Lukianoff, Forward noted, as I have in the Voice, that
FIRE "has stood squarely with the Jewish students in the Columbia melee
[about its Middle East studies department]." Said Lukianoff: "The
department was under no obligation to hire [Khalidi] in the first place
[but] rescinding the invite after the fact does send a bad message."
I am referred to correctly in the Forward roundup of this free-speech
war as a "strong supporter of Jewish students at Columbia who have
alleged that they have been subject to intimidation by several Middle
East studies professors."
I am then accurately quoted by Forward as saying: "They made a mistake
in saying [Khalidi] can't teach because of his political views. [They]
should have brought in a team teacher for the course so that it wouldn't
be a one-sided indoctrination." (Actually Khalidi, in his classes, has
not been charged with intimidation by Jewish students. And when he
lectured for city teachers, he spoke non-controversially on only
geography and demographics.)
In a lead editorial that same day, The New York Sun mocked my
team-teaching proposal: "[Hentoff is] a First Amendment expert who
reckons the American Constitution requires New York taxpayers to pay for
two Middle East teacher-trainers. . . . Maybe the First Amendment
requires a teacher-trainer who says the Earth is flat and another who
says it's round."
As I wrote to the Sun, consider how educational it would be for the
public school teachers in the course and for the public if Harvard Law
School professor Alan Dershowitz were to team-teach with any of the
bristlingly biased Middle East studies professors who squelch
disagreement in their classrooms.
If such a contrapuntal free-inquiry class were televised, maybe on NY1,
it would also cast more sunlight on that Columbia Middle East studies
department, where some of the professors, in the name of academic
freedom, deny academic freedom to some of their students. I expect that
The New York Sun might want to cover that kind of team-teaching class.
As an ironic obligation to the free-speech face-off, the February 25
Forward reported that "the Sun published a column last year by Martin
Kramer, a leader in a campaign against pro-Palestinian professors, in
which he slammed Khalidi for warning Arab intellectuals against
participating in events organized by the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, a think tank supported heavily by pro-Israel donors and now
run by former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross.
" 'Its basic function is to spread lies and falsehoods about the Arab
world, of course under an academic, scholarly veneer,' Khalidi was
quoted as saying during a panel discussion broadcast on Al-Jazeera.
'Basically this is the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the
United States.' "
As a reporter, I occasionally find Dennis Ross useful because he has
been a firsthand participant in key Middle East events interpreted to
the contrary by Professor Khalidi. But since Khalidi, because of his
views, has been banned by Joel Klein from New York City schools, maybe
he might rethink his stern advice to Arab intellectuals to boycott the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Indeed, maybe Professor Khalidi, Marc Stern of the American Jewish
Congress, Joel Klein, Greg Lukianoff of FIRE, and the editorial writers
of The New York Sun might consider being part of a panel on "The answer
to bad speech is more speech." If they're interested, and if the Voice
would host the event, I would be glad to be the co-moderator with
someone from the American Jewish Committee who approved of Klein's
firing of Khalidi.
--
"I must fight with all my strength so that the little positive things that my
health allows me to do might be pointed toward helping the revolution. The only
real reason for living."
-Frida Kahlo
emma rosenthal is a disabled artist, writer, educator, reiki practitioner,
activist and consultant, living in southern california.
emma rosenthal
po box 1664
baldwin park, ca 91706
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
818-404-5784
emma's web page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~emmarosenthal
http://home.earthlink.net/~cafeintifada
http://home.earthlink.net/~theweproject
emma.s blogs:
In Bed With Frida Kahlo:
Daily indignities, small insurrections and honest musings from a life of
infirmity and rebellion
http://inbedwithfridakahlo.blogsource.com/
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http://emmarosenthal.blogsource.com/
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http://cafeintifadafilms.blogsource.com/
Film reviews: A resource for activists and educators
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