Posted by David Bernstein:
What Planet is Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi on?
[1]From a Columbia "teach-in" on "academic freedom" (which somehow
involves "the plight of Palestinian refugees" and the "corporatization
of America):
�There is a nationwide campaign against the autonomy of
universities in the broadest sense ... based on the utterly
spurious assumption that universities are stronghold of radical and
liberal beliefs,� charged Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of
Arab studies,* loudly banging on the podium with his fist.
*The very fact that Khalidi is the "Edward Said professor of Arab
Studies" should tell you something. Given that Said had no academic
training in Arab Studies, was hired as an English and Comparative
Literature professor, spent most of his later academic years not doing
research in his field, but as a pro-Palestinian propagandist who
thought the PLO was too moderate, lied about his origins (claiming to
be a Palestinian refugee from Jerusalem when he was actually raised in
a wealthy Cairo family), and yet somehow became one of Columbia's most
respected and feted professors can't exactly be explained by
Columbia's right-wingedness.
References
1.
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/05/42523c0973427
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