Unity through Dissonance

By Ariel Beery and Bari Weiss

A chapter of Columbia’s history concluded Thursday with the publication of Nicholas Dirks’ ad hoc grievance committee report. It ended like it began--with disregard for students. Now, poised to write together a new chapter in the history of Columbia, our community should reflect on how the plot has played out thus far. Only with an appraisal of the past can we move together toward a brighter future.

This past week, Susan Brown and the Columbia University Public Affairs Office gave the committee report exclusively to The New York Times and Spectator, predicated on the notion they wouldn’t talk to the students who had not yet read it­­—even though the report was previously given to Professor Joseph Massad. With this move, we saw the University once again try to protect its public image and certain members of its faculty at the expense of those brave students and faculty members who testified before the committee.

Prioritizing the protection of faculty over the interests of students has been a common theme during this controversy. The committee itself was explicitly composed to protect faculty. It was chaired by Ira Katznelson, who did not follow up students’ grievances during his tenure as Vice President of Arts and Sciences even after seeing “Columbia Unbecoming” on June 14, 2004. Considering that another member of the committee, Dean Lisa Anderson, was the thesis advisor of Prof. Massad, it is hard to believe that the report could have ended up any other way. As New York Civil Rights Coalition Director Michael Meyers commented, it is as if, during the civil rights era, cops would judge cops.

The report added insult to injury. As the committee wrote, they “met with 62 individuals,” and “considered more than 60 written submissions.” Yet the report itself focused solely upon the three most publicly covered charges of abuse and not the myriad others brought before the committee. Students who feared letting their incident be recounted publicly, dependent upon the department and these professors for recommendations and support, were brushed aside as if their testimony meant nothing. The committee was more concerned with mopping up the public mess than healing the wounds caused by abusive actions.

Further, it rehashed the empty claim of anti-Semitism, saying the University was cleared of charges­—empty because we and the students we represent never claimed anti-Semitism. This suggests the committee thought it could erect a straw man and blow it away instead of taking on the real problems presented before it, namely the fact that some political opinions, such as Zionism, have been stigmatized in Columbia’s classrooms, permitting the ostracism of the Zionist students. Yet, despite the fact that all the cards were stacked against the students, the committee still found something very serious: the students they cite were credible in their grievances, and Joseph Massad, for one, used his position to intimidate students. It is a step in the right direction.

Now, despite our deep divisions, Columbians should come together to realize our potential as a community. We need to think together about the nature of the community we want to be a part of-—one where an argument will be judged by its merits and not according to whether the arguer is tagged as a socialist or a neocon. A community where truth is sought through the dissonance of debate, and not preached as gospel. We look forward to the day when liberals and conservatives, left and right, will be able to sit together to discuss the most contentious issues of the day without fear of being silenced. When debates, and not monolithic panel discussions, are the norm.

To do so, we will need the full participation of all members of the Columbia community. It will take the efforts of all to create a new norm of discussion, to cast off the political divisions of the outside world in favor of creating a truly free marketplace of ideas in which the academic freedom of students is no less important than the academic freedom of professors. It is through dissonant ideas that we can strive together toward truth.