Nadia Abu El-Haj

On Nov. 12, 70 members of faculty signed a “Statement of Concern” alleging that “President Bollinger has failed to make a vigorous defense of the core principles on which the university is founded, especially academic freedom.” I wonder how many considered the ironic and, at times, unbelievable fact that the same University President Lee Bollinger helps pay Hamid Dabashi’s salary.

The Columbia Daily Spectator’s recent decision to publish, under the rubric of opinion, Paula Stern’s editorial (“Greatest Victory, Even in Defeat,” Nov. 15) maligning Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj is the latest instance in which the paper has become an instrument of external interests opposed to academic freedom.

The University must reaffirm that while the marketplace of ideas may expose professors to criticism, the intrusion of non-academic pressure on the tenure process is unacceptable.

Faculty members presented a letter to top administrators Tuesday condemning University President Lee Bollinger for creating a “crisis of confidence” and accusing the University’s administration of inadequately protecting academic freedom on campus.

A statement released Friday by Barnard College confirmed professor Nadia Abu El-Haj has received tenure, after an e-mail sent by a departmental administrator first alerted the anthropology department listserv of the news.

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With the decision on whether or not to tenure the controversial historian Joseph Massad still pending at Columbia, Barnard College has begun the process of deciding whether to tenure yet another controversial young Middle Eastern scholar.

I was truly shocked to read some of the leading letters and reviews used in this campaign against Nadia Abu El-Haj tenure. While in Israel her work has been discussed with depth and seriousness (even if critically) in academic seminars, in the United States one witnesses a crude attempt to silence this perspective.

I lived with Nadia Abu El-Haj in Jerusalem while we were conducting dissertation research. Hers was on the topic of the politics of Israeli archaeology, and mine was on the Israeli military court system in the West Bank and Gaza.