Petition to Deny Tenure to anti-Zionist Barnard Professor

The Chronicle for Higher Education blog summarizes the latest on the brouhaha over at Morningside Heights. Heated discussion follows the posting.

I don't care for the petition against this professor because it focuses on alleged errors in the book she wrote - all of which can be refuted by her supporters - as if that is why we'd like to see her fired. Actually it would be more honest to sharply focus on her underlying agenda of antisemitic and anti-Zionist assertions as the crux of the reason for any petition-signer's opposition to her serving on the faculty of Barnard or Columbia.

My prediction - she will be denied tenure and then be hired at three times her current salary by a University in the Arabian Gulf.

Alumni Group Seeks to Deny Tenure to Middle Eastern Scholar at Barnard College

Controversial research on Israel and the Palestinian territories has become the basis of yet another campaign to prevent a professor from winning tenure. A group of Barnard College alumni has drafted an online petition asking their alma mater to deny tenure to Nadia Abu El-Haj, an assistant professor of anthropology whose scholarship, they say, is flawed and skewed against Israel.

The group’s criticisms of Ms. Abu El-Haj focus on her book Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001), which argues that Israeli archaeologists have produced biased research that bolsters the “origin myth” of the Jewish state.

The petition, which has drawn just over 1,000 signatures, accuses Ms. Abu El-Haj of ignoring or mischaracterizing large parts of the archaeological record, of not being able to speak Hebrew, and of treating Israeli archaeologists unfairly in her work. Ms. Abu El-Haj declined to comment today.

The petition comes on the heels of a high-profile campaign — led by Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor — to persuade DePaul University to deny tenure to Norman G. Finkelstein, a professor known for his criticisms of Israel and what he calls the “Holocaust Industry.” Mr. Finkelstein was denied tenure. —John Gravois

Petition and Counter Petition