February 27, 2005

MADRASSA ON MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS: THE COVER-UP PROCEEDS

Nat Hentoff is a National Treasure. I first became acquainted with him as a wonderful jazz critic many years ago, but he is also one of a dwindling breed of liberals still anchored to reality. Here is his latest assessment of the ongoing Islamization of Columbia University.

"...Jimmy Breslin wrote a novel, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, that came to my mind while covering what is now an international story about charges that some professors in Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) bully and intimidate students who don't agree with them. Since one of my beats is education—from pre-kindergarten on—I have covered a number of dysfunctional college and university administrations around the country. But the handling of this controversy by Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, and provost Alan Brinkley is a model of how to confuse and worsen a situation while trying to resolve its core problems..." See the rest here: Columbia Implodes!

Graduates of Columbia, grateful for the education in critical thinking they received many years ago, can only agree with Hentoff when he writes, "...It would also help clear the increasingly murky air at Columbia if eventually there were a new president and a new provost who know how to shoot straight to assure academic freedom for everyone on campus..."