8.25.2003
Tenured radicalism and the ’Edward Said Chair’
[Posted 2:46 PM by James Panero]
Jonathan Calt Harris of Campus Watch writes in the New York Post today on Rashid Khalidi, the new ’Edward Said Chair of Middle East Studies at Columbia University.’ Here is a quote:
In short, a biased professor is taking over a biased department, paid for by funds endowed at least in part by Saudi and Palestinian interest groups – and administering a taxpayer-subsidized program. (Ironically, those subsidies are justified as improving our national security.)
It is highly unusual for a university to make a secret of the donors of a chair; that Columbia’s administration has done so for the Said chair suggests it has something to hide. Faculty, staff, students, alumni and other Columbia stakeholders should demand the full story, to be sure that this highly suspect chair isn’t funded with tainted money.
Come now, it’s not as if there is a litter of Bin Ladens out there with money to . . . oh, right, well, I guess there was that slight issue at Harvard.
I can tell you one thing, though: you can scratch Sid Bass off the list of suspects. His donation would have been returned to sender.