The film “Columbia Unbecoming” is generating increasing controversy about the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) at Columbia University. The film, produced by a group with close ties to Daniel Pipes’ neoconservative Mideast Forum and based mainly on testimony from non-MEALAC students, purports to document intimidation of Jewish students by Arab professors in the department.
Now, new information is available that raises serious questions about the film’s accuracy.
Columbia student Eric Posner has collected testimony from twenty-five students, many of them Jewish, who have studied in MEALAC. From their reports, a very different picture of the situation at Columbia emerges than the one presented in the film.
The full testimony can be viewed online here. It can also be downloaded as a Microsoft Word file here.
“Columbia Unbecoming” is now being shown publically. Viewers are outraged at the impression of widespread anti-Semitism at Columbia University that the film conveys.
It had its first public screening at the Universtiy on February 1. On the 5th it was shown in Jerusalem. Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky, introducing the film there, declared that Jewish students “have become like Russian Jews who kept silent because they feared state retaliation if they spoke out about being persecuted,” according to a report in Haaretz. Sharansky cancelled a speaking engagement at Columbia in protest.
Alan Dershowitz, a high-profile American lawyer and Israel advocate, has taken up the case of the Columbia students. He has accused the investigative committee appointed by Columbia president Lee Bollinger of bias. Two Columbia alumnae have started a letter-writing campaign “threatening to withhold future financial support from the university until “free speech” is restored to its classrooms,” The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday.
But is students’ right to free speech really being violated?
According to the students interviewed by Mr. Posner, Professor Joseph Massad and others professors accused in the film are appropriately respectful of differing opinions in the classroom. They are well-liked by Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. Their criticism of Israel is well-reasoned, and is often balanced by equally vigorous criticism of neighboring Arab states.
Leeam Azulay-Yagev: “As a Jewish Israeli 4th year student who has taken several classes in the MEALAC department, I have never experienced or witnessed intimidation or racism of any sort from university professors.”
Hitesh Manglani: “On the question of religion, (Professor Massad) was openly critical of all religions including Islam– his anti-Israeli opinions could not reasonably have been construed as anti-Semitic. Similarly, while being critical of Israeli policy he did not hesitate to offer critical opinions of Yasser Arafat. In general, he maintained a tone of critical scholarly inquiry.”
Benjamin Wheeler: “As for academic discrimination, I am a Jew who wrote a term paper criticizing Palestinian nationalism for its foundation in support for violence, and despite Massad’s supposed bias, he gave me an A.”
Alex Baker “In assigning papers, Prof. Massad made explicitly clear that he welcomed all points of view and interpretations of the material, the point being to let people know that they would not be graded down because of their political views about the conflict. Massad left ample time at the end of each class period for an extended question and answer period, and frequently answered questions during the lecture itself. Even though many of these questions were motivated more by politics than engagement of the material itself (i.e. refuting the material with official Israeli versions of historical accounts, in a class trying to deconstruct the effects of power on culture and history), I remember Massad worked overtime to find the worthy nuggets in every question and offer a useful response.”
Several students report that non-MEALAC students have been attending classes as auditors, evidently with the express purpose of disrupting them.
Shaina Greiff: “I found that those individuals who made allegations against the MEALAC department and its faculty were, in reality, not the victims of prejudices of the department but instead entered the classroom with pre-existing ideas and a political agenda of their own. During my tenure at Columbia I not only heard of numerous incidents of student provocation, but experienced quite a number myself… On a number of occasions students, many of whom I had never seen in class before, would stand and make inflammatory statements (which generally had little to do with what was actually being discussed in class that day). Although it was clear that these students were in classes solely to incite conflict Professor Massad would never silence or censor them.”
Erin Pineda: “It has been my experience that Professor Massad has calmly and thoroughly answered the questions of students, even when those questions are very pointedly (and I would argue disrespectfully and inappropriately) calling in to question his credibility, if for no other reason than a fundamental difference of opinion on an extremely volatile issue.”
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the filmmamkers were aware of the prevailing sentiment among Jewish MEALAC students, and deliberately chose to exclude their reports from the documentary. Mr. Posner himself reports:
As a an Israeli in GS, I was approached last year by Ariel Be’ery (one of the students involved in the film project), who wanted to hear my opinion about MEALAC and Massad, whose class I was enrolled in at the time. When I expressed my profound appreciation for Massad’s critical approach the multiplicity of perspectives that he offers in his classroom, Be’ery told me that he wouldn’t be calling me back for a taped interview.
A transcript of “Columbia Unbecoming” is available on the web. Considering the controversy the film has generated, the actual reportage on the issue of intimidation is pretty scanty.
I count nine specific instances of intimidation cited in the film. However, in some cases, it’s debatable whether the incident described actually constitutes intimidation. For example, one woman reports that a professor showed a film of Arab protesters shouting anti-Zionist slogans, without first warning the students that they might be offended. Another says that AProfessor Massad told his students “I will not have anyone sit through this class and deny Israeli atrocities.” A strong opinion, perhaps - but was he really trying to tell the students they weren’t allowed to disagree? The testimony cited above suggests that his teaching style was just the opposite.
In other cases, the incidents reported are disturbing, but unsubstantiated. A Jewish student reports being told by a professor that she was not of Semitic descent because she had green eyes. Another student, an Israeli, says Professor Massad asked him in class how many Palestinians he had killed when he was in the IDF. But the filmmakers did not interview the professors, both of whom deny the incidents; and they provide no corroborating testimony from other students or witnesses.
The emotional reaction of viewers to the film may been more to the ancillary material surrounding the student statements. There are descriptions of anti-Semitic incidents on campus that had nothing to do with the complaints about faculty. At one point the film shows a poster captioned: “The Jews. Too fat. Too greedy. Too powerful. Fight the Jewish mafia.” The poster does not seem to have any connection the allegation of intimidation by professors that is the film’s subject - but the viewer is nonetheless encouraged to asociate this virulent anti-Semitism with MEALAC.
Even those sympathetic to the anti-MEALAC students admit that the “Columbia Unbecoming” lacks substance. Columbia professor Dan Miron was quoted in New York Magazine as saying “Columbia Unbecoming is not a very professionally made film… They were slim on facts and gave much too much space to emotional reactions.” Shoshana Kordova, reporting on the film for Haaretz, says “the lack of clarity regarding the students’ claims and goals exposes the movie to accusations that it is an attempt to dictate the bounds of what professors may say. Aharon Horwitz, a member of the student group promoting the film, in the Columbia Spectator that “acknowledged that the film conflates various complaints, but that the lack of clarity doesn’t reduce the allegations of intimidation in the classroom.”
When all is said and done, it is entirely possible that there were some real incidents in which students were, or felt, intimidated. Minority students are often sensitive to perceived discrimination. The professors involved are clearly quite passionate and opinionated. But comparing the MEALAC student testimony provided by Mr. Posner with that shown in the film, one must conclude that “Columbia Unbecoming” presents a very limited and one-sided view of the atmosphere on campus.
While “Columbia Unbecoming” is based around incidents at the University, a look at the people involved in making the film suggests that an outside agenda may have biased its depiction of student sentiment.
The film was made by The David Project, whose head, Charles Jacobs, is a longtime activist with pro-Israel groups, and an employee at a neoconservative public relations firm called Benador Associates. Benador has close ties to Daniel Pipes’s neoconservative think-tank, The Mideast Forum. Pipes’ subsidiary group Campus Watch publishes a blacklist of professors it considers anti-Israel - including Joseph Massad, and others at Columbia.
The David Project belongs to the Israel on Campus Coalition, a pro-Israel advocacy group. Benador represents many of the prominent neoconservatives who are regulars on the Israel on Campus Coalition speaker’s panel. The Coalition’s publication, Tenured or Tenuous, encourages activists to target scholars critical of Israel by putting pressure on the Universities that hire them.
Ariel Beery, the leader of the student group promoting the documentary, is affiliated with Campus Watch. His publications in the Columbia Spectator and in Israel Insider, an ultranationalist newsletter, are linked on the Campus Watch web site.
My earlier posts, with more background on this issue, are here.
“Columbia Unbecoming” seems to fit in with the overall strategy outlined by these groups, of attacking professors critical of Israel. The inflammatory material in the documentary, and its carefully planned screening to audiences of Jewish alumnae in the U.S. and Israel, suggest that the filmmakers had a motive beyond exposing problems in faculty-student relationships. It seems to me that they are aiming to mobilize donors, who will pressure Columbia to oust Massad and muzzle other critics of Israel.
This is unhealthy in numerous ways. Students should have the opportunity to hear all sides of an issue. There are plenty of courses at Columbia taught by Jewish and Israeli professors, that present Israel in a more sympathetic light. Students who have studied in MEALAC, whether they end up agreeing or disagreeing with their professors, seem to have gained from having their preconceptions challanged. For Israel itself, criticism is important. No state can remain democratic if it suppresses dissent.
One must also question the filmmakers’ choice to target Columbia, which has been the Ivy most sympathetic to Jewish enrollment and supportive of Jewish life on campus since World War II.
Finally, to attack rather than debate is out of keeping with the Jewish ethos. To quote Mr. Posner,
The core of Jewish ethics evolved out of a long tradition of argumentation and debate. Dissent is Jewish. Dialogue and discourse is everything for our legalistic religious tradition. In order to address the complex problems facing the Middle East today, we should not only be participating in unrestricted and uninhibited dialogue in the Academy, but exporting our free market of ideas to Washington, D.C. and Jerusalem. I don’t understand why the opinions of a few extremists need to shut down the dialogue for everyone.
