In regards to this story -

What happened here was the right to someone’s free speech was defended and upheld regardless of their opinion and the quality of her work.

The championing of her as an underdog fighting evil forces is and unfortunately as expected  over the top.
(American goy above)

Every professor seeking tenure is and should be evaluated however political it is.

What happened here is simple. A professor who in Mr. Silverstein’s language is a ‘Palestinian First Extremist’ of the 1rst order was given tenure. Her work is extremely political and agenda driven a fact she doesn’t even try to conceal. What’s more her work has been consistenly proven to be sloppy and extremely un-impressive. Whether or not she should be given tenure should be solely based on the quality of her work.

However, here the conversation became about the fact that she is pro Palestinian and thus as a result being descriminated against, thus she benefited.
However, in my opinion she likely would have been granted tenure regardless of the quality of her work due to the situation at the school she works at.
The question is would those seeking to make this into a ‘descrimination case’ due to their belief in the 1rst Amendment etc.. do the same for someone on the polar opposite of politics? Would they defend an academic shunned for simply making politically supportive statements towards Israel? The answer is a very likely no. We saw this at Depaul by the way.
Reason magazine is a libertarian magazine in this case defending one’s right to free speech or opinion. However, the rest of the agenda biased minions involved in this case the answer is a very likely no.

I had read Alan Segal’s long piece in the Columbia Spectator criticizing Prof. Abu El-Haj’s work and it seemed to be well reasoned to me.

I’m probably not the right person to ask. Every quote I’ve read fr. Segal seems precisely the opposite to me. He seems to be rehashing all the claims by her detractors like Hugh Fitzgerald, Lassner & Joffe. Esp. since Segal’s own academic field has nothing to do w. either anthropology or archaeology I didn’t feel he was a serious critic. So I didn’t pay too much attention to him. The only diff. was that he’s actually a Columbia faculty member which seems to have given him greater standing to criticize her in her detractors’ eyes.

The fact that at the end of Kramer’s article Segal invites Abu El Haj to debate in his classroom confirms to me his lack of seriousness. The tenure battle is over. He has lost, yet he still wants to continue it. Segal to me is like a minor Dershowitz–a wind up toy who keeps saying the same things ad infinitum/ad nauseum.

“Nadia Abu El Haj’s ultimately successful battle for tenure at Barnard College”? It was not Nadia’s battle. She—sensibly—ignored it, as did—properly—Barnard and Columbia. The tenure decision was made, as it should be, on the basis of a careful review of research, service, and teaching.

That’s all well & good in Nadia’s particular situation where she had the absolute support of her department and the university administration plus a stellar academic record. She in effect didn’t need to worry. But what about other academics who may be more borderline? What about administrations like DePaul which are willing to allow external factors to intervene in such decisions (cf. Finkelstein)?

I don’t think it’s as neat & pretty as you’re making it out to be. I’m not sure that Nadia entirely “ignored it.” I’m sure she wished she could’ve ignored it. But when people are lying about you right & left & potentially endangering yr career–how do you entirely ignore this? Maybe you & Nadia are made of sterner stuff than I. If so, more power to you.

Does the article addresses claims that Prof. Bu El-Haj “knows very little, if any, Hebrew.”

As I wrote above, if you want to cast aspersions on Abu El Haj’s academic record please do a search of this site BEFORE you present these aspersions as fact. In fact, the issue of whether or not she knows Hebrew has been addressed here and elsewhere. She does in fact know Hebrew. She did in fact study Hebrew for quite some time. The fact that anyone could believe that someone writing about Israeli archaeology would presume, in a serious academic setting, to do so w/o knowing Hebrew is ludicrous. Don’t believe the propaganda that SPME puts out about Abu El Haj.

This is very interesting.  I had read Alan Segal’s long piece in the Columbia Spectator criticizing Prof. Abu El-Haj’s work and it seemed to be well reasoned to me.  I had no idea that it had been discredited.  Is there anyplace I could read the basis for that discrediting?  (Predictably, the comments to the Spectator piece fall back on namecalling rather than addressing his criticisms.)