THE CONTINUING ANTI-SEMITISM CONTROVERSY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Columbia to review anti-Semitism charges
Faced with a growing controversy over charges of bias and intimidation of Israeli and Jewish students by professors at Columbia University, the university's president announced Wednesday that Columbia immediately would set up a committee to review student allegations and overhaul the university's grievance process.

In late October, Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, asked Provost Alan Brinkley to investigate the accusations, which were given a boost by a professionally produced video of students talking about incidents of classroom bias in Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

In that film, called "Columbia Unbecoming," students charged that faculty members in the school's Middle East classes use their positions to promote anti-Zionist activism, discourage free intellectual discourse on the Israeli-Arab conflict and vilify Israeli students. One student recounted a professor telling his class, "The Palestinian is the new Jew, and the Jew is the new Nazi."

The controversy roiling Columbia has intensified in the month and a half since Brinkley's appointment, with defenders of the accused professors charging the film's backers with slander. On Monday, Brinkley recommended that Bollinger act immediately to address the complaints.

"Our commitment to freedom of inquiry lies at the heart of what we are undertaking here," Bollinger wrote Wednesday in an open letter to the Columbia community. "The outcome of extensive and careful discussions is a decision to convene an ad hoc faculty committee to listen to, and when appropriate, investigate student complaints."

The five-member ad hoc committee will serve until a permanent panel can be established and upon conclusion will submit its report to Columbia's vice president for the School of Arts and Sciences, Nick Dirks. Floyd Abrams, a visiting professor at Columbia's School of Journalism and a well-known attorney on cases involving freedom of speech, will serve as the committee's adviser.