Daniel Pipes reports after his speech at York University in Ontario, Canada: "The York University Faculty Association, a powerful and authoritative voice, issued a formal statement out of the blue accusing me of being 'committed to a racist agenda and a methodology of intimidation and harassment.' And: "My visit to York confirms, as if one needed more proof, that the North American university has become — in the words of Abigail Thernstrom — 'an island of repression in a sea of freedom.' [snip!] "No other institution — the media, the churches, the Parliament, the corporation — would treat a dissenting view in like fashion." http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id=6A999989-7589-4313-98A5-292548391641 --Orson
CampusWatch sorely needed Orson, I thank you for bringing this article up on the forum. Pipes certainly has a legitimate complaint. The way Jews are mistreated on campuses out here like CSU, San Francisco (without the police doing anything to their harrassers) is disturbing and alarming.
Modern European anti-Semitism did not begin in the gutter; it began in the universities. It was considered scientific, enlightened, progressive, hygienic. I wonder if some of the soft-on-Iraq hoolerei is really more veiled Jew-hatred than anything else--and, of course, veiled (sic) America-hatred as the ally of you-know-who in the Levant. Thanks, Orson.
I have been told that years ago McGill University had quotas on Jews. Morecai Richler, a Montreal Jew, wrote much of institutionalized anti-Semitism in Quebec particularly among the Parti Quebecois. I remember back to the 1970s when student communists (all three of them) had their public meetings. Nobody agreed with them nor raised an eyebrow when they protested whatever needed protesting. Intolerance by students of the opinion of others should be a serious offence. The free flow of information and opinions is what has made our societies and presumably our universities what they are. It is informative that a police detective warned the victim of intolerance not to be intolerant. Must I presume that Toronto police still tell rape victims that it was their fault? Under Canada's various hate (rarely applied) and human rights (often applied) laws, it is not a defence to believe that something you said is true. Indeed it has been determined that a fact can still be hate, even if it is true. In Canada, it is also apparently true that a minority member or a liberal cannot commit a hate crime.
No, our universities don't "rot". I do think that universities, despite their wearing political correctness on their sleeves, are often among society's least tolerant institutions. But I really don't see any wave of anti-Semitism on campus, either. Jews are numerically over-represented in both student bodies and faculty rosters, relative to their numbers in the general population. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is evidence against the proposition that they are victims of negative descrimination. Here in the SF Bay Area it seems that a great many campuses have a Jewish Studies program of some sort. There's an active movement to create and expand them. Again, this doesn't seem to be evidence that the academic world is unwilling to consider Jewish issues. In fact, it seems to bend over backwards to do so. DG1 suggests that Jews are mistreated at San Francisco State. I'm an SFSU graduate, and I never saw any evidence of that in my years there, or subsequently. There was one rather ugly incident in which a group of pro-Israeli activists tried to hold some kind of political event in the student union plaza and were accosted by a group of pro-Palestinian militants who tried to break up their event, resulting in some very hostile insults being exchanged and to some shoving before police arrived. There is no excuse for that, but there is also no excuse for trying to exploit the incident for political gain, suggesting that a small group of Palestinian militant assholes were somehow speaking for the whole campus. In reality, 90% of the campus (of all religions and ethnicities) just want to get their assignments done and get to class, and wish that activists would stop trying to import bitter Middle Eastern hatreds into a university half the world away.
Bill Dayson: “…there is also no excuse for trying to exploit the incident for political gain, suggesting that a small group of Palestinian militant [bleeped] were somehow speaking for the whole campus.” http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/73 Article quote: “Students sang peace songs, bore both Israeli and Palestinian flags, and wore T-shirts reading "PEACE" in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. And, for their trouble, they came within an inch of bodily harm. All they suffered was spit, death threats, and shock.” DG1: In San Francisco, just like the rest of California, death threats are not protected political speech, but rather are a violation of California Penal Code Section 422 “terrorist threats” – a felony. Article quote: “One department chairman remarked that the mere fact of a peace rally held by Jews was "provocative" - "like Sharon going to the Temple Mount." “ Article quote [from a Jewish SF State Professor]: “Not one administrator came to stand with us. I knew that if a crowd of Palestinian or Black students had been there, surrounded by a crowd of white racists screaming racist threats, shielded by police, the faculty and staff would have no trouble deciding which side to stand on." I will stand with the Jews. This is far too reminiscent of pre-war Germany.
Agree. People should leave their ridiculous politics at home and learn our ridiculous politics. Don't like the politics in North America - there are 6 other continents. I hear Antarctica is nice this time of year.
It ain't just North America: http://www.brandeis.edu/ajs/Anti-boycott.html Daniel Pipes has been a vocal defender of Islam since the early 1980s, when he (convincingly) argued that Judaism has even more in common with Islam than it does with Christianity. So no matter how you slice it (or how much one may disagree with his views on Israel), he's no Islamophobe. But I don't think he's being attacked for his pro-Israel stance, either; I think he's being attacked because of his CampusWatch site, which has "outed" a number of anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian professors at major universities. (I'm not familiar enough with his site to say how or if he distinguishes between the two categories, but I can see why folks might be concerned that at least one part of his site could put some academics in real danger by essentially lumping them together with terrorists; whatever the professors on his list petitioned for, I'm pretty sure it wasn't "I want to be mistaken for an Al-Qaeda supporter.") So while I'd certainly agree that there's an antisemitism problem in the West right now, I think (a) European universities have it worse than we do and (b) the Daniel Pipes situation is not a case in point. Cheers,
I have been told that years ago McGill University had quotas on Jews. That was common, as well, in the U.S. Jewish quotas in medical schools was great for medical schools in Italy and elsewhere.
But Tom... I agree with your last remark, Tom. However, I don't think that Pipes' campuswatch.org activities can explain the reported remark that he's "'committed to a racist agenda." (It could well explain the rest of the rebuke, though.) Others give intersting, thoughful, and illuminating remarks. Thank you all! And especially Tom's information and links; I 've been wondering.... For all who do not know the book "The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses"-- by lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate and Penn history Professor Alan Charles Kors--it makes for alarming reading. They also founded FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, in Philadelphia http://www.thefire.org/ The published magazine excerpt from "Shadow" is available online http://www.thefire.org/board.php3 "Thought Reform 101: The Orwellian implications of today's college orientation." Through first and second-hand reports, I know they've been doing a most commendable job of picking up the slack left behind when once venerabler orgs like the ACLU abandoned its founding classical liberal ideals in the early 90s. I commend both the book and FIRE to you. "Because Your Liberty is a Precious Thing," is their slogan. --Orson
