Michelle Steel Grills Columbia's President About Multiple Professors Accused Of Antisemitic Remarks

you recognized for five minutes thank you Dr Fox for over two decades Colombia's Middle Eastern South Asian and African studies department has been extremely hostile to Israel and Jewish students Professor Joseph M masad who vocally praised Hamas Hamas Professor Hamid dabashi who had has made numerous anti-semitic remarks including that Israelis have a Verity of character and that is born deep and structured to the skeletal bird you know I can't even pronounce b bra of its culture and Rashid khidi a professor of your University now and former PLO SP spokesperson called Columbia anti-Semitism task force bigots and Fanatics and right wiers and extremist this is all on the record and do you think this kind of conduct is appropriate and acceptable and what university took what kind of action that you took after these professors were talking about like this yes congresswoman steel thank you for that question uh before I answer answer it I know representative Hayes asked me to confirm in writing uh about ongoing investigations of some of the faculty that you've described so I just wanted to confirm now that both professors mad and Frankie are currently under investigation for discriminatory remarks uh so I just wanted to put that on the record uh for for this for this occasion on the broader point that you raise I what I would say is that just before you go that how about the other two professors I'm going to come to that so all three of them sorry which ones are you referring to uh so it's a professor Joseph masad yes and Professor Hamed tabashi and you hired Rashid khidi professor of your University that former PLO spokesperson we don't have any ongoing complaints around those other two professors but what I would say is since since I have been in this role which is I'm just entering my ninth month uh we have put in place mechanisms so that if faculty cross the line in terms of any harassing or discriminatory Behavior there will be consequences we can remove people from leadership roles we can we can discipline you know we can we can remove them from the classroom we can in some cases have uh removed them from Colombia altogether and we have several cases like that so so we are making sure that going forward faculty who cross the line uh and and discriminate or harass students uh on any issue uh will uh there will be consequences yeah you know what I'm not just making up this happened and this is the statement that we just took it out from the uh you know newspapers and other media so you really have to find out so nothing really happened these three University professors that what they were talking about Israelis and then let's just move then Columbia lumite have called on University Place the department into academic receivership as it has done for its English and anthropology departments will you consider placing the department into receivership yeah um I guess academic Department at Colombia are um there isn't really a a notion of receivership but what I would say is one of the things that I'm very committed to is we have a a broad offering of almost 50 courses on Israeli Jewish and Middle Eastern studies at Colombia but we also have an opportunity I think at this moment because so many students are interested and there's so much demand and need frankly for Education about this these issues that we are looking at expanding and hiring some new faculty to try and broaden our approach to make sure that we have some new and fresh thinking in in in the areas of Israeli Jewish and Middle East studies so what kind of broader thinking and what kind of expansion talking we will be hiring additional faculty going forward uh that will bring New Perspectives you're going to do all those background checks and their records though because your professors already talk about this kind of you know statements and this is not really acceptable we will we will do all the background checks that you would expect uh for our faculty because it's a privilege to teach at Colombia so it's not just English and anthropology department but do you consider the Middle Eastern South Asian and African studies Department balanced and well-run Department because over two decades they were extremely hostile to Israel thank you Miss steel they'll be we'll get answers uh to your questions

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Length: 5min 37sec (337 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024