Letters to the Editor
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‘Redeeming the Wayward University System’
Your article on anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj and the fight over her tenure left me dismayed [National, “Redeeming the Wayward University System,” November 28, 2006]. That such things happen at a college, say Columbia College, in this day and age is no shock, but at Barnard? Columbia coddled one star, Professor Edward Said, when questions about his autobiography, from which he claimed moral validation, came to the fore. Frustrating, but not unexpected. Columbia decided it too provocative to sign a declaration calling anti-Semitism, even when couched as anti-Zionism, unacceptable. Also typical. But Barnard always stood by its principles. President (or as we chanted at graduation “Judy!”). Shapiro signed that declaration. We were taught by word and model to support and champion what is ethical and honest whether it is in fashion or horribly out of it. If the examples from Nadia Abu El-Haj’s books are typical of her scholarship, there would be no justification for her to continue teaching, let alone be granted tenure. Not on grounds of scholarship, nor on grounds of morality.
LAURA ACKERMAN
Barnard College Graduate
New York, N.Y.
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