From a Columbia “teach-in” on “academic freedom” (which somehow involves “the plight of Palestinian refugees” and the “corporatization of America):
“There is a nationwide campaign against the autonomy of universities in the broadest sense … based on the utterly spurious assumption that universities are stronghold of radical and liberal beliefs,” charged Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of Arab studies,* loudly banging on the podium with his fist.
*The very fact that Khalidi is the “Edward Said professor of Arab Studies” should tell you something. Given that Said had no academic training in Arab Studies, was hired as an English and Comparative Literature professor, spent most of his later academic years not doing research in his field, but as a pro-Palestinian propagandist who thought the PLO was too moderate, lied about his origins (claiming to be a Palestinian refugee from Jerusalem when he was actually raised in a wealthy Cairo family), and yet somehow became one of Columbia’s most respected and feted professors can’t exactly be explained by Columbia’s right-wingedness.
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