Tag: Brooklyn College

Anti-Semitism at CUNY? At Brooklyn College? In the Department of Political Science?

Last spring, in response to claims and complaints of several pro-Israel groups, CUNY hired two attorneys, a former federal judge and former federal prosecutor, to investigate alleged anti-Semitism at CUNY. After six months of investigation—and God knows how many billable hours (partners at the firm where the two investigators work charge up to $1,000 an hour)—the investigators have issued their report. Among their findings: what anti-Semitism there is at CUNY (and some of the incidents documented here are genuinely anti-Semitic) has nothing to do with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Given that accusations against SJP were the main impetus for the complaint—the Zionist Organization of America, along with 35 New York elected officials, called for SJP to be suspended or banned from all CUNY […]

Positions Available at Brooklyn College

The Department of Political Science at Brooklyn College is looking for an instructor or instructors to teach the following two courses: POLS 1005: Guns, Money, and Politics: Introduction to American Government. 4 credits. M, W, 9:05-10:45. POLS 3410: Radical Political Thought. 3 credits. M, W, 11-12:15 Both classes are capped at 25. If you are interested in either or both of these positions, please contact Corey Robin, crobin@brooklyn.cuny.edu, right away, as the first class meets in ten days, on Monday, August 29. Please share this announcement widely.

When We Betray Our Students

A couple of months ago, at the beginning of the semester, I posted on Facebook a plea to my fellow faculty that they not post complaints there about their students. I said that I considered such public commentary a kind of betrayal, even when the students weren’t named. Yesterday, Gothamist reported that an undercover cop had been spying for months, if not years, on a group of Muslim students at Brooklyn College, leading to the arrest of two women last spring for allegedly planning to build a bomb. Set aside the problem of entrapment with these schemes. Set aside Mayor de Blasio’s promise to stop this kind of surveillance of Muslims in New York. Let’s focus instead on the leadership of CUNY […]

From the Department of You Just Can’t Make This Shit Up

The Brooklyn College Excelsior reports: Author, civil rights lawyer, and political commentator Alan Dershowitz spoke at an event Wednesday evening in the Woody Tanger Auditorium on academics and the Israel-Palestine conflict, and criticized campus departments that sponsored controversial events that he said were one-sided. … The Brooklyn College Israel Club hosted the event, entitled “Israel-Palestine: The Case for Nuance.” The Brooklyn College Department of Political Science, along with the Tanger Hillel at Brooklyn College, three other academic departments, and other groups all sponsored the event. … “I objected to the fact that several Brooklyn College departments sponsored anti-Israel events,” Dershowitz said in an interview with The Excelsior after the event.  “Any department should not sponsor controversial speakers unless they are prepared to sponsor both sides.” […]

How to Fight for Human Rights in the 21st Century

My department has an MA program in international affairs, which has attached to it the Human Rights in Iran unit. On Tuesday, February 24, at 6 pm, the human rights professionals who are part of the Unit will be hosting an exciting mini-clinic on how to run a human rights campaign. Faculty from our MA program will also be there to answer questions about our department and masters program. You have to register in advance; seating is limited. Check out this announcement below. * * * * *  Mini-Clinic with the Human Rights in Iran Unit: Twenty-First Century Tricks of the Trade for Running a Human Rights Campaign Almost everyone these days seems to be behind the idea of human rights.  But […]

A Palestinian Exception to the First Amendment

Steven Salaita spoke today at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. According to the YMCA, where the event was held, some 400 students, faculty, staff, and supporters turned up. Salaita opened with a statement. Here are some excerpts: My name is Steven Salaita. I am a professor with an accomplished scholarly record; I have been a fair and devoted teacher to hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students; I have been a valued and open-minded colleague to numerous faculty across disciplines and universities. My ideas and my identity are far more substantive and complex than the recent characterizations based on a selected handful of my Twitter posts. … Two weeks before my start date, and without any warning, I received a summary […]

I’ve Looked at BDS from Both Sides Now. Oh, wait…(Updated)

Last year, Eric Alterman criticized my department for co-sponsoring a panel on BDS “at which its [BDS’s] arguments would be presented without opposition or clarification from its opponents.” This year, Students for Justice in Palestine at Brooklyn College decided to give Alterman an opportunity to make good on his complaint. They invited him to debate Max Blumenthal on the question: “What would a just settlement of the Israel/Palestine issue be, and how can it be brought about?” Alterman’s response to their invitation? “No thanks.” That was it. To students at his very own college, some of whom might even be in his classes. Perhaps if the students agreed to pony up $10,000 to pay Alterman, he’d consider. It’s hard to […]

More Information on Brooklyn College Worker Ed Center

David Laibman, a professor emeritus of economics at Brooklyn College, has been circulating a critical response to my post about the Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education. I’d prefer not to get into the weeds of his various allegations; as he admits several times, he has no knowledge of most of the facts and events that led the Brooklyn College administration and the New York State Attorney General’s office to take the actions they have taken. But Professor Laibman does make two claims that merit a response: I have personal knowledge about the vicious and irresponsible behavior of the Department, in summarily firing the former Director of the CWE, and his secretary, and depriving the faculty and students, in […]

Please do not sign Brooklyn College Worker Ed Petition

A petition titled “Save Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education” is currently being circulated on the internet. As the interim director of that center, a former union organizer, a vocal advocate of labor rights, and a firm believer in worker education, I am asking people NOT to sign this petition. By way of background, the Graduate Center for Worker Education (GCWE) was historically run by a small group of faculty in my department (political science). In 2011, the department elected a new chair and a new executive committee, including myself. We discovered that the GCWE was suffering from severely compromised academic standards. We also found evidence of financial wrongdoing. The Brooklyn College administration took immediate action and removed the […]

What do Glenn Greenwald, Alan Dershowitz, and the Israeli UN Ambassador have in common?

Glenn Greenwald will be delivering the Brooklyn College political science department’s 39th annual Samuel J. Konefsky Memorial Lecture this year.  The topic of the lecture: “Civil Liberties and Endless War in the Age of Obama.” The lecture will be held on Monday, March 4, at 1 pm.  In the Gold Room (6th Floor) of SUBO, which is the student center building, located at Campus Road and 27th Street. The lecture is open to the public. Like Alan Dershowitz, a previous Konefsky Lecturer, Greenwald will be speaking alone. Like the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Greenwald will balance himself.

Where Does Mayor Bloomberg Stand on Academic Freedom?

This morning, Karen Gould, the president of Brooklyn College, issued an extraordinarily powerful statement in defense of academic freedom and the right of the political science department to co-sponsor the BDS event. I don’t have a link yet (will post when I do) but this is the critical part of her statement: First, however, let me be clear: Our commitment to the principles of academic freedom remains steadfast.  Students and faculty, including academic departments, programs, and centers, have the right to invite speakers, engage in discussion, and present ideas to further educational discussion and debate.   The mere invitation to speak does not indicate an endorsement of any particular point of view, and there is no obligation, as some have […]

The Question of Palestine at Brooklyn College, Then and Now

In 1942, Brooklyn College hired a young instructor to teach a summer course on Modern European history. Though academically trained, the instructor was primarily known as the author of a series of incendiary articles in the Jewish press on Jewish politics and Zionism. An active though ambivalent Zionist, the instructor did not shy from scorching criticism of the movement for Jewish settlement in Palestine. She had already come to some unsettling conclusions in private. In an unpublished essay, she compared the Zionists to the Nazis, arguing that both movements assumed that the Jews were “totally foreign” to other peoples based on their “inalterable substance.” She wrote in a letter that she found “this territorial experiment” of the Jews in Palestine […]

Keith Gessen, Joan Scott, and others weigh in on Brooklyn College controversy

My department at Brooklyn College—political science—is Ground Zero of a controversy over Israel/Palestine, academic freedom, and free speech. Early in January, we were asked by a student group, Students for Justice in Palestine, to co-sponsor a panel discussion on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). The panel features Omar Barghouti and world-renowned philosopher Judith Butler. We agreed to co-sponsor. Since then, things have exploded. The usual suspects—people like Alan Dershowitz and Dov Hikind—have weighed in; we’re being called anti-Semites, comparisons to the Holocaust are being made, and I got this lovely bit of hate mail: “Just writing to wish you and your family the worst…You are being a piece of f*cking trash, and you’re on the side of the […]

I Have the Most Awesome Students in the World. And You Can Help Them.

As some of you know, I have a day job as a professor. At Brooklyn College, where I teach political science. One of our cherished little secrets at Brooklyn College is that we have the most awesome undergraduates in the world. Listening to my students in class, I often feel like I’m teaching the 21st century’s New York Intellectuals: only instead of hailing from Odessa and Poland, they come from Nigeria, Grenada, Palestine, and Tajikistan. My students have gone onto Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford, graduate degrees at top universities in the US and elsewhere, transformative activism with labor unions, community groups, antiwar coalitions, Occupy, and more. I’m not the sentimental sort, but the simple truth is: I love these guys. […]