Tuesday, February 15, 2005
...Rashid Kalidi instructing NY City public school teachers on Middle East issues. (via LGF)
Khalidi Is Tapped To Teach Teachers About Middle East
The professor, Rashid Khalidi, is director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. His professorship is named in memory of Edward Said, a divisive scholar, and is paid for in part with a donation from the United Arab Emirates.
Mr. Khalidi is one of more than a dozen Columbia professors expected to give city public-school teachers an overview of the history and culture of the Middle East, as part of a professional-development course offered by the city's Department of Education...
...The education department is offering the course with Columbia despite a scandal that has been unfolding in recent months at the university, stemming from students' complaints that some professors in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture treated pupils who are sympathetic toward Israel with hostility.
When The New York Sun told some public officials about the course, many were outraged.
"I think it's an abomination," a member of the City Council from Brooklyn, Simcha Felder, said. "I am certain that once the administration is made aware of this, they will make sure that a person who has a record of being racist and anti-Semite is not a person who is educating educators who are educating our children."
He said the inclusion of some other lecturers in the course who have pro-Israel stances doesn't excuse the city department's subjecting public-school teachers to Mr. Khalidi's opinions.
One of the Democrats running for mayor, Rep. Anthony Weiner, said: "It's pretty outrageous that this guy is still teaching college students. For my money, this guy shouldn't even be teaching at Columbia, let alone being recruited to train our Board of Ed teachers. Anyone who refers to Israel as a racist and an apartheid state and claims that America has been brainwashed by Israel ... should not be on the city payroll."...
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Bad idea of the month....
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/3941
, p.73
Leave a comment to: Bad idea of the month...
Subscribe to This Thread Without Leaving a Comment
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!