Backhanded Endorsements of Campus Watch

Just yesterday, I published "An Inadvertent Endorsement of Campus Watch," an exposé of Laura Bier, an assistant professor of Middle East studies, and how she pseudonymously bemoans the impact of Campus Watch on her and her colleagues' lives:

I think about the articles I won't write and the book I won't publish if I inadvertently take a wrong step and have to spend all of my time defending my integrity as a scholar and a teacher to the university administration. … I talk all the time with untenured friends and colleagues about how our attempts to be cautious in the classroom too often translate into self-censorship.

Three other inadvertent endorsements of Campus Watch quickly followed, spurring the idea of keeping an informal tab on these as they appear.

Hatem Bazian, University of California at Berkeley: A blog entry dated Apr. 17, "Aljazeera Hosts San Francisco Arab Americans," reports on an Al-Jazeera show:

Dr. Bazian spoke about the pressure faced by professors teaching Middle Eastern politics or history. He said he knew of students in his classroom who attended just so they could write down what he says, essentially spying on him, and transmitting that information to other private organizations. These include the infamous Campus Watch network which was founded by known Islamophobe Daniel Pipes as well as the likes of David Horowitz who recently authored a book entitled "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America." Both the organization and the book are essentially are [sic] witch hunt against any academic that dares to provide a human side of the Middle East, more specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want to "black list" these professors, ruin their reputation, and eventually remove them from their positions in some of the most prestigious universities in America. Taking their statements out of context, these Islamophobic pop stars are attempting to muffle dialogue at the most important institutions of our time: universities. Dr. Bazian openly discusses this intimidation and the students also provide their own accounts of such abuse.

Beshara Doumani, University of California at Berkeley: They must really be feeling the heat at Berkeley. The following oped, dated today but reporting on a talk given April 5, comes from "Redefining Academic Freedom," in The Poly Post, the student paper at the California State Polytechnic, Pomona:

Beshara Doumani claimed that collegiate academic freedom is at risk. His point: politicians, not academics, are gaining the power to redefine academic freedom in universities. … politicians, using Web sites and coalition campaigns claiming to fight for academic freedom are actually targeting liberal professors who question and criticize mainstream viewpoints. …

Political organizations such as Campus Watch, an online project of the Middle East Forum, have also reverted to various methods of surveillance to keep tabs on "radical" professors. With a more defined agenda, specifically monitoring Middle Eastern studies, the group maintains and publishes dossiers on professors they feel are radical for providing dissenting opinions regarding our government's role in the Middle East.

Although Campus Watch claims its aim is to improve the state of Middle Eastern Studies, much of their research targets professors providing criticism of the Israeli movement in particular. Doumani is among those professors that Campus Watch is watching. …

In the recent article, "Policing Thought after 9/11," published by the campus newspaper at UC Berkeley, Doumani said efforts are being made to privatize Middle Eastern studies and "establish think tanks that will provide for the press and government a ready stable of ‘experts‚' who can shape knowledge about the Middle East." During the Campus Forum, Doumani made clear his thoughts that sites like Campus Watch are not really out to protect academic freedom at all but are instead "making charges of anti-Semitism when teachers criticize the Israeli movement. They're making it treasonous for professors to question the prevailing reasons."

For the record, I don't believe Campus Watch has called any professor antisemitic nor treasonous, though we do freely point out how many of them seek the destruction of Israel and are hostile to the United States.

Laurie A. Brand, University of Southern California: In a mild-appearing book titled Citizens Abroad: Emigration and the State in the Middle East and North Africa, this professor of international relations uses her preface to spew venom against the U.S.-led war in Iraq and then heroically stand up to Campus Watch:

The last several years of often vicious attempts to intimidate members of the academy, particularly the Middle East Studies community, have been both disturbing and angering. In the context of a country led by an administration that has brought us Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and Falluja, I have continued to wonder whether endeavors such as writing this book serve a larger purpose. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that no matter how grim the circumstances, engaging in honest scholarship, whatever the topic, stands as a protest against those who seek to curb the polyphony of the academy. Moreover, ideally, our scholarly endeavors should also energize us and inform our work for change outside the university. Thus, in the current political climate in the United States, my research and writing, along with my teaching and my efforts in the realm of public education, constitute my modest contribution to the voice of the larger community saying ‘‘no" to the trampling of free speech, ‘‘no" to violations of civil and human rights, and ‘‘no" to occupation and preemptive war.

These three build on earlier endorsements, starting with a purple-prose statement of our accomplishments:

Miriam Cooke, Duke University: In the conclusion to a lengthy August 2005 article mainly about Campus Watch, "Contesting campus watch: Middle East studies under fire," Cooke writes:

Campus Watch is the Trojan horse whose warriors are already changing the rules of the game not only in Middle East studies but also in the US University as a whole. They threaten to undermine the very foundations of American education. Their project must be challenged.

Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, "Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism."

Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, Purdue University: The co-authors of Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2005) generally approve of Michel Foucault – but not his enthusiasm for the Iranian revolution. In an epilogue that looks at later leftist responses to Islamism, Afary and Anderson criticize Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn for their benign attitudes toward the attacks on 9/11 and, on pp.169-70, they blame Campus Watch for this attitude not being more heavily criticized on the left:

Chomsky and Zinn refrained from expressions of admiration or support for the attacks themselves, seeming to regard them as understandable, but nonetheless criminal. This did not prevent crude attacks by right-wing groups like Campus Watch, which accused these critics, and university faculty generally, of supporting terrorism. Such McCarthyite tactics led many leftists and progressives to close ranks, making the needed critique of positions like those of Chomsky and Zinn harder to carry out.

Comment: Putting aside the "crude attack" on Campus Watch in this passage, let me attempt to parse its logic. Because Campus Watch criticized Middle East studies specialists for work that it found shoddy, irrelevant, dogmatic, and extremist, it is partly responsible for leftists not adequately condemning Al-Qaeda? That's a good one. If the fragile leftists had not been criticized by us they would have come down harder on the likes of Chomsky and Zinn? To which I ask: Why not also blame Campus Watch for the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina? (April 18, 2006)

David Faris, University of Pennsylvania: A teaching assistant, he slurs Campus Watch, fantasizes about a "Campus Watch spy" (for the record, Campus Watch has never sent any student to keep track of an instructor), and generally testifies to the fear that Campus Watch inspires in a leftist's heart (for a sample of Faris' whacky views, see his analysis of George W. Bush under the edifying title, "Look at this pathetic blowhard").

At Penn, one of my semesters as a teaching assistant was deeply marred by an undergraduate Campus Watch spy who admitted on Day One that he was there only to monitor the professor. Not only did this monomaniacal and possibly disturbed student routinely and viciously interrupt lectures, but he made one of my discussion sections a living hell for the other students with his pedantic objections to every single piece of material that didn't portray Israeli history as all puppy dogs, rainbows and hugs. My evaluations were full of things like, "I would have really enjoyed this class if it wasn't for that one unbearable jerk. You know the one."

(January 10, 2007)

Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania: In a review of what she calls Joseph Massad's "brilliant and scholarly work," Norton implicitly refers to the work of Campus Watch when she states that "Those who work in Middle Eastern studies know the temptation to self-censorship and the costs that too often attach to honest scholarship in this field." (May 31, 2007)

Lisa Anderson, professor of international relations at Columbia University, complains to Inside Higher Ed about Campus Watch and its allies:

Anderson just finished 10 years as dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and the last few years of her tenure found her among the Middle Eastern studies scholars who were regularly criticized by some pro-Israel groups for alleged anti-Israel or anti-American bias. The attacks have "deeply damaged the research community," Anderson said.

Anderson said that young scholars of Middle Eastern literature or history (she stressed that she wasn't talking about those who study policy or the current political climate) are finding themselves "grilled" about their political views in job interviews, and in some cases losing job offers as a result of their answers. …

Outside groups that are critical of those in Middle Eastern studies, she said, are shifting the way scholarship is evaluated. "People are reading work not for what it says, but for who it serves," she said.

(August 15, 2007)

Elliot Colla, associate professor of comparative literature at Brown University and a translator of contemporary Arabic literature, writes in "Academic Freedom And Middle East Studies" that

Undeniably, the careers of many of our colleagues [in Middle East studies] have been tragically affected by the coordinated slanders of monitoring groups such as Campus Watch.

(September 1, 2007)

Laurie King-Irani of the Electronic Intifada website joins her colleagues to build up the grand and terrible reputation of Campus Watch:

As for the banning and silencing of people in academe, it really exists and it really dampens public debate and discourse, and thus, harms the practice of effective citizenship. For those of you who don't know about it, check out Daniel Pipes' McCarthy-esque CampusWatch.org.

Once more, for the record: (1) Criticism does not equal censorship. (2) I am relentlessly criticized; why should I not have a right of reply? (3) Politicians, actors, athletes, and journalists are constantly assessed, why not Middle East studies specialists? (4) Campus Watch, a small research project, has nothing in common with Senator Joseph McCarthy's use of the state apparatus to bring down those he alleged to be communists. (October 16, 2007)

Saree Makdisi, professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, in an oped titled "Academic freedom at risk on campus," accuses Campus Watch and like-minded institutions of plunging the American university into an orgy of crises.

Over the past few years, Israel's U.S. defenders have stepped up their campaign by establishing a network of institutions (such as Campus Watch, Stand With Us, the David Project, the Israel on Campus Coalition, and the disingenuously named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East) dedicated to the task of monitoring our campuses and bringing pressure to bear on those critical of Israeli policies. … Outside interference by Israel's supporters has plunged one U.S. campus after another into crisis. They have introduced crudely political—rather than strictly academic or scholarly—criteria into hiring, promotion and other decisions at a number of universities, including Columbia, Yale, Wayne State, Barnard and DePaul. … Our campuses are being poisoned by an atmosphere of surveillance and harassment. However, the disruption of academic freedom has grave implications beyond campus walls.

(October 16, 2007)

Marcy Newman, professor in the English Department at Boise State University, has an alarming assessment of Campus Watch in an article titled "Academic Freedom and Islam at Boise State":

There is a serious threat to education looming over American college campuses since September 11. This threat does not come from inside academic institutions themselves, but from right-wing fringe groups predominantly made up of Christian and Jewish Zionists who have made it their mission to censor speech on campus, in the classroom and in co-curricular activities - in addition to attempts made at intimidating faculty members who speak critically of U.S. foreign policy or who are critical of Israel. Such campaigns began with Daniel Pipes' Campus Watch.

Comment: Newman's fear of a "serious threat to education looming over American college campuses" is only one step shy of Miriam Cooke's alarm that Campus Watch threatens "to undermine the very foundations of American education." (October 18, 2007)

Seth Wessler, a research associate with the Applied Research Center in New York, wrote a long and inaccurate piece about the Khalil Gibran International Academy, "Silenced in the Classroom," that also manages inaccurately to credit Campus Watch with an accomplishment it cannot and does not claim: "Numerous professors have apparently lost their tenure bid as a result of Pipes and his cohorts." Of course, Wessler mentions no names. (November 1, 2008)

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