"Blacklisting of Professors" - 13 Years Later

Submitted by Robert (United States), Oct 14, 2015 at 10:06

Dear Daniel Pipes,

On September 28, 2002, "The American Muslim" posted a list of eight (8) names which "your" Campus Watch allegedly "blacklisted."

In fact, however, you only named (in this article, "Extremists on Campus") only six (6) names, and only (3) are named by Shelia Musaji, its author.

"The site, Campus Watch at http://www.campuswatch.org has begun with an initial "blacklist" of? 8 professors and 14 universities that they consider biased and claim "fan the flames of disinformation, incitement and ignorance", and it proposes to maintain what it calls "dossiers" on professors and academic institutions deemed insufficiently pro-Israel, or too "soft" on Islam, and collect information from students regarding their professors' scholarly conclusions and political views. The dossiers themselves are flimsy and the conclusions drawn are from out of context quotes, innuendo and guilt by association.? The problem is that most of those incited to react by these materials will not read past the headlines. The professors are:? M. Shahid Alam, Northeastern University; Juan Cole, University of Michigan; Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University; John Esposito, Georgetown University; Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago; Joseph Massad, Columbia University; Ali Mazrui, State University of New York, Binghamton; Snehal Shingavi, University of California - Berkeley."

It would be interesting to erxplore, in detain and in a book, all these names; a careful study of these individuals as to their credentials, and alleged scholarly, academic, and media accomplishments.

But I wonder how the five (5) additional "professors" got on the list of Ms. Musaji - since you do not name them here. Furthermore, I do not know if these additional names you would put on your alleged "blacklist," Daniel "McCarthy" Pipes (ha, ha). Sorry, I couldn't resist the joke, even if it isn't a joking matter. But joking asside, I think it would be useful if we could in fact compile a "crackpot" list. For example, there is/was this professor who claimed that "white people" lived in caves and "black people lived under the Sun. His name was/is Leonard Jeffreies, and he became a tenured professor at City College, allegedly because the administration was very much in a hurry to fill a seat with a person of "color." This was, more or less, at the time when at least Harvard University did get a worthy individual, namely Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as wll as Prof. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.

Of course, it isn't easy to weed out "crackpots" when seeking diversity in the "soft sciences on college university campuses. That's probably why our cherished freedoms of speach and press are so important.

So, let's "deconstruct" the work of theses "scholars" in a "list" - of no more than ten (10) individuals.

In this context, it is important to recall that Joseph McCarthy was a government elected official serving in our United States Senate and participating in the Un-American Committe investigation before congress and on television. But Dr. Daniel Pipes is merely service in "civil sociaty," in an independent "think tank." This is exactly the right place to explore list of professors who belong to alleged questionable "schools of thought." And this is exactly what "The American Muslim" does - on other side - when it accuses (incorrectly) Daniel Pipes of of being "Joseph McCarthy."

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