Peretz,

From everything that I have read, it does appear that denying this fellow tenure was the right thing to do.  

Still, even though it does appear to be a valid decision, personally, I never like to gloat about these kinds of things.  Tenure denial is not just a political show.  It touches upon this man's livelihood and capacity to earn a living.  I find no joy or reason to dance when these things happen.  Hopefully, you feel the same.

oh btw, over the past 11 years, I have been personallly/professionally involved in several tenure denials and each and every one, though justified, was sad.  No one who is involved in this process walks away unscathed.  I speak from experience.  I speak from the vantage point of humane responsibility.  

"Jamie Kirchick has written about his book Desiring Arabs, a study, such as it is, of the position of gays in the gay orbit and -- if you can believe it -- whether there actually are gays in the Arab world.  Massad's attitude seems to be "gay, oy vey." "

It's amazing that a reputable publishing house like Chicago University would have published this trashy anti-gay tirade.

I also don't feel sorry for someone whose scholarship amounts to, Jews are victimizers, and Arabs are victims. Let him go teach in Jordan. Given his antisemitic views he should feel right at home there.

I see no reason to feel sorry for Joseph Massad.  He was given a fine mind and a fine education.  Instead of using it to increase the store of the world's knowledge,  to become a scholar, he has used his position at Columbia to devalue the University, actually, to devaluse all universities by employing a convoluted post-modern rhetoric to assert his hatred of The United States, his hatred of Jews, and his hatred of  The West  - and to promote the insidious idea that there is no knowledge, only politics.

There are so many good people in the world to whom bad things have happened, including a great many Palestinians less blessed by fortune than Joseph Massad.   Why waste sympathy on a man who sets out only to hate and to destroy.

dianamuir,

I think you are confusing having a sense of gravity and sadness for the process and result - denial of tenure - with having pity or feeling sorry for the denied, be it Massad or anyone else.  What I can tell you from my prospective, as someone who has made this call and had this impact on another person's life, is that it is not a joyous or gloating event. I have this responsibility and though I may not entirely feel sorry for the denied, I do have a full sense of the weight and solemnity of the process and the decision.

No one I know who is vested with this kind of responsibility takes it lightly or celebrates after the call.  Anyone who does feel this has probably never been given the responsibility of this kind of decision...or shouldn't be given this power.

A trade-ff, perhaps, for granting tenure to Nadia Al-Haj....????

"A trade-ff, perhaps, for granting tenure to Nadia Al-Haj....????"

I hope not LISAH.

The two cases are alike only in that each isn't qualified to teach at Columbia.  

Showing Massad the door isn't going to change Nadia's qualifications.

dianamuir said: "I see no reason to feel sorry for Joseph Massad."

I am with you, Diana. A university isn't a welfare office.