Yikes.

It's a shame such extremist are somehow 'respected professors' at Columbia.

The controversy surrounding the bias endemic in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) and related departments has been covered extensively in the Columbia Spectator and New York Sun. LAst Sunday, the New York Daily News made this a front page story, coming down clearly against the leftist orthodoxy at Columbia.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/254925p-218295c.html
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1378

On Monday, there was a flurry of activity. The New York Sun ran an article according to which, MEALAC Chairman Hamid Dashibi asked Provost Brinkley for
protection against harm and "militant slander." An Israeli graduate student had the temerity to have written Dashibi a non-threatening letter, in which he questioned Dashibi's assertions and called the department chairman an anti-Semite. While Provost Brinkley wisely chose to ignore the request, it is chilling example of a professor trying to silence and perhaps destroy the academic career, of a dissenting student at Columbia.
http://www.campus-watch.org/pf.php?id=1382

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial by John Fund, where mentioned both the editorial in the Columbia Spectator on the need for intellectual
diversity and the controversy provoked by "Columbia Unbecoming".
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005928

Monday evening, in an Orwellian turn of event, the Columbia Student Solidarity Network and the Intercultural Resource Center held an event
protesting the "McCarthyite" and attacks on MEALAC.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/255394p-218699c.html

For additional stories, please go to the Campus Watch survey of Columbia University. Campus Watch is an organization that monitors Middle East
Studies at universities.
http://www.campus-watch.org/docs/cat/16

Please e-mail president Bollinger (bollinger@columbia.edu) to stand up for academic freedom, and to promote intellectual diversity.

Ron Lewenberg
Founding President,
Columbia College Conservative Club
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/conservative

Columbia is my alma mater and I have considerable affection for the school, but it has been a leftist bastion for many, many years.

For example, when I was a student in ancient times, there was a poll by Spectator, the student paper, of the 1972 election, which was won by Richard Nixon in a 49 state landslide, including New York, against George McGovern. Among Columbia undergraduates, however, the vote was 80-9 percent for McGovern, with the rest undecided.

The faculty was heavily leftist as well. Although there were some mainstream liberals and a few genuine moderates, I don't remember having a single conservative professor in four years. My freshman Contemporary Civilization professor, actually a pretty good guy in some ways, was a totally committed marxist, and interpreted each and every assigned reading from that perspective.

In light of the longstanding lack of ideological diversity, it wouldn't surprise me that has been a rise of anti-Israel, and indeed anti-Semitic, sentiment, as well.