[NYTr] Embattled Barnard Anthropologist Is Awarded Tenure

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Andy Pollack - Nov 5, 2007


The New York Times - Nov 3, 2007


Embattled Barnard Anthropologist Is Awarded Tenure

By ALAN FINDER

An assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College whose
scholarship on the use of archaeology in Israel has attracted both
fierce criticism and scholarly support has been approved for tenure,
Barnard officials said in a statement released yesterday.

The professor, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who was born in America and is of
Palestinian descent, contended in her first book, “Facts on the
Ground,” that Israeli archaeologists searched for an ancient Jewish
presence to help build the case for a Jewish state. In their quest, she
wrote, they sometimes used bulldozers, destroying the remains of Arab
and other cultures.

Her bid for tenure set off petitions supporting and opposing her
candidacy; some opponents accused her of shoddy scholarship, while some
supporters said her opponents were engaged in an ideological witch hunt.

Barnard officials said in their statement that Dr. Abu El-Haj had
passed a rigorous tenure review by scholars from Barnard and Columbia
University, as well as independent scholars in her field. Tenure,
college officials said, “gives scholars the liberty to advance ideas,
regardless of their political impact, so that their work may be openly
debated and play a critical role in shaping knowledge in the scholar’s
academic field.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company