College and University Monitor

Columbia has now appointed Timothy Mitchell professor of Arab studies. But this is not the only position from which he would be prone to bias against Zionist students and especially students, professors and other scholars from Israel. You see he is also slated to take up the very important role of director of graduate studies. Mitchell has already put himself on record as favoring a boycott of Israeli universities and Israeli academics. Can Bollinger guarantee that, given Mitchell's ideological commitments against the Israeli academy, he would admit Israeli graduate students to the Columbia program, vote to appoint Israeli scholars to academic posts in his department, even allow scholarly meetings at which men and women from Israeli universities would appear and present? Of course, Bollinger cannot guarantee it. He probably doesn't even have the guts to confront Mitchell on the matter.