March 31, 2005

This faculty committee was badly stacked against the students From Powerline: Last year, several Jewish students at Columbia University reported that they had been intimidated by professors of Middle Eastern studies both in and out of class. Now, according to the New York Times, a Columbia University panel has found that one professor, Joseph Massad, did engage in such conduct, and that another, George Saliba, made a "regrettable" personal reference to a Jewish student's appearance. In Saliba's case, however, the panel thought that his remark -- that the student had no claim to the land of Israel because her eyes are green -- more likely was "integral to an argument" he was making than an act approaching intimidation. The NY Sun has more: According to one student, senior Ariel Beery, one of the campus's most outspoken critics of the professors, a Columbia spokeswoman told him that students were not being shown the report yesterday "for your own good." Late last night, however, after some of the students who made the charges demanded to see the report, the administration relented and showed it to them. "The report only focuses on three incidents, and we brought to them a lot more incidents that were not reported and they made no mention of them," Mr. Beery said. The public complaints, aired in a documentary video, "Columbia Unbecoming," produced by a pro-Israel group based in Boston, have focused national attention on the treatment of Jewish students and how Israel is portrayed and researched at one of the nation's most prestigious universities. The committee's report - four months in the making and the product of dozens of interviews with students and faculty members - represents a significant victory for Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures. One of the incidents not mentioned by the report involves assistant professor Joseph Massad, who allegedly told a class that it was Israelis - not Germans or Palestinians - who shot to death the Israeli Olympic athletes in the 1972 Munich Massacre, according to one of Mr. Massad's former students. UPDATE: The David Report: “Biased committee ignores facts, protects its own” 10:52:04 AM

Microsoft Launches Mobile Video Downloads PC World - Microsoft has launched a video download service that offers daily television programming, entertainment clips, and other digital content for viewing on Windows Mobile-based devices, it says. 10:20:08 AM

Doctor describes injuries to Canadian woman by Iranian authorities CBC - Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi showed signs of being savagely beaten when she was brought to a Tehran hospital in 2003, said an emergency room doctor on duty at the time. Shahram Azam, a former staff physician in Iran's defence ministry, said he examined Kazemi, the 54-year-old Iranian-born Montrealer, early on June 27, 2003, according to reports published in the Globe and Mail and Montreal's La Presse. Kazemi had been arrested four days earlier while photographing a demonstration outside Tehran's Evin prison. She died in Iranian custody in July 2003. Iran's government admitted she'd been beaten but maintains her death was accidental. An Iranian security agent was charged and acquitted of killing her. According to Azam, who now lives in Canada, Kazemi's entire body had strange markings all over it. Azam described massive bruising around her head and ears. Her skull had been fractured and her nose broken. Two fingers were also broken and were missing fingernails. Kazemi also had severe abdominal bruising and showed evidence of being flogged on the legs. There were also signs of a "very brutal rape," according to the doctor. Azam, who recently received political asylum in Canada, intends to tell his story at a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday. He fled Iran last August, going first to Finland, then Sweden, before contacting Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi. With the help of Canadian lawyers, Hachemi helped Azam and his family get to Canada. This month Azam received landed immigrant status as a refugee sponsored by the Canadian government. Azam told the Globe he wants to renew worldwide attention on Kazemi's case. He hopes it will ultimately lead to the "indictment" of Iran's Islamic Republic.  9:56:45 AM

Terri Schiavo dies Newsday, NY - The attorney for Terri Schiavo's husband says the brain-damaged woman has died, the Associated Press reported. 8:48:53 AM