Campus Reruns: Columbia Unbecoming

A look back at the last time the MESAAS department was under fire.

By Praharsha Gurram

Calling Columbia Unbecoming (2004) a film would be a stretch; it’s more a loosely organized collection of interviews and anecdotes by Jewish students (and the Jewish Chaplain at Columbia, Rabbi Charles Sheer), alleging mistreatment or hostility from three professors in the MEALAC (now known as MESAAS) department: Joseph Massad, Hamid Dabashi, and George Saliba. It was produced by The David Project, a pro-Israel organization affiliated with Hillel, and arose out of conversations with students recounting incidents in MEALAC classes and talks between 2002 and 2004. At least six versions of the movie exist, of varying lengths, and different students included. Most Columbia students at the time probably didn’t even get a chance to watch the thing—the film was initially only meant to be shown to university officials—as screenings were private. The first screening for undergraduates was attended by over 400 students, and the Chaplain of the University even hosted a debate immediately afterwards with the audience. The film I watched, which was posted on YouTube in 2020, was likely the longest one, at 37 minutes long.

Despite being more than 20 years old, it felt incredibly modern: The focus was on highly specific and jarring student anecdotes, which wouldn’t feel out of place reformatted as social media posts. Every moment would roughly start in the same way: a student tries to question a professor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by bringing up a pro-Israeli perspective, which inevitably elicits a hostile response. Countless described anger and dismissiveness when bringing up a pro-Israeli viewpoint, from raised voices to jokes at their experience. More broadly, the students suggested that these professors, and the MELAC department generally, were intentionally intimidating them to silence Zionist voices in their classrooms, and turn their unwitting peers against Israel.

Illustration by Selin Ho

In October of 2004, the New York Sun would break the story of Columbia Unbecoming, by reporting that it had been screened to both Barnard and Columbia officials. The controversy would spread like wildfire from there: City politicians demanded investigations, student groups were formed in support of every imaginable position, and all three professors contested the accounts in the film, with Professor Massad being particularly forceful in his critique.

The University, caught flat footed, put together a committee that December to investigate the claims being made in the documentary, literally named the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee. Three incidents discussed in the film would end up being the focus of the committee’s report: Firstly, a student recounted being told by Professor Saliba that they have no claim to being Semitic on account of their green eyes; secondly, a student, who had previously served in the IDF, was questioned by Professor Massad on how many Palestinians they had killed; thirdly, a student who defended Israeli actions in Professor Massad’s class, and proceeded to be shouted at and urged her to leave. 

In March of 2005, with over 60 interviews, the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee issued their report. It broadly cleared all of the professors: It argued that the student most likely took Professor Saliba’s comments out of context (especially considering they came at the end of a 45 minute discussion); it acknowledged that the confrontation with the former IDF student probably happened, but was outside of a class context; and it criticized Professor Massad’s decision to scream at the student in class, but maintained his general good nature towards students. As its key action proposal, it recommended an updated grievance procedure for students, so that student complaints could be handled within the university (rather than privately produced tell-alls). 

No one at Columbia was truly satisfied with the report: It attracted criticism from progressives and free speech advocates who claimed it didn’t go far enough in defending the three professors, along with anger from pro-Israeli voices who felt it wasn’t scathing enough in its critique. But for the most part, the controversy died down after its publication. All three professors took leaves of absence in the fall of 2005, and an Israeli Studies professorship was created in the MELAC department. Professor Massad would eventually gain tenure in 2009. 

Yet, for all the ways in which the report was exhaustive, it refused to speak about an essential element of Columbia Unbecoming. While watching the film, I was struck by the three moments they chose to cover in detail, but they were mainly outliers: For the majority of students involved, the primary critique wasn’t merely of hostility towards their pro-Israeli viewpoints, but a consistent bias against Israel in the first place. They were looking to address their frustration with MEALAC professors and courses they believed were misrepresenting Middle Eastern history, and peddling anti-semitism in the process. The report acknowledges this—in fact, it states that “the majority of complaints focused on what a number of students perceived as bias in the content of particular courses”—but the committee decided their “charge did not encompass the examination of such matters.” Instead, it reminds that “the adequacy of a faculty member’s scholarship and teaching should, however, in the normal course of university life, be stringently assessed by hiring and review committees,” and “the adequacy of courses and syllabi should be judged by departments and School Committees on Instruction.”

By all standards, this conclusion was a fair one—it isn’t the place of an outside committee to dig through courses, or faculty. But by eliding these fundamental arguments about professor bias to instead focus on moments of hostile confrontation, the report, and Columbia, was able to reframe the question: A discussion of what constitutes acceptable and factual history became a discussion of classroom management; what a professor can teach students became how a professor ought to teach students. While the university dealt with the technical issue, the fundamental problems were basically ignored.

And so, 20 years on, this question remains much more interesting and contentious. Ultimately, it explains the renewed focus on the MESAAS department by the Trump administration, which declared that the department was in need of an academic receivership. In retrospect, Columbia Unbecoming wasn’t merely a flashpoint, but a genuine inflection point, where critique of a professor’s political views became legitimate grounds for their removal, and content that was disagreeable to students was enough to be filmed and broadcast to the world. Our university bucked the genuine crisis on hand, which struck at the heart of what an education is allowed to be; in doing so, they merely began to dig their own grave. Once MESAAS was tinged with claims of anti-semitism, it became difficult to wash off. The second time around, the university’s defence of the department was laughable—then-President Armstrong offered to appoint a Senior Vice Provost to oversee the MESAAS department within a week of Trump’s letter. 

In an ironic twist, this decision would lead to an entanglement with Columbia Unbecoming. Bari Weiss was a student at Columbia during the whole affair: She rose to prominence and honed her political instincts on fighting anti-semitism as a leading voice for the Jewish students interviewed in the film. Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of the Free Press, the publication that leaked former President Armstrong’s private zoom meeting with faculty where she rebuked much of her public acquiescence to the Trump administration. Days later, President Armstrong would resign; the past reverberates in uncanny ways.