University Professor Doug Card has had a rough summer.
While many of his colleagues were busy teaching summer classes or vacationing, Card spent three months trying to convince a New York columnist to retract allegations of anti-Semitism and academic unfairness.
Card, an adjunct sociology professor at the University, was one of six instructors across the nation branded anti-Jewish by Daniel Pipes, an author and regular columnist for the New York Post and the Jerusalem Post. In a June 25 article entitled “Extremists on Campus,” Pipes and co-author Jonathan Schanzer said Card called Israel “a terrorist state,” said Israelis were “baby killers” and forced students to agree with an anti-Jewish viewpoint when taking the final exam in a fall 2001 Social Inequality class. Pipes also has the article archived on his Web site, www.campuswatch.org, which many experts say blacklists American professors that Pipes considers anti-Jewish.
Card said he was amazed someone would take issue with his teaching because of the measures he takes to present both sides of any issue. Pipes, a well-known author on Middle East affairs and Schanzer, who contributed to the article, cited testimony from a single Jewish student in Card’s class of 200 students as the source of their information against the professor. The student, who Card refused to identify, has ignored an interview request by the Emerald.
“You just don’t go out and attack someone without checking out the news sources,” said Card, who has enlisted the help of the local religious community, other students in his class and University faculty to prove he never made the statements Pipes and Schanzer are accusing him of making.
“It’s not just about me — it’s about our University,” Card said. “We don’t want to be known as a racist school.”
Card said he was alerted of the allegations June 25, when an angry reader wrote an e-mail to University President Dave Frohnmayer and the sociology department, demanding that Card be reprimanded for his teaching. The professor has written more than a dozen e-mails to Pipes and Schanzer requesting a retraction, but the two authors are standing by their words.
“Prof. Card has been working to get various individuals to retract or amend their views and to speak for him as a fine human being,” Pipes and Schanzer wrote in an e-mail to the Emerald. “We have yet to find convincing evidence, however, that he did not say what we attributed to him in our New York Post article.”
Although the authors of the article don’t believe Card, others do. Islamic, Christian and Jewish leaders in the community have all vouched for Card. So has University Senate President Greg McLauchlan and other Jewish students from the sociology department. Most recently, Card has garnered the support of Hal Applebaum, executive director of Oregon Hillel, which promotes Jewish student life in Oregon universities.
“This was really a professor’s word against a student’s word,” said Applebaum, who now is urging Pipes and Schanzer to do more thorough research after reading a letter Friday written by another of Card’s students.
Pipes said he started checking Card’s story after the professor questioned the charges against him. The columnist, however, has not named a single other definitive source that convinces him of Card’s innocence.
The lack of sources used by Pipes and Schanzer is troubling to University of Arizona Professor Amy Newhall, the executive director of the 2,400 member Middle East Studies Association.
“Academics generally want to have the free reign of debate going on — it would be unfair to rely on the testimony of one student,” Newhall said. “In a class of 200, there will always be someone who’s disgruntled.”
Rabbi Yitzhak Husbands-Hankin of Eugene Temple Beth Israel said he’s convinced it’s time for Pipes to own up to what Husbands-Hankin feels is a mistake.
“Journalists have an obligation to retract mistakes — and I think he should issue a retraction,” said Husbands-Hankin, who estimated he’s sent 10 e-mails to Pipes and Schanzer demanding action on their part.
Schanzer said he’s tired of the whole affair.
“If he had left this alone, these allegations would have been swept under the rug long ago,” he said.
Schanzer added that the two authors offered to issue an apology if Card would write a sweeping editorial condemning violence against Israel. Card refused, saying it sounded like blackmail.
While Card isn’t ruling out a lawsuit, he still thinks the authors might change their minds.
“I really hope Pipes is willing to make a fair resolution to this,” said Card, who would like a 2- to 3-sentence apology printed in the New York Post. “He’s got to make it clear that he’s wrong and he’s sorry about it.”