Douglasksmith.com
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Douglas K Smith
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This week the media revealed that a political scientist named Juan Cole was denied a professorship at Yale in what sounds like unusual circumstances. Cole (currently tenured prof at Michigan) is evidently very highly regarded as a scholar. He was specifically recruited by Yale and was approved by the two committees that, if I understand it, are most often the most critical for such hirings. His name was then passed up to a higher committee for, again, what is described as typically a formality. But, in between the approvals and what turned out to be a rejection by this higher committee, a concerted effort was mounted against Cole, an effort marked in part by deceit and lies about him.
The higher committee has now rejected Cole and there is a strong appearance that the result happened through some combination of fear of lost alumni money and acquiescence in accusations that Cole is an anti-Semite.
Yale folks knew from the beginning about Cole's scholarly excellence as well as his controversial role in public affairs as related to Iraq, Israel etc. If he was 'too hot', he never should have been recruited let alone approved by the two usually determinative committees.
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