Brooklyn College Defends Controversial Book Choice

After being accused of attempting to indoctrinate students with a supposedly pro-Palestine book by alumnus Bruce Kesler, who wrote on his blog that he has written his alma mater out of his will, Brooklyn College is defending their now-controversial choice for their "Common Reader" program. The program encourages incoming students to read a common book and discuss the reading with each other and with the author during orientation, but they say students aren't even required to read the book. Below is the school's statement, sics and all:

Over these past years, the students have read BC author Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes, Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a novel/memoir about 9/11 and the loss of a father), Jonathan Lethem, The Disappointment Artist, Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpretation of Maladies, and Barak Obama, Dreams of My Father. Each year, the Common Reader has led to productive discussions of how others identify themselves and has led to self-discovery by entry-level students who were striving to improve their writing skills. The Common Reader experience emphasizes the book’s biographical, autobiographical or semi-autobiographical story rather than the various authors' individual political positions or world views.
The selection of Prof. Bayoumi's book was made by an academic committee and academic dean because it received rave literary reviews and because it contributes to the discussion of a subject that is pertinent to Brooklyn today - i.e., the stories of Brooklyn’s many immigrant communities who come from diverse areas and cultures of the world. The brief reading from the text and the question and answer session with the author is intended to encourage discussion about the specific subject matter of the novel and not about other books or articles he has written. Transfer students may attend the event, but the event and the reading are not required.

Bruce Kesler told the Daily News that the school's choice of "How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? Being Young and Arab in America" by Brooklyn College professor Moustafa Bayoumi "was a poor and insulting choice. I'm sure Brooklyn College is still a great avenue for education, but I don't think that I should send it any more money."

The National Association of Scholars backed him up, saying the book "aims to establish Arab and Muslim Americans as victims and indict American society for making them so. By assigning this book as the sole one to be read by incoming undergraduates, most of whom will have little of the knowledge needed to evaluate its claims, Brooklyn College opens itself to the charge that it is using what should be an important education experience for ideological goals - a charge which the evidence of our study indicates could be made against a great many other colleges and universities as well."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jaya Saxena in News on August 31, 2010 1:13 PM

Comments [rss]

Xwendekar

The controversiality of this book aside, the position of both Kesler and the NAS (kooks, all) presupposes a very frightening premise, namely that the people entering into this freshman college program are either incredibly ill-informed or simply lack the ability to think for themselves.

Contrary to their assertions, I think the NAS would have much more to fear if these kids did possess the ability to think for themselves, as anyone with the ability to pick up a newspaper in, say, Murfreesboro, TN, or (of late) in NYC would be able to see straightaway that Muslims very much ARE treated and portrayed as enemies among us.

Helen Thomas knows the score

you know the republicans really know the buttons to push for the upcoming election....so check out where Bruce Kesler is an editor/blogger

http://familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.177/author_detail.asp

Family Security Matters

Media Matters for America (MMA) described Family Security Matters as a "front group for the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a conservative Washington think tank".

CSP is filled with all the Bush neo cons. a search of FSM and mosque shows they're all over that issue too. just an ugly faux non-profit hate group.

now my question is, how did this story get legs? Was the Daily news the first outlet to run it? Was it Corky Siemaszko story? Or was it Jayas story that was first published?

Why did this lone bloggers posts warrent a national news story. How did that happen?

John L

Great Question!

If you want to know the answer please read this:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

I think every American needs to read this article so they can truly understand how they are using propaganda techniques to sway public opinion.

Helen Thomas knows the score

it horrendous what can be done to muslims and still people like Kesler want to supress people from talking about it and humanizing the victim...for sure this is the new anti-semitism...

as an example, take the case of Ghassan Elashi.

Ghassan Elashi is a Palestinian-American, father 'who was imprisoned by the US government for allegedly funneling money to terrorist groups.

The only evidence they had against him was that his charity, the Holy Land Foundation, gave money to Zakat charity committees in Palestine. These same Zakat committees have received money from USAID, the Red Cross, and the UN. “After several years of wiretapping phone lines, seizing documents and following money trails, the prosecution couldn’t support its allegations” of any ties to Hamas. They resorted to calling on an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer who called himself ‘Avi’ and claimed he was an expert and could “smell Hamas.” (You can read more about the case here.)

http://freedomtogive.com/?q=ghassan

Based on this, they gave the man a 65-year prison sentence.'

quoted from fasttimesinpalestine

Sulayman

The NAS is a bunch of right-wingers. Just go to their homepage and see. Meanwhile, the linked article isn't much better. I paraphrase it as "how dare they assign an Arab author when the school is 1/4 Jewish." They're part of the problem, and fighting this solution.

Mordicai

Yeah, I just went to their website. Yikes. They aren't just right-wingers, they are a bunch of anti-intellectuals dressed up in in the sheep's clothing of "freedom."

Mordicai

Wait, people treat Arab-Americans as villains based on their creed & nationality? WHAT A MAD, MAD PICTURE THE AUTHOR HAS PAINTED!

ddhboy

Well they aren't? I mean, taxi drivers getting slashed for no reason, people threatening to bomb or burn down mosques but I'm supposed to believe that everything is A-OK for muslim america? Anyone who thinks that there isn't any discrimination against muslim americans must have found quite a fantastic rock to hide under.

Thespis

The purpose of reading the book is to get people to think about it and to discuss. Don't be so damned frightened by ideas -- the book is just the jumping-off point for a larger discussion. Is the big scary idea going to indoctrinate your children? Hey, maybe -- but if so, your kid's dumb.

And, hey, Brooklyn College...Dreams FROM My Father.

sussman79

OK, why are we quoting the National Association of Scholars without any explanation about the group. They appear to be an extremely conservative organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Scholars

Helen Thomas knows the score

Originally called the Campus Coalition for Democracy, the National Association of Scholars was founded in 1987 by Herbert London and Stephen Balch[3][4] with the goal of preserving the "Western intellectual heritage".[5] The group's stance on race and gender issues has been controversial; in 1990, the opening of an NAS chapter at Duke University led to a major dispute in which 93 faculty members wrote a letter criticizing NAS for its stance on multiculturalism.

NAS has been funded extensively by politically conservative foundations, including the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.[7][8] Prominent board members of NAS have included conservatives Jeane Kirkpatrick and Irving Kristol.

In September 2008, the New York Times published an article entitled "Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses," which described the NAS as intensively and successfully lobbying for a section of the Higher Education Act of 2008 which provides federal funding for programs which emphasize "traditional American history, free institutions or Western civilization". The article makes the case that NAS and allied organizations are seeking to advance conservative causes by attaching conditions to university donations.[5]