Submitted by CU Alum, Sep 24, 2008 12:27

Saying Columbia "concealed" the list of donors for the Said chair suggests that it did something unusual or sinister, neither of which is true. Universities, hospitals, and other nonprofits routinely accept anonymous gifts and respect the donors' anonymity. That's what happened here. Columbia did not "conceal" the names of all donors toward the Said chair; it revealed the names of those who had not requested anonymity. Many professorships at Columbia were funded with anonymous gifts in recent years, but only the Said chair attracted this kind of scrutiny. Why? Because Said himself was an advocate of the Palestinians and a critic of Israel. These facts are largely responsible for the absurd campaign we have seen over the past several years to portray Columbia as anti-Semitic, or at least as hostile to Jews.

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