I think this raises a couple very serious questions about Columbia’s academic review process, and Columbia’s intellectual environment in general. The broader and less answerable question is that of how enough right-thinking, PhD-holding individuals could possibly convince themselves that a purveyor of bigotry that’s as barely-veiled as Massad’s is even entitled to a second round of tenure review. But there’s a more ominous query attached to this one, and it’s one that doesn’t require quite as much speculation. If there really was a bloc of professors who were vocally displeased with Provost Alan Brinkley’s original decision, how did they manage to co-opt him?
Let’s put our conspiracy theory thinking caps on, shall we?