Columbia undergraduate Matthew Continetti reports on NRO that the House of Representatives is circulating a letter to Columbia president Lee Bollinger demanding that Nicholas "Million Mogadishus" De Genova be fired. The letter is the brainchild of Arizona Republican representative J.D. Hayworth, who says Congressmen are "lining up" to sign it. The full text is as follows:

Mr. Lee Bollinger
President, Columbia University
2960 Broadway
New York, NY 10027-6902

Dear President Bollinger:

We are writing to urge you to fire assistant professor Nicholas DeGenova for remarks he recently made at a ìteach-inî on the Columbia campus at which he called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq.

According to Newsday, DeGenova told the anti-war gathering that he would like to see "a million Mogadishus," a chilling reference to the 1993 ambush in Somalia that killed 18 American servicemen. He added that, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military,î and said those Americans who call themselves "patriots" are nothing but white supremacists.

As members of Congress who stand for election every two years, we are no strangers to the frank exchange of ideas and vigorous debate, and we have a deep appreciation for Americaís tradition of academic freedom. However, we also have an equally deep appreciation for the fact that our words have consequences.

Assistant professor DeGenova has brought shame on the great institution that is Columbia University. As an assistant professor, DeGenova has not yet earned the promise of lifelong academic employment ñ i.e. tenure. We hope that you will take steps immediately to ensure he never gets it.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,

J.D. Hayworth
Member of Congress

Continetti also reports that videos of the Columbia teach-in were made, and were originally supposed to be made available through Columbia's web site. In the wake of the De Genova controversy, that has not been done, a decision that, Continetti notes, helps the hapless De Genova out considerably. Had video been available, the entire world would not only have been able to watch him make the comments that have been widely reported in the media, but would also have witnessed a portion of his talk that the media somehow neglected to take up: his praise of Asan Akbar, the army sergeant who rolled grenades into officers' tents two weeks ago in Kuwait.

The posturing, sanctimonious, self-righteous publicity drawing antics of Congressman Hayworth turn my stomach. I know De Genova is a marginalized fringe player with a penchant for idiotic statements. I hate what he said. But those statements were met with near universal disdain and horror among both the pro war and anti war crowd. Now here comes Hayworth sticking his nose in with a silly letter to Columbia desiigned solely to keep J.D.'s name in the news. Just shut up J.D. and let the public reaction speak for itself. It will build on its own. Better you should spend more time on the Hill renaming food products.

Ouch!! Do the same comments apply to the Reps who have joined Martha Burk's attempt to force Augusta National Golf Club to admit women?

Justin Katz at Timshelarts.com points out that Degenova forgot to hide his comments in academic jargon. In an effort to speak truth to power he spoke too plainly, and the result was a bright light focused on the true beliefs of the academic left. That's probably why Foner called him an idiot. He's giving the game away. As parents and alums begin to figure out what is going on at the $50,000/year ivory palaces, they may make the next development drive more difficult. And Congressman Hayworth could shine the spotlight on Columbia's cozy government contracts. As I said in another post to Critical Mass, this could be the beginning.

What the hell does Hayworth have to do with "renaming food products?" Freedom fries and freedom toast are the work of Bob Ney and Walter Jones. The rest of Congress had nothing to do with it.

Berkley Survivor - Good question. My answer is yes, my comments would apply to those joining the Burks chorus, and for the same reasons. [I have no great love for all private male clubs while I recognize their legality. But this crusade to enable a few privileged rich white women to play golf while thousands of female poultry workers work in horrid conditions throughout Georgia leads me to believe that her time would be better served fighting for women who actually might need help. My screed was not ideologically based although taken alone it might very well lead one to ask the question. I see these people up close and personal and there are very few that I hold in high regard - on either side of the aisle. XLRQ, I am aware Hayworth was not involved in the freedom fries in the cafeteria charade and I do not really put Hayworth at quite that level. He tend to feed at the trough of CNN, MSNBC et all during his free time rather than the cafeteria. My point, not well set out admittedly, is that Hayworth and 'we the people' might be better served if he spent a bit less time hammering a useful idiot (De Genova) who is already in the country's cross hairs - and a bit more time on domestic and foreign policy issues - important things such as french fries. For me perhaps the only thing scarier than leaving academics to run academia (as they always have) is the thought of our House of Representatives taking over the job. Left or right - the posturing annoys me - even when I agree with the sentiment.

If colleges fired all the faculty who said offensive, stupid things, there wouldn't be enough graduate students to teach all the classes.

(Somewhat) more seriously, I have my doubts about the wisdom of tenure, but I also don't think faculty should be fired merely for saying offensively stupid things in public. Now, if Ass't Prof. fails (for whatever reason) to get tenure, and (heaven forbid) I were on the hiring committee of another Anthropology Dept., I would want to look even more carefully than usual at his scholarship before hiring him.

I know what Emerson said about consistency, but I still think that if we're going to object to the Brooklyn Colleges who make hire/fire decisions based on politics, we should object to any place making hire/fire decisions based on politics.

I haven't seen columbia's faculty governance documents, but if they're typical of most universities, there are all sorts of exceptions clauses which would allow them not to renew his contract.

Previous posts have raised the question of 'will they?' Given the climate of opinion at columbia, and that's an excellent point, but this country is full of (mostly ex-) assistant professors who felt that academic freedom and/or due process gave them immunity, and that all they had to do to get tenure was publish, go to meetings, and show up for classes. It desn't.

When a university says that it can't get rid of someone because of these considerations, what it's really saying is it won't.

Professor DeGenova's comments during his speech are being seized upon and intentionally misread by people who fear the growing opposition to this war - the fear of being lied to by the current U.S. administration that this is not a war to free the Iraqi people. There is continous accusation by those who support the war that anti-war protestors are anti-troop, and the anti-war protestors respond by saying they are anti-war, not anti-U.S. troop. However, when someone such as DeGenova suggests that the people in uniform fighting this war have a responsibility to search their consciences as to whether this war is truly a moral cause, to rise up and refuse to fight, the reaction to this suggestion is ruthlessly violent and disturbing. I turn to Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" as a relevant source for questioning the actions of U.S. troops in Iraq:
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of moral sense...Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it...In other words, when a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army (ours), and subjected to military law, I think it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army."
More than a century later, Thoreau's expectation that members of the U.S. military exercise their freedom to be more than willing machines of the state echoes DeGenova's emphasis on the fact that U.S. troops are confronted with a choice: to perpetrate this war against the Iraqi people or to refuse to fight and contribute toward the defeat of the U.S. war machine.

I simply say, if your are not with us then you are against us and you need to get the fuck out. Leave your citizenship and rights that were given to you by the men that have died for our freedoms and go yap somewhere else. If you don't like our country go try espousing your beliefs in somewhere like Iraq where they will kill your whole family while you watch for talking about the government. Do you think this piece of shit professor could have talked about Saddams regime this way? He would have been dipped in a bathe of acid and his balls pulled off. Only in America can someone get up and talk about how horrible it is here all the while hiding behind free speach. We are the greatest country on earth and the next time you go to class in your ivy league college and get in your bmw while drinking your starbucks coffee and enjoy your religous freedoms, remember those rights came at a price. The blood of the men and women that have died for this great country runs deep. People may protest this war but I would rather err on the side of caution and take out a dictator that murders his own people and hates us than take the chance that this son of a bitch will unleash chemical weapons on our country and kill someone I love. This professor needs to remember 9/11 if he cares. Maybe if Saddam gassed this professors family he would change his mind. Ya think? Only when terror strikes at home do people like him get off their respective soap boxes and scream about their rights. If this professor hates the US so much then take a fucking hike.

Good day and God bless the USA.

Nicholas DeGenova should be utterly ashamed of himself. I am ashamed of him as a fellow American. I don't even know the man, but I was so totally offended by his remarks that if it were legal to spit on him, I would. I think he should be removed from his position of influence immediately. Columbia University should be ashamed of him as well. If I were a parent and I had a child enrolled in Columbia University, I would remove them immediately. I would NOT want such a blatantly disrespectful person influencing my child, nor would I entrust their higher education to a university that condones his statement by keeping him employed. As an American, I am proud of our Nation. I totally support our troops who are risking their lives for our freedom and I will never stay silent when I hear of someone making such a despicable statement as the one DeGenova made. He should be ashamed of himself. He is irresponsible and disrespectful and in my opinion, does not deserve to call himself an American. He certainly should NOT be entrusted with educating our future generations.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"DeGenova's emphasis on the fact that U.S. troops are confronted with a choice: to perpetrate this war against the Iraqi people or to refuse to fight and contribute toward the defeat of the U.S. war machine."

Actually, given that we have an all-volunteer military, the troops were confronted with a choice when they signed up and took an oath to obey orders. Nobody made them do it, but given that they did, they gave up the right to decide whether or not they feel like fighting the wars the Commander-In-Chief finds it necessary to get into.

In response to Kevin Cypert - nice way to make assumptions about people. I happen to be an inner city school teacher in Chicago - you think I can afford a BMW on that salary? Think again. I'm no stranger to danger given the environment where I work, but that was a conscious choice I made ten years ago. I'm also from a blue collar background; no Ivy League for me. You made no attempt to engage with the ideas contained in the quote from Thoreau; far from attacking anybody, I was hoping for rational dialogue, but you're just interested in silencing dissent, so how are you different from the very dictator you would hope our country dispose of? Your fantasies about what should happen to people who disagree with our countries' policies show you to be no different were you the one holding power. And your wish that people who disagree with the policies of our country go somewhere else would mean that the Civil Rights Movement would never have happened, for example. In the sixties, you would have been telling Martin Luther King Jr. to go back to Africa or something. And I agree that yes, it is an all-volunteer military; but is it really? There are a tremendous number of people who join the military because that is their only chance to get a funded higher education given their families' economic circumstances, but they never necessarily knew that they would be expected to fight in a war of questionable purpose.

Any war can be questioned. Any war at all.

I refuse to believe that people join the military without realizing that they may have to go to war. That's ridiculous. The military is not a scholarship program.

De Genova clearly suffers from mental illness.

People, he called for 18,000 nineteen and twenty-year-old Americans to be killed and dragged through the streets.

This is a guy that is being paid to teach young people?

If De Genova had called for a thousand lynchings, I don't think the left would protect him. This is hypocrisy.

Ahhh citizens,
whatever happened to the idea that acceptance to university was based on merit and scholarship, and that the whole reason to attend was to do something more than learn a trade. It seems that even some of the comments on this board reflect the idea that college or university is the only way to get ahead in life: "the thousands of female poultry workers," and "[joining the military for $] their only chance to get a funded higher education."

I think that poor life choices have led far too many women to the horrid working conditions, not a lack of higher education opportunities. This is especially noteworthy when you consider the scholarship programs that exist for Georgia student who complete high school with a decent academic average. As for joining the military to get a shot at college, well if you think that pulling an all nighter of mulitple guard duty shifts outside a truck park in some God forsaken backwater is really worth the 36 months of GI bill payments, then more power to you. That's also the easy part, wait until someone's shooting at you, personally. As an ex Army NCO and later officer, I would rather have highly motivated troops that joined for more selfless reasons than GIs punching a 4 year enlistment time card for cash.

Why not put a college education back where it belongs as a sign of diligence, academic achievement and in the case of most of the middle class, financial sacrifice that is worthy of recognition.

About the letter from the Representatives: I propose that Columbia University send a copy of De Genova's tenure packet - his publications, teaching evaluations, letters of reference, the whole thing - to each politician who signed the letter and ask each of them to read the packet, comment on it, and vote yes or no on his tenure. I think it's a great sign that our congressmen and women want to get involved in the details of American higher education, and this is a fine place to start.

Dear Kris, it has been a while since I read Thoreau (if I had to guess I suspect it was 1973 when I was occupying the Chancellor's office demanding University dis-investment in South Africa - or some such). I wonder, however, if Thoreau would have wished for the death of those soldiers who choose not to lash out at the machine of the state? I think Thoreau's core message was inner-directed and one that compelled him to act according to his/her own moral precepts no matter the personal consequences but did not wish death upon those that did not share that moral code. There seems to be a difference between opposing a war, as Thoreau might well do here, and wishing death upon those who wage it, which is what DeGenova did in fact do here. I think the nature of the reaction to DeGenova is in no small part related to that distinction. Any thoughts on this? Ivan

Nick needs to hide. I forone will never for get the insult he made not only to my country, but to many men and women many times better than any of you ivy leage scum. It truley is funny that when in public, college educated types are easily picked out, and believe me, that is not a compliment. No, little Nicky was wrong, and no balls Bollenger is equally wrong. The people will speak, and maybe little nicky can get a job picking up trash, a job that he is qualified for based on the fact that he rubbs shoulders with only the best trash in our great nation!!

I wonder if de Genova watched TV today. Iraqis pulling down the huge statue of Saddam in Baghdad. A long way from Mogadishu. I wonder if he's disappointed.

I was in the Army for 20 years and saw combat in Mogadishu in October 1993. The movie does not even come close to the horror of that night and morning. As I think back on exactly why I was under heavy machinegun fire, it strikes me that about 75% of my fellow New Yorkers were not just for the introduction of American troops to Somalia, but demanded that we be sent. CNN, better known as the Clinton News Network, had a hand in my unit being sent to Somalia. I went because it was my duty to go, not because I wished to go. Sure, the Army paid for me to get an MA and my retirement pay is nice, but if any of you actually think that I risked my life hundreds of times for a college degree and a pension, think again. Freedom and all that it entails was not sent to you via UPS, it was bought and is protected by the blood and lives of those who serve and have served, including myself. I love my country and served so that it would always be free. To retain freedom, some must sacrifice, sometimes the ultimate sacrifice. No matter what I ever do, I was honored to serve my country. There is no greater honor. While you talk about Thoreau and Columbia, there are those that are protecting you and your rights.
As far as De Genova goes, most of you know what Columbia is and has always been about. Ant-American, elitist, leftist, and intolerant of moderate thought. Bollinger has no courage, as we have seen. He is part of the "good old boy" system that exists in academia. This means that a professor can do as he says and hide behind the right to free speech and academic freedom. Question? How can a professor who is anti-war advocate the wholesale death of anyone, especially American troops? I think that De Genova is anti-American more than anti-war.

While I'm sure DeGenova is a man of (at least) moderate intelligence, that is not what is ringing through here. I would agree with another commenter that this whole discussion really serves only to keep his name in the public, it's very difficult to overlook his obvious abuse of the rights guaranteed to him by the very people he is attempting to admonish.

His future tenure (or lack of it) is not the issue here. The issue is that as Americans we can "choose" to make outlandish statements in public and actually be taken seriously because we are allowed to hide behind both the constitution and the hallowed halls of higher education.

Many brave men and women have sacrificed their lives to preserve those rights. To abuse those rights (verbally or otherwise), is to defame those heroic acts. That is treason. Pure and simple.

I would suggest to Professor DeGenova that he apply the same tact as a citizen of Iraq or,....Somalia.

Fucka Martha Burks, maybe i should go join Lifestlyes for women. If they wont let me in ill get all my friends and we will protest outside their building.And i will send annoying letters to people who are involved with Lifestyles.

I know professor DeGenova. I have known him for about 20 years now. I don't think his 'million Mogadishus' comment (a small part of his speech, btw) was sound, but then again, I think that the pro-war argument is far less sound and far more hateful. And sending death threats to him and demanding his being fired when you think you should be able to waltz around supporting the actual bombing of human beings in a massacre is hypocrisy of the first order.

All the pro-war people conveniently forget or remain ignorant of or do not wish to hear that the US knew what Hussein was about in 1968. They did nothing to stop him for 30+ years. In 1990-1, the US backed off because it was better to have the Ba'athist fascists in power than to risk the popular uprising. The US stood by and let Hussein smash the Shia and Kurds, helping out by dropping no-fly-zone restrictions and killing 3 divisions of deserting Iraqi soldiers in retreat on the road to Basra (that is somewhere between 30-45,000 deserters murdered in cold blood, literally shot in the back, who prolly would have been the backbone of the revolt against Hussein in the south of Iraq.)

Each and every one of you ignores that the US funded the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, (a fraction of whom the US just ousted and supporters of whom are now the same terrorists who bombed the twin towers) through the CIA, the Pakistani intelligence services and the Saudis.

You ignore or are ignorant of the fact that the CIA trained bin Laden. You ignore or are ignorant of US support of Hussein, and not just military, for which Russia and France were much bigger players, but in terms of valuable intelligence during the Iran-Iraq War.

You ignore or are ignorant of US silence on Turkey using cyanide gas on the Kurdish peoples in Turkey at the end of the last Gulf War, killing about 5,000 in order to fend off Kurdish revolt.

You ignore or are ignorant of the US domination of world oil refining and of much of crude production, and apparently also the fact that only OPEC has so far withstood 'globalization', ie the opening of their resources to general pillaging.

You ignore or are ignorant of the human rights record of the majority of US allies and the US role in training other governments' agencies in the use of torture and internal repression.

You obviously choose to ignore US intervention in the establishment of Pinochet's regime in Chile, CIA overthrow of the Australian Labour gov't in the 1960's, and the many, many other such actions by the US. In fact, you are pretty much either ignorant of or hostile to the rest of the world.

You apparently know nothing of the freedom people have for dissent in most of Europe, which far exceeds what has ever been tolerated in the US. In fact, given that the US has the largest prison populatio in the world, that it is phenomenally African American and Latino, and that most of its growth is related to non-violent drug USERS (which in sane countries is treated as a disease) and racial-profiling motivated policing of communities destroyed by the corporate layoffs and capital flight of the 1980's, one could argue that for many people, the US is not very free or sane at all.

And all of the Support Our Troops stuff is utterly bull-puckey. Pro-war people like to trot out the lie that antiwar demonstrators in the 1960's spit on soldiers returning from Vietnam through the Oakland/San Francisco bay area. But that is a lie. It is not, however, a lie that Vietnam vets were spit on and abused in VFW halls. It is not a lie that the vets formed a critical part of the anti-war movement. It is not a lie that the VA treats veterans poorly and is horribly underfunded. It is not a lie that the US uses soldiers as test material, as has come out about the last Gulf War and which we know full well about the Tuskeegee airmen and the soldiers exposed to LSD tests in the 1960's. It is not a lie that the US sent US troops into combat in 1965 with the Colt M-16, which was defective, and that hundreds of men died from the Matty Mattel and its tendency to jam.

However, the US is very free for corporate criminals who can steal billions and never face more than a year or two, if any, time in jail. George W.'s brother, one of the Savings and Loan scumbags who cost the US public over $300 billion received a less than 2 year sentence, and has had to serve no actual penal time. Michael Milliken? He's touring campuses giving talks. Kenny Lay, George W.'s "Kenny boy", who had his own personal desk in the White House and who gave W. the Enron jet to use as his personal transportation in the 2000 election campaign? He isn't gonna see any real jail time, but how many families did he plung into misery in California as natural gas pices skyrocketed?

In return, you think it is ok to "protect freedom" while watching what freedom we do have (and that is a freedom which is neither color blind, nor gender free, nor unmoneyed) stolen by the PATRIOT Act and other such repressive measures.

You support a president who has been involved in, and somehow escaped, scandals which most certainly would have destroyed a politician in a free society: Enron for one, his election for another.

Bush did not receive the majority of votes from the voters, much less from the majority of the people of the US. And Bush in Texas staged a death penalty machine only rivalled by the Middle Eastern countries.

Bush himself got the venture capital for his first oil business from Osama bin Laden's half-brother, his family stays with the bin Laden family when they go (frequently, as members of the very powerful Carlyle Consortium) to Saudi Arabia.

Bush actually made the Secret Service escort all of the bin Laden family members in the US safely out... on 9/12/01. Read it in the Washington Post and the Saturday Evening Post from that time.

Bush and his regime have told more lies than one can count (9 about Ba'ath Party connections to bin Laden, who hates Hussein and offered to kill him for the US in 1990, in one speech alone.) And you pro-war people, in the name of freedom, parrot this jackass and his press corps.

And what did Prof. DeGenova really say, in the end? Let's put it in terms you can understand: "I hope that the Iraqi people fight bravely and ruthlessly to fend off a far bigger, far more powerful invader, and that they protect their country from that predatory invader who has violated international law and acted as a rogue state."

If the US were invaded, and someone from the invading country had spoken up to defend and cheer on the people of this country, they would become a hero here, but not in their own. The anger is less what Prof. DeGenova said than the fact that each and every pro-war person is defending a new Empire and Prof. Degenova called for a resolute and unyielding resistance.

His failure is that the real way to stop the US from doing this is not to hope that the Iraqis, in spite of their hatred of the Ba'ath regime, sacrifice enough of themselves to stop the US, but that the people of the US gain a real thirst for hunger not from imaginary enemies, but from the snakes at home who would send thousands of young men and women to die for their thirst for profits and power.

A million Mogadishus would indeed be horrific, mostly because it would mean 2 billion dead men and women in the Majority World. And because for all that, it would leave in power here and abroad, the same set of tyrants, big and small, who think that we, the people, are cannon fodder.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Chris

The tactic of a good liar is to salt the lies with just enough truth so the screed approaches plausibility.......Chris.

Chris, dude, I'd love to fisk the whole thing but can't be bothered. How's about we focus on two items: would you please use spell checker? And, what ever happened to giving attribution for quotes?

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel", Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1775, context (unlike professor DeGenova) unknown.

Kris, you must be lacking comprehenison skills.
Thoreau did not wish people to be killed. If you honestly can't see the difference between the words of Thoreau and those of De Genova you are an idiot.

There is no mis-reading of what the proffessor said. You don't have to be "pro-war" to find his remarks disgusting. You don't have to be "pro-war" to want that man not to teach your children.

Chris, the anger is indeed with what De Genova said.
He wished friends of mine to be killed.

I do want the man to be fired. I agree that threatening the man may have gone too far but I have no sympathy for him. Maybe Nick can pretend to be a patriot in order to seek refuge.

Furthermore, I suggest you read up on some of the arguments you put forth throughout the rest of your blab. It is full of lies and mistruths. Maybe you just ignore that fact or are ignorant to it.

Shawn

Chris, you actually ramble more than I do, Wow.
Bottom line. Men of peace don't call for death. Educators must have a responsibility to teach fact, not spread hate. Any personal agenda they may have should be kept to themselves. I don't care whether they are on the clock or not, they are in a position of authority and at least a few kids are going to listen to them. I'm sick of the attitude that De Genova's remarks are protected under the 1st amendment. He made them at a time of war. That makes them illegal under the U.S. Sedition act of 1918. That means he should be fined not more than $ 10,000, spend not more than 20 years in prison, or both. Because of his attitude of hate, calling for the defeat of American troops, calling for enlisted to "frag" their officers, he sure as hell should never be allowed to teach anything beyond slaughtering animals. He's a sick twist and an embarresment to Columbia. I look forward to the day that he is fired or resigns. Has anyone actually seen any of these "death" threats?