What the President of Columbia University Should Say

Academic Freedom, Not Bullying, Should Guide Us to Truth

My connections to Columbia University are many—as an undergraduate, a teaching assistant, and then briefly a professor. My alma mater, however, was Yale, where I would return to teach for seventeen years, receiving only accolades, awards, and praise for “raising the stature of the department to national and international levels.”

All that came to a halt when Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz threatened the University. At the time I even considered his complaint laughable, sent to the wrong addresses with muliple typos, and inferior in argument to the half-dozen other complaints that arrived each day. Surely, the administrators would not take him seriously!

That was in 2020, when many feared the president’s reelection, and I learned that, even at Yale, we had entered an era when power counted more than merit. Monies would be cut to the medical school, and even the University president’s position be imperiled, if they did not remove me one way or another….

A retired Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and former Israeli naval officer has sent me a chapter of his upcoming book, of which this is an excerpt:

Dershowitz … is addicted to fame and even to negative fame. On the jacket of his book, My life in the Law, he quotes Norman Finkelstein saying that “he is like Eichmann offering Nazi moral judgments,” and Francis Boyle saying that he is “a war criminal”….

In Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, published by the University of California Press, Finkelstein claimed that Dershowitz … had lied, misrepresented, and fabricated … to protect Israel and hide its record of human rights violations, while “the real issue is Israel’s human rights record.”

Dershowitz … wrote to the University of California Press threatening a lawsuit if it published the book. Dershowitz also wrote to the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking him to stop the book…. Schwarzenegger responded that “he is not inclined to otherwise exert influence in this case because of the clear, academic freedom issue it presents.” Dershowitz contacted the president of the University of California, the university provost, seventeen directors of the University of California Press and nineteen members of the university press’s faculty editorial committee to attempt to stop the publication of the book, to no avail….

In September 2006, Alan Dershowitz sent to DePaul University what he described as “a dossier of Norman Finkelstein’s most egregious academic sins,”… and he lobbied professors, alumni and administrators to deny Finkelstein tenure. DePaul investigated and concluded that they were not based on legitimate criticism. In April 2007 the DePaul University Faculty Governance Council voted unanimously to send a letter to Harvard University expressing “the council’s dismay at Professor Dershowitz’s interference in Finkelstein’s tenure and promotion case.”

In 2007, DePaul University Political Science Department voted 9 to 3, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee 5 to 0, in favor of giving Finkelstein tenure.

Afterward, [the University] denied Finkelstein tenure.

Why this change of heart? Most likely, the president overruled the decision … because of the myth of the “Jewish influence.” But if somebody acted on this myth, it is not a myth anymore but a reality.

Dr. Bandy Lee was a psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School. Her specialty is violence and its causes….

In 2019, Dershowitz described his sex life with his wife as “perfect,” after he had been linked to the Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking affair. Earlier the same year, Trump had a phone call with the former Ukrainian president that led to impeachment proceedings and Trump declared it was a “perfect” call. In response to an associate’s comment on Twitter, Lee said, “Dershowitz’s use of ‘perfect’ ... might be dismissed as ordinary influence in most contexts.” But she said, “Given the severity and spread of ‘shared psychosis,’… a different scenario is more likely,” [that Dershowitz] had “wholly taken on [his] symptoms by contagion”….

Dershowitz protested in a letter to Yale and Yale terminated Bandy Lee’s employment at the Yale Medical School, just as DePaul declined to give Norman Finkelstein tenure.

I sued Yale to protect academic freedom, under the encouragement of a former Law School dean. Top intellectuals of our nation wrote letters to the Yale president, hundreds of letters flowed into the chairman’s office, and thousands of mental health professionals signed a petition for my reinstatement—but nothing mattered. Even the judge who was ruling in my favor was replaced, and the decision subsequently “fixed” so that it could not get to the U.S. Supreme Court, even with Laurence Tribe backing me!

Now, Donald Trump is back with a vengeance against universities, the press, and any and all who will stand up to him. Dershowitz is back on Newsmax, proclaiming that the federal cut of 400 million dollars from Columbia University that he championed—which would cower all universities—“is just the beginning.”

Profound damage is about to occur to the very nature of intellectual life in our country. Circumstances have given the president of Columbia University a major opportunity. She could be a beacon of clarity and courage in a desert of academic integrity. She could say the following:

“Universities should, indeed must, encourage open inquiry and freedom of speech and debate, especially about the most significant and controversial issues. If members of the university community believe it necessary to hold demonstrations and teach-ins, such must be facilitated, not restricted. Our university will police itself. Only in very rare instances will outside police be allowed onto our campus. Our university will not be bullied by threats that funding will be ended if we do not follow what we contend are unwarranted, un-American, and unlawful orders. Our proudly private university will not be dictated by non-university authorities about whom we should admit, or whom we should suspend or expel. We do not believe that the new, unprecedented federal Department of Justice ‘task force’ has any right to come to our campus without our invitation. Columbia, as we always have, will obey all lawful regulations. However, if we deem any such regulations to be un-American, unlawful, or unconstitutional, we will vigorously defend the rights of our students, faculty, and associates. Columbia will continue to fulfill our primary educational mission, which at times may require firmly upholding our dignity, independence, and long-distinguished legacy by refusing to succumb to undemocratic threats, intimidation, and dictatorial policies. And Columbia will properly and responsibly encourage all who teach and learn in our community to inform and educate one another, as well as the citizens of our now-endangered democracy.”

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is holding weekly live sessions on:

“A Curriculum on One World or None”

The next session will be this Friday, March 14, 2025, at 12 noon EDT/9 a.m. PDT on Zoom. A paid subscription is required to receive a link the morning before. Thank you!

Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership (now privately expanded), in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Brazil, Argentina, and Canada (with articles translated into Czech and Polish). Dr. Lee authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. She is currently developing a new curriculum of public education on “One World or None.”