New York Post
March 31, 2003 --
The Columbia University professor who said he hopes the U.S. military suffers "a million Mogadishus" is getting bashed by university alumni and big-name donors.
Anthropology and Latino-studies assistant professor Nicholas De Genova stayed out of sight yesterday as his anti-troops rhetoric generated a backlash.
De Genova, 35, said last week at a Columbia "teach-in" on the Iraq war: "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military. I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."
That remark and ones by other professors led university alumnus Dr. Stephen Rittenberg, Class of 1957, to write the Columbia Spectator student newspaper Web site.
"The infantile narcissism of the anti-war profs is sickening," Rittenberg wrote. "Once upon a time, Columbia professors thought it was their duty to teach critical thinking rather than to indoctrinate in anti-Americanism."
Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, issued a statement that went beyond the Ivy League school's initially tepid comment that De Genova's views were not those of Columbia.
"I am shocked that someone would make such statements," Bollinger said. "Because of the university's tradition of academic freedom, I normally don't comment about statements made by faculty members. However, this one crosses the line and I really feel the need to say something. I am especially saddened for the families of those whose lives are at risk."
LeRoy Neiman, the renowned artist who donated $6 million to Columbia in the mid-1990s, is against the war in Iraq, but also thinks De Genova went too far.
"It's a free country. He can say what he want [but] I don't agree with that," Neiman told The Post.
Phyllis Mailman, whose family's foundation gave Columbia's public-health school $33 million in 1998, said she thought Bollinger "handled it very beautifully when he certainly disavowed, personally, for the university and for himself, all of the professor's comment, but upholds his right to make them."
Telis Demos, editor in chief of the Columbia Spectator, said De Genova's remarks, which the newspaper first reported, has generated a barrage of letters, "most of them pretty inflammatory . . . some of them even threatening."
"This is just huge," Demos said of the attention De Genova's anti-U.S. comments have received.
De Genova has made inflammatory statements in the past.
In April 2002, at a pro-Palestinian rally at Columbia, De Genova said: "The heritage of the victims of the Holocaust belongs to the Palestinian people. The state of Israel has no claim to the heritage of the Holocaust."
