Juan Cole gets a lump of coal in his Yale stocking

Well, there is finally at least a little bit of common sense emanating from academia, and from Yale University, of all places.

Yale of course edged out DePaul University to win first prize in the Collegiate Network's Campus Outrage awards. Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is the former Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban, who brought his credentials of a fourth-grade education to the exclusive college to participate in a non-degree program.

Visit Clint Taylor's Nail Yale blog to learn more about the Jethro Bodine of the Ivy League.

But the pendulum may be swinging back the other way there. University of Michigan Middle Eastern Studies Professor and Jew-baiter Juan Cole apparently will not be joining the faculty at Yale, as The Jewish Week reports.

A tenured professor at the University of Michigan, Cole was tapped earlier this year by a Yale University search committee to teach about the modern Middle East. In two separate votes in May, Cole was approved by both the sociology and history departments, the latter the university’s largest.

The only remaining hurdle was the senior appointments committee, also known as the tenure committee, a group consisting of about a half-dozen professors from various disciplines across the university.

Last week, however, in what is shaping up as the latest in a series of heated battles over the political affiliations of Middle Eastern studies professors, the tenure committee voted down Cole’s nomination. Several Yale faculty members described the decision to overrule the votes of the individual departments as "highly unusual."

Highly unusual because an Israel-hating professor has been rebuffed.

Hat tip once again to Dr. Steven Plaut.

Technorati tags: Juan Cole Yale Michigan Israel Academia DePaul Taliban