We are a committee of Barnard and Columbia graduates who have never stopped caring about our alma mater. We believe that when we attended Barnard/Columbia it offered the finest education in the country, with the best environment, most professional educators and a dedicated administration that endeavored to maintain the highest standards.

Some of us graduated only recently, others in the more distant past. What binds us is a desire to see these standards maintained and towards that end, we believe that the Tenure Committee and President Judith Shapiro failed in their responsibility to properly research and determine whether or not Abu El Haj adhered to proper academic standards.

The decision has now been passed to Columbia, to do what the Barnard tenure committee should have done. To deny tenure, and restore honor to Barnard, or to further the shame by supporting an ill-conceived and poorly researched decision, and thus lower the standards that have always been a trademark of our alma mater.

We are graduates with an interest, but even more, many of us are mothers and fathers of daughters we have sent or would like to send to Barnard. If Barnard is allowed to lower its standards such that purveyors of hate and lies are allowed an honored position, Barnard will cease to be what it has been for decades - a place dedicated to the truest and highest goals of education for generations of women.

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2007 Copyright: Deny Abu El Haj Tenure Committee