[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

Like his soul-mate Cornel West, Hatem Bazian, who is a Continuing Lecturer in Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Arab and Arab American Studies, Colonialism and Post-Colonial Studies, Comparative Liberation Theologies, Critical Race Theory, Muslim American Studies, and Palestine Studies at the University of California Berkeley, is a thinker who “doth bestride the world like a colossus.” Mere words cannot describe him. In 2020, he posted at his website a lengthy diatribe on the contemporary American university and its discontents. Like all of Bazian’s work, it does not date. His article, with its daring attack on racism and eurocentrism, and the “Othering of Muslims,” made a deep impression on me. His thought-provoking piece — all of his pieces provoke thought — deserves to be widely known.

When will the University be ready to reckon with the racism, neoliberalism, and eurocentrism that reproduces the society that we all are experiencing?

The University, as an institution, is at the forefront of reproducing the societal structures, political, social, cultural, and economic, to name the obvious, and embedded in all are the racial markers and signifiers that make racism so difficult to undo and challenge. Examine what is taught as the Canon, and you will find missing or totally erased the history and contributions of Blacks, both in the “New World” but more critically pre-enslavement in Africa. You can actually finish a BA, MA, and Ph.D. and not get exposed to any aspect of global south Black history or thinkers or Blacks in the Global North. At the same time, you still call yourself educated and part of a sophisticated company. You would not even know what happened down the street from your home where Black and Brown people lived, but you would be introduced to every ice cream parlor that was struck with Whiteness and is part of the local historical society records. Tulsa Oklahoma did not happen, if it is not in the curriculum and not taught except in a Black Studies course! The same applies to the erasure of Asians, Arabs, Latin Americans, and Muslims in the curriculum. It only appears when they are a problem that disrupts the “peaceful and normal” in everyday life at the Eurocentric University.

Yes, we do have “inclusion,” but the integration is often done through “contact” and “discovery,” which means Black academics or global south thinkers’ or authors are brought into the “White” world through a process that epistemologically replicates Columbus’ “discovery” of the indigenous people. I know that we have made progress, and we do have Black Studies and Ethnic Studies departments and diversity courses. Still, these were introduced as a result of struggle and are often problematized and marginalized by the “custodians” of the Canon and the academy. More importantly, the “custodians” who are always pursuing “discovery” insist that their standards would regress, research and scholarship would be undermined by this non-established and “feelings” or “emotional” university response to the protest that brought about the “new” field of studies. What are Black studies, Asian American/Diaspora Studies, Latino Studies, Arab and Muslim Studies, Native American/Indigenous Studies!…

The ranks of tenured faculty are overwhelmingly white, with campuses ranging as high as 80-90% being white faculty and 70-80 being White men. Simultaneously, all the lecturers, clerical staff, and lab technicians are Blacks, Asians, Arab, Latino, and Indigenous. Don’t dare to put the Asian model minority forward because they might have some numbers in the undergraduate ranks. Still, they diminish in numbers at the graduate level. Most of those at the faculty or administrative level end-up not moving up or in the science departments are looked into Labs that are managed by White colleagues who move up faster than a space rocket. Critically, the ranks at the top of the University are also overwhelmingly White and the same for governing boards, advisory boards, and alumni boards. Even the athletics where the number of Black athletes (Football, Basketball and Track and Field especially) is noticeable, the number of coaches, administrators and upper management tend to be still heavily White and also paid much higher than their Black counterparts if they happened to have a position within the institution….

I don’t know how Hatem Bazian does it. His website gives some idea of the depth and breadth of his activities as a scholar of Islam, Islamophobia, white racism, and the contemporary university. He is the founder of American Muslims for Palestine. He is an affiliate of, inter alia, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, the Islamic Scholarship Fund, Zaytuna College, and the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project. He is a co-founder and Professor of Islamic Law and Theology at Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim Liberal Arts College in the United States. In addition, Prof. Bazian is a lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In the past he served as an adjunct professor of law at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses on Islamic Law and Society, Islam in America: Communities and Institutions, De-Constructing Islamophobia and Othering of Islam, Religious Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies.

In the Spring 2009, Prof. Bazian founded at Berkeley the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the Center for Race and Gender, a research unit dedicated to the systematic study of Othering Islam and Muslims. Prof. Bazian in Spring 2012 launched the Islamophobia Studies Journal, which is published bi-annually through a collaborative effort between the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project of the Center for Race and Gender at the University of California at Berkeley, the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative for the School of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University; the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding at the University of South Australia, and Zaytuna College.

In addition to academic work, Dr, Bazian is a weekly columnist for the Turkish Daily Sabah Newspaper and Turkey Agenda online magazine. Dr. Bazian is founder and national Chair of American Muslims for Palestine, board member of the Islamic Scholarship Fund, Muslim Legal Fund of America, President of Dollar for Deen Charity, and Chair of Northern California Islamic Council.

All I can say is, I am deeply impressed. And I am sure Hatem Bazian’s works and days will make the same impression on you.