NYU’s Middle Eastern branch has drawn repeated criticism among faculty members on the New York campus.Andrew Holbrooke/Getty Images
Last updated (11/6/2017, 7:35 p.m.) with a comment from New York University’s president in a letter to the faculty.
Faculty members in New York University’s journalism school wrote in a letter on Thursday that they had cut ties with the university’s Abu Dhabi campus, in the United Arab Emirates, after two colleagues were denied entry to the Persian Gulf country.
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NYU’s Middle Eastern branch has drawn repeated criticism among faculty members on the New York campus.Andrew Holbrooke/Getty Images
Last updated (11/6/2017, 7:35 p.m.) with a comment from New York University’s president in a letter to the faculty.
Faculty members in New York University’s journalism school wrote in a letter on Thursday that they had cut ties with the university’s Abu Dhabi campus, in the United Arab Emirates, after two colleagues were denied entry to the Persian Gulf country.
NYU’s branch in Abu Dhabi has drawn repeated criticism from academics on the home campus in recent years.
The United Arab Emirates denied work visas to Mohamad Bazzi, an associate professor of journalism, and Arang Keshavarzian, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies, the letter notes.
In September, Mr. Bazzi wrote an op-ed essay in The New York Times about the matter, and about larger problems with academic freedom that it represents.
“We have not been given an explanation for the denial of these visas, but if it was for reasons of religious affiliation (Profs. Bazzi and Keshavarzian are of Shiite [Muslim] origin) or because of our colleagues’ writing and research, it would represent a significant threat to academic freedom on that campus,” reads the letter, which was addressed to the university’s president, Andrew Hamilton.
Mr. Hamilton wrote a letter to the faculty in which he termed the visa denials “deeply troubling.” However he discouraged faculty members from disengaging with the campus. “The call to refrain from engagement is misplaced,” Mr. Hamilton’s letter read, “not because the issue is not serious, but because it misses the mark, punishing students and faculty at NYU Abu Dhabi over a visa decision in which they had no hand and with which they disagree.”
This isn’t the first time an NYU professor has been denied entry to the United Arab Emirates. The door was closed on Andrew Ross, a professor of social and cultural analysis, in 2015. He was a vocal critic of the university’s treatment of laborers who built the Abu Dhabi campus.
A member of the university’s Board of Trustees, it was also revealed, worked as an adviser to the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, complicating the investigation into allegations of worker mistreatment.
Fernanda is the engagement editor at The Chronicle. She is the voice behind Chronicle newsletters like the Weekly Briefing, Five Weeks to a Better Semester, and more. She also writes about what Chronicle readers are thinking. Send her an email at fernanda@chronicle.com.
