Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon highlights an interesting aspect of Columbia’s anti-Israel protest.
One of the most outspoken supporters of the encampment at Columbia University, classics professor Joseph Howley, is leading a review of the required humanities curriculum for all Columbia undergraduates.
Since the encampment went up over a week ago, Howley has emerged as one of its most prominent champions, giving interviews from inside its perimeter and dismissing the idea that the unsanctioned protest—which has included calls to murder Jewish students and threats that “Columbia will burn”—poses a safety risk.
He will bring that considered judgement to Columbia’s famous “Literature Humanities” course, which Howley has chaired since 2022. Howley was scheduled to review the syllabus for that course, a survey of what the school deems important humanities texts, this term as part of Columbia’s regular efforts to update its core curriculum, according to a 2022 profile in the university’s alumni magazine.
The review will give Howley tremendous power to shape the cultural and intellectual horizons of first-year students. And according to the profile, he’s excited to exercise it.
“I feel like preparing for that next syllabus review started on Day One for me,” Howley told the magazine. “These reviews are a regular opportunity to make sure this class is current, that it’s living up to its goals and to our ideals and values.”
Howley and Columbia did not respond to requests for comment.
As the encampment drags on and images of student radicalism flood the airwaves, there has been mounting speculation about where, exactly, the radicals got their ideas. Part of the answer seems to be Columbia’s core curriculum, comprised of Literature Humanities and four other mandatory courses, which has been shedding the classics for years in an effort to accommodate newer, less eurocentric texts.
