tenureThe Sun reported a few days ago–from a “source at the college”–that Columbia has rubber stamped the hotbutton professor Nadia Abu El-Haj’s tenure bid at the Barnard Anthropology Department, the culmination of a drawn-out squabble on the margins of academia (Bwog’s resident expert Josh Mathew took a look when the grandstanding reached its height around the beginning of the semester). Spec still hasn’t independently confirmed it, and we don’t reckon anyone’s going to be answering e-mails over break. But that didn’t stop New Republic editor Marty Peretz from going off on the appointment, bemoaning the state of historical integrity and calling for the Trustees to hand PrezBo a pink slip. 

It’s not the end of the world, Marty. At least Joseph Massad still doesn’t have tenure, according to another wildly speculative rumor.

UPDATE, 1:05 PM: Okay, Spec did confirm it.