The Justice

Controversial Middle East pundits Daniel Pipes and Norman Finkelstein will likely speak on campus in April, Director of Student Activities Stephanie Grimes said.

The students who invited the two to campus were told by Student Life administrators and Student Union President Alison Schwartzbaum '08 last month that they had to meet with the Union's new "Campaign for Peace" committee to discuss the details of their events before approval. Pipes is tentatively scheduled to speak April 23 at the International Business School's Wasserman Cinematheque, Grimes said. But a date for Finkelstein has not been set, she said.

Schwartzbaum formed the committee soon after former President Jimmy Carter spoke last January in the Shapiro Gymnasium, to deal with what she and others called the unproductive way in which Middle East speakers come to campus.

"What often happens is someone comes, speaks, leaves, and that's it," Schwartzbaum said. "And that shouldn't be it."

It was unclear to Kevin Conway '07, a member of the Radical Student Alliance who invited Finkelstein, and Jacob Olidort '07, who invited Pipes, before they met with the committee last month whether it would have veto power over the invites.

Schwartzbaum and Grimes both said the committee does not, but Olidort isn't convinced.

"It still seems like the committee is serving its purpose of keeping our events in check rather than keeping the campus educated," he said.

The committee requested that both events leave time for discussion, Olidort and Conway said. But Olidort said their request was redundent because he already planned on a 40 -minute open question-and-answer session to follow Pipes' 20-minute speech.

Conway said Finklestein event will give a lecture followed by a question-and-answer session. He added that he wanted Finkelstein to come because he was a "serious scholar" representing "an alternative perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that's missing here [at Brandeis]."

Continued...

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