THE COLUMBIA SPECTATOR has an editorial about the controversy over tenure for Nadia Abu El-Haj at Barnard:

In Support of Academic Freedom
By Editorial Board
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

In the world of academia today, professors are constantly under scrutiny for their research findings and published work, especially in the politically polarizing field of Middle Eastern studies. Nadia Abu El-Haj, an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard, has been attacked by fellow professors and alumni for one of her books, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, in which she states that Israeli archaeologists went out of their way to find archaeological remains that would support the long history of a Jewish state in Israel. Because professor Abu El-Haj examines sensitive and often contentious topics, the debate over her tenure has become a heated fight that blurs the line between the merit of scholarship and the implication of her ideas. Columbia must look beyond the strong feelings of non-academics and focus solely on the credibility of the professor’s work and scholarship.

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UPDATE (18 September): More here.