Students from three campus groups that have been trying to bring controversial speakers on the Middle East to Brandeis say their efforts have been frustrated by confusing procedures.The names of Daniel Pipes and Norman Finklestein have been floating around campus for weeks, even before the high-profile visits last month of former President Jimmy Carter and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz intensified Middle East debate at Brandeis.

Finklestein and Pipes, two Middle East pundits on opposite and extreme ends of the political spectrum, have been viewed by the students trying to bring the two here as alternatives to Carter and Dershowitz.

But with both students and administrators moving to have more say over the invitation of potentially controversial guests, no one can be sure if either Finklestein or Pipes will come to Brandeis anytime soon.

Student Union President Alison Schwartzbaum '08 formed a committee this month to handle such issues, and the Provost formed a faculty committee to hear community grievances over controversial events. It remains unclear what concrete power the committees will have.



More coverage: Norman Finkelstein | Daniel Pipes | The "Campaign for Peace"



Schwartzbaum said the Union's committee will meet for the first time tomorrow. She said she formed the committee because several students told her they don't feel comfortable expressing their opinions on the Middle East on campus. Schwartzbaum said she hopes the committee will promote more respectful dialogue.

"I think [the respect] is here [on campus], but I think it needs to be improved upon," Schwartzbaum said.

Schwartzbaum said she will wait for the committee to meet before deciding on it's exact role, including whether its members should have to approve Middle East-related speakers in order for them to come to campus.

Members of the Brandeis Middle East Review have been planning to bring Pipes, a neoconservative Middle East analyst, to campus since mid-October to discuss Islam in Europe.

Meanwhile, members of the Radical Student Alliance and the Arab Culture Club have been trying to invite Finklestein, a left-wing professor who has accused Israel of using the Holocaust as a shield from criticism.

But the student organizers behind both efforts remain frustrated. Requests for both speakers have been deferred by Dean of Student Life Rick Sawyer to the Union's new committee, which Schwarzbaum has named "the Campaign for Peace."

Schwartzbaum said she formed the committee, partially at Sawyer's behest, and that it will work to provide a contextual framework for discussion about the Middle East.

The problem, the student organizers say, is that the committee has just been formed and cannot yet hear their requests.

"It seems clear they broke communication with us," Jacob Olidort '07, a member of the Brandeis Middle East Review, said of Sawyer and the Union committee.

Asked why both requests have been deferred to the Union's new committee, Sawyer wrote in an e-mail message Monday: "[The Union is] attempting to bring organization and purpose to the student organization-sponsored speakers brought to campus this semester to continue the discussion regarding the Middle East conflict."

In an e-mail response last month to Kevin Conway '09, a member of RSA, regarding an invitation to Finkelstein, Sawyer wrote, "Our students and the topic deserve a higher level of presentation than the current chaos created when individuals and groups invite random speakers, one appearing to trump the other, absent a community-driven semester plan for discourse on the Middle East."

In the meantime, the request to have Pipes speak in the Rappaporte Treasure Hall remains on Sawyer's desk. And even while Conway said he had been granted a room in the science complex for Finklestein to speak, the visit by the sharp critic of Israel seems even less likely.

Brian Paternostro '07, the Union's director of communications, said the $5,000 cost for security and a lack of proper space have made Finkelstein's visit unlikely.

"I don't know who is going to pay for that," he said.

Conway said his group would have petitioned the Union's Financial Board for the necessary security and audio-visual funds had they not twice been deferred to the Union's committee.

Paternostro said Pipes would have less trouble coming to Brandeis because he is the father of Sarah Pipes '07, a current student.

"We have to make sure that when he comes here, to the Arab community this is not a statement," Paternostro said. "Him coming here means we respect intelligent conversation; he has the right to come and express his opinion."



-Claire Moses contributed reporting to this article