Editor:

I would like to voice my support for Ibrahim Karawan and his past leadership of the U Middle East Center, which has outranked Columbia, NYU, Harvard and Yale in terms of department of education funding. The actions of College of Humanities Dean Robert Newman are troubling on a personal and academic level. The reassignment of Peter Sluglett and Harris Lenowitz and the subsequent loss of professors Karawan and Peter Von Sivers will have tragic consequences for both the funding and prestige of the program, as well as for the students who come from all over the world to study under these fine academics, who have decided to remain in Utah rather than take higher-paying jobs back East.

The actions of the dean has severely damaged his credibility as the leader of the college. As such, many of us in the Middle East Center have completely lost confidence in him. Seeing as how Newman has demonstrated an egregious error of judgment by threatening the very existence of one of our university’s most prestigious programs, I feel he should resign his post immediately.

Robert SykesSenior, Middle East Studies and Linguistics