Laura Bier: The Travails of "Leah Bowman"

This week’s Chronicle published a piece by Dr. “Leah Bowman,” which demonstrates, among other things, the shortcomings of anonymous articles. Bowman is, in fact, Assistant Professor Laura Bier, an NYU Ph.D. newly hired in Georgia Tech’s History Department, where she is a social and cultural historian of post-colonial Egyptian history whose “research interests include gender and decolonization, the history of sexuality and the family, feminist theory and oral history.” Bowman/Bier’s article decries the “witchhunt” that she faces as a lonely voice among today’s college faculty demanding justice for the Palestinians.

Bowman/Bier alleges that after publication of an article in Frontpage, she received hate e-mails—which, if true, is utterly inexcusable. The rest of her piece, however, makes for interesting reading. Now that the cloak of anonymity has been removed from Bowman/Bier (though not on the HNN homepage, where the Chronicle formally protested the posting of her article under her real name), it’s possible to provide some context to her portrayal of events.

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