Talk:Iymen Chehade

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Note regarding paid contributions

The article was written by an abusive UPE sockfarm (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Marek.kapicak) and was touched up by a disclosed paid editor (see above). It needs review from volunteers to determine compliance with editorial policies and inclusion guidelines. MER-C 17:06, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@MER-C:how long do I need to wait for this to be reviewed before I can just take the disclaimer down? TsunamiPrincess (talk) 05:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a volunteer project. MER-C 12:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC on POV Neutrality

Looking for peer review to determine compliance with editorial policies after editing by disclosed paid editor (see above).TsunamiPrincess (talk) 20:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC) TsunamiPrincess,15:09, 2 June 2021

@TsunamiPrincess: This is not an RfC matter, please use the proper peer review process. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:30, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Thank you for the direction. I am confused though, because the instructions on peer review state: "Content or neutrality disputes should be listed at requests for comment, and not at peer review." Does my request not fall into that? TsunamiPrincess (talk) 19:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

You started with Looking for peer review, therefore, you are asking for a peer review. But before starting any RfC, please ensure that you have exhausted the suggestions at WP:RFCBEFORE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:17, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see. My language was misleading. Ok, thank you again for the direction. I will work on this. TsunamiPrincess (talk) 05:23, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Serious problems with this page

Very few of this page's claims are backed by RS suitable for use on a BLP page; much of it reads like a paid promotional. I have tried to take appropriate measures for second- or third-rate sources, and have deleted primary sources that provide OR.

In view of the COI acknowledged by one of the page's primary authors, I think we might seriously consider: a) trying to find some more reliable sources and, if we can't, b) further pruning, c) a tag of some sort to the top of the page, or d) both b) and c). (I appreciate that Mujinga (talk · contribs), a highly decorated editor, has already had a go at solving some this page's more egregious issues.) Looking forward to a well-reasoned and thoughtful discussion with all parties who are interested. --Publius In The 21st Century (talk) 21:36, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

@Publius In The 21st Century: Thank you for your advice. Is it necessary that this page be tagged as BLP? This page has been in various states of a hot mess, I acknowledge that. The intent is not promotional. This page was originally created by an abusive UPE sockfarm/now-banned user. The initial run at edits was flagged because of an undisclosed COI with another editor. I have been working, as a disclosed COI, to get this page to comply with Wiki standards. I genuinely appreciate the willingness for an open dialogue. And I, too, appreciate Mujinga (talk · contribs) and the work they did through the peer-review process. There is a learning curve with all things Wiki. ;) Would you be able to assist me in understanding which claims need more reliable sources? Mujinga (talk · contribs) advised in the peer review comment that it best I suggest changes as opposed to making them. I'm more than happy to do the leg work, if I can get some assistance with what claims need to be addressed. Many thanks. TsunamiPrincess (talk) 00:44, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd say the sources on the article now are mostly decent, such as Washington Post, Daily Beast, AP News etc. Which sources are you not keen on Publius In The 21st Century? Maybe we can take them point by point. Sources such as Palestine Chronicle and Mondoweiss could be seen as biased but they are currently being used for noncontroversial info about Chehade's career (perhaps a better source could be found for that). Arab Daily News and Times of Israel are also being used for noncontroversial things.

TsunamiPrincess yes I would say it's best to suggest changes here because of your declared COI, so it's good you asked Publius In The 21st Century for specific suggestions. That's one way to improve the article, by working on what is already there. In my opinion the article is generally ok now but could definitely be improved by adding more reliable sources, so another way for you to improve it is to suggest new sources here to expand the article. Mujinga (talk) 09:50, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for this very constructive engagement. Mujinga (talk · contribs), regarding the sources, as you'll see, I am the one who put in the RS (AP, WaPo, etc), and these exclusively deal with the fact that the subject of the page's professional relationship with a sitting Congresswoman is part of a Congressional investigation into what e.g. USA Today, Business Insider, the Daily Beast and Yahoo News call alleged bribery; . TsunamiPrincess (talk · contribs), I entirely understand the learning curve, and have been there myself with BLPs. If I go into quite extensive, perhaps tedious detail in what follows, it is with precisely this learning curve in mind, and I hope the extra material may be helpful.

Since this is a BLP (and TP, no need to tag it as such - any part of Wikipedia that has to do with the biography of a living person is by definition a BLP), I am struck by the importance of the following injunction: "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."

Some specific passages that strike me as inappropriate are:

1. In 2013, Chehade presented a screening of 5 Broken Cameras, an Academy Award-nominated documentary, to students enrolled in his course at Columbia College Chicago. A student complained of bias and the college cancelled Chehade's course. After the American Association of University Professors investigated and concluded that the cancelation trespassed on Chehade's academic freedom, the course was reinstated.[4]

That this is a controversial episode seems beyond dispute. Since the Chicago Monitor is not a well-established source that has been accredited as reliable (in fact, it seems to have a very clear bias in favor of Mr. Chehade, which is completely fine, but makes them even less appropriate as a RS for a BLP). If no more reliable sourcing can be found (and when I looked for further sources, I didn't see anything that would seem to work), I think that unequivocally has to go.

I also have doubts about the next paragraph.

2. According to the Arab Daily News, in 2015, Columbia College Chicago canceled Chehade's Spring 2016 courses, citing a decline in enrollment.[5] A federal lawsuit was filed by Columbia's part-time faculty union, P-Fac and the course was reinstated on December 7, 2015.[6]

Both of these sentences address contentious issues, and again, I have doubts about the appropriateness of the sources on a BLP; I would no sooner use the Arab Daily News as the lone RS on a BLP than I would Algemeiner or TheJC (for that matter, I'd also avoid MondoWeiss and the Palestine Chronicle - see e.g.[[1]] for discussion of these sources on a BLP, and also, unfortunately, some of the ugliest parts of Wikipedia... in the meantime, TP, you'll see that I've attributed the assertions to these sources, which is what one needs to do with them, as Mujinga intimates). I also wouldn't include a student-run newspaper as a RS on a controversial topic on BLP I also think that in an ideal version of this article, the first sentence in this paragraph would also not be included unless one could find a genuinely RS, but that is more because it does not seem to be notable by Wikipedia's standards. But I am happy to compromise here.

In fact, this last point gets to the heart of my worries about this article more generally. The only thing that seems genuinely notable about the subject (viz. from a Wikipedia perspective, what would make this subject worthy of coverage in an encyclopedia - in real life, he may well be a lovely person with many personal virtues) is the ongoing Congressional investigations, otherwise, he is an adjunct professor of history at a private arts college who has had a few dust-ups with his administration, seems to write the odd play, gives the odd talk on the I/P circuit, and, for better or worse, has received no coverage whatsoever in established, non-special interest news outlets (not to mention top quality scholarly work, etc.) of the sort that establish notability by Wikistandards. I am genuinely sorry that this individual was the target of malicious behavior by a sock puppet, and I have seen how the I/P conflict often brings out the very worst of Wikipedia and its users. It is right that his name not be sullied by editors who don't comply with BLP protocols. But the fact that we are grasping for sources of very dubious reliability (according to Wikistandards, TP, not in terms of their reporting quality or value) seems symptomatic of the larger problem here. In short, in a perfect world, I'd vote for either having just the bit about his role in the ongoing investigations, or, if this is too unflattering for the subject of the page, deleting it entirely. I suspect that others may disagree, but in that case, I'd be grateful if the case could be made passage-by-passage for keeping anything beyond what is cited by the RS sources I have added.

Finally, TP, the best advice I got in my first foray into BLPs (sadly, it wasn't a very illuminating experience on the whole, except for all the wrong reasons) was the following: "We neither censor facts that might appear negative, nor connive with the politicization of the facts. We just weigh the material in the balance of WP:Due/Undue and try to - it is no easy matter - establish our coverage in terms of importance and relevance within the framework of what the best available sources say. An encyclopedia is not a tabloid skew(er)ing reportage in terms of the widespread factoid reductionism characteristic of even much careless mainstream coverage. What may be spun as a frantic heated blip in the news cycle will only assume its relevance or irrelevance years down the line, when scholarly overviews can assess it with more detachment." I hope this is helpful; I certainly felt that it was (Incidentally, this came from an editor who is one of the most outspoken partisans on the issues dear to the subject of the present page's heart...)

With all my best to both, and my sincere thanks for your civil and constructive engagement here Publius In The 21st Century (talk) 15:41, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Publius In The 21st Century Many apologies for my delay – this took some time to wrap my head around. This is a busy time for us right now. My sincere thanks for your assistance in explaining and guiding my approach to this page.

I rewrote Iymen's career section and, citing sources that already appeared in the article, was able to remove Mondoweiss and Palestine Chronicle, hopefully removing the worst of the sourcing issues. I want to suggest the following to replace Iymen's career section:

In 2009, Chehade produced a play about a Palestinian family living under occupation called Garden of the Three.[1]

Chehade teaches courses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2014, Columbia College administrators canceled his class after a student complained of bias, setting a battle between Chehade and the administrators.[1] The American Association of University Professors investigated and concluded that the cancelation trespassed on Chehade's academic freedom, and the course was reinstated. [2]

In 2014, Chehade spoke at the National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference at George Mason University.[1]

On January 19, 2021, Chehade filed a lawsuit against U.S. Representative Marie Newman to enforce a contract the two had signed. The contract stipulated that Newman would employ Chehade as her chief foreign policy adviser, district director, or legislative director if she won the 2020 election. Chehade would receive an annual salary of $135,000 to $140,000."[3][4] The lawsuit proceeded to federal court and was settled on June 29, 2021. Newman and Chehade agreed not to disclose the settlement terms; on July 1, 2021, Chehade was added to Newman's campaign payroll as a part-time director of foreign policy and research.[3]

Updated Source List:

1. Isaacs, Deanna. "At Columbia College, a film screening is followed by a charge of bias". Chicago Reader.

^This source is already used in this article.

2. "Columbia College reinstates Palestinian professor's censored class". The Arab Daily News. 7 April 2014.

^This source is also already in use, however, it is being attributed to a statement that takes place AFTER the article is written.

3. ”Rep. Casten calls on rival Rep. Newman to disclose secret settlement at heart of House ethics probe". Chicago Sun-Times. 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2022-04-16.

4. Kapos, Shia. "It's an election-year budget, alright". POLITICO. Retrieved 2022-04-16.

I am very eager to hear your response and further advice, if needed. Thank you again. Your expertise is much appreciated. ~~~~ TsunamiPrincess (talk) 05:17, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

@Publius In The 21st Century In 2014 Iymen founded a 501c3 theater, Uprising Theater, in response to community support of the Academic Freedom fight. I am wondering if this is something that I can also add, using these following sources:

https://blockclubchicago.org/tag/uprising-theater/

https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/uprising-theater-shifts-focus-from-palestine-to-ppe/

Again, many thanks @Publius In The 21st Century.

(talk) 05:28, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Thanks a lot for this,TsunamiPrincess. I can imagine that this is indeed a busy time. I really appreciate your good faith reply and your very gracious posture overall - it is such a welcome change from what is too often the usual tone on contentious topics, and I thank you very much for it.

From what I can see, the first main change seems to be the removal of Mondoweiss and the Palestine Chronicle from the first sentence, and the insertions of the second two sentences. To be perfectly honest, I have serious doubts about using the Chicago Reader and the Arab Daily News, neither of which (so far as I can tell) are discussed at all on the Reliable Sources page, but I kept them on the basis that they were being used for very non-controversial things (as I rewrote them). But the sentences "In 2014, Columbia College administrators canceled his class after a student complained of bias, setting a battle between Chehade and the administrators.[1] The American Association of University Professors investigated and concluded that the cancelation trespassed on Chehade's academic freedom, and the course was reinstated. [2]" address an extremely contentious issue, and so I think a much higher quality source would need to be found to address this adequately, especially on a BLP page. If you can find a suitably reputable source (as set out in the "Reliable sources" page or archives), I'd certainly be happy to discuss this further. On the other hand, I do feel ok with using Mondoweiss and the Palestine Chronicle to state uncontroversial facts, especially with attribution (that's why I modified the article this way, and I see that Muijinga seemed to agree on this point).

Regarding the sentence "According to the Arab Daily News, in 2015, Columbia College Chicago canceled Chehade's Spring 2016 courses, citing a decline in enrollment.[4]" you are quite right that the source cited is from 2014, before the events. I see that it was already like this before I arrived at this page for the first time; we could certainly delete this, since, as you rightly point out, this is a clear error. If you have another solution that involves suitably reliable sources, I'd be very happy to proceed to work with you to craft a solution.

As for the other changes that elide the ongoing ethics probe, to be perfectly honest, this feels rather inappropriate to me. For one thing, this is far and away the most reliably sourced and (from an encyclopedic perspective, though no doubt not moral or other perspective) notable portion of Mr. Chehade's career; without these paragraphs and their sources, it is not clear to me that the subject of the page meets the notability requirements in any clear way (as I suggest above). (In this respect, and only parenthetically, it is perhaps a bit worrisome that the page was originally created by a user who is now permanently banned for bad behavior; this is certainly no slur on the subject of the page at all, but since to my thinking there are genuine doubts about notability and I was left wondering how this page had cleared the notability threshold to begin with, it was disquieting to see that the circumstances of the page's origin are themselves not without controversy.) I am happy to see what other editors think here, but for my part, I am skeptical about what feels like an attempt to whitewash the page of a political candidate (and it is very good of you to declare your COI, which is entirely proper and commendable!). Finally, lengthening the (positive) marginally sourced material and shrinking the very reliably sourced (less flattering) material would be to give very undue weight [2] to aspects of the subject life that do not belong in an encyclopedia and exclude those that would much more obviously seem to.

Do let me know what you think, especially about the course cancellation sentence. Publius In The 21st Century (talk) 20:30, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Good evening! Thanks again @Publius In The 21st Century for your time.

I am still working on the first parts of your recommendations/concerns, however, I did want to address the last part - the ethics probe. My changes were in no way meant to hide or dispute that part of Chehade's article – I merely made a few grammatical changes ie commas. The overall paragraph is nearly identical to the existing one. That is not something we are trying to remove or altar. That it is happening is correct. With that being said, I hope that eases your mind a bit.

I'll be in touch soon. TsunamiPrincess (talk) 02:06, 28 April 2022 (UTC)