Education: Arabs in Academe

Tucked under the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Mass., the dimly lit Algiers Coffee House is a haven for Arab students at Harvard. Over thick coffee and unleavened Syrian bread, they huddle there nightly to talk about the conflict at home and about their own uneasy status in the U.S. The fact that among students and faculty there are few Arabs—and many Jews—at Harvard aggravates Arab feelings of isolation. Senior Omar Rifai, a Jordanian, feels more like an object of curiosity than discrimination, but he claims that he still has to listen to some of his professors say "that the Arabs are...

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