I haven't been following this story but I understand from Kat that Tony has, and has been posting on the subject, so I've posted this extract from the above page without really knowing what it's all about - I hope that it makes sense in the overall thread of stories on the subject.
A Barnard College professor who argues in her scholarly work that archeological evidence has been manipulated to justify the existence of a modern Jewish state has been granted tenure following a heated battle, a source at the college said last night..
Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropology professor at Barnard since 2002, is the author of "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society," published in 2001.
In the book, Ms. Abu El-Haj, who is a Palestinian Arab, writes that Israeli archaeologists use their research to further an origin myth about the homeland of the Jewish people.