A Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, David McCleary, wrote to me this week with a complaint about being subjected to what he called “a Jewish litmus test” during a Times interview.

The interview (conducted by a Times stringer, or regular freelancer, who is not on the full-time staff) was done for an article that eventually appeared on the front page, “Campus Debates on Israel Drive a Wedge Between Jews and Minorities.” It took up efforts on college campuses to pressure Israel over its policies toward Palestinians and its occupation of the West Bank.

Mr. McCleary, who is Jewish, said that the reporter, Ronnie Cohen, asked him “insulting and demeaning questions,” including whether he “looked Jewish,” after telling him that his name didn’t sound Jewish and asking if he had been bar mitzvahed. He also said that after talking with the reporter for more than an hour, he was displeased to find that none of that interview made its way into the article, and that no other Jewish student who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was quoted or represented in the story.

The article and its aftermath are generating a great deal of criticism on Twitter, in commentary pieces and in letters to my office, not only because of Mr. McCleary’s experience but also because of other aspects of the story.

For example, David Nasaw, the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. professor of history at Graduate Center, City University of New York, wrote:

I am distressed about the lack of evidence in the piece to support the authors’ assertions about this deeply sensitive and volatile issue. Divestment is supported by a large group of individuals — some of them members of minority groups, and some Jews. (I, incidentally, do not support the movement). To make this into a “Minority vs. Jewish” question, without supplying evidence, is to distort the issue.

I talked to Alison Mitchell, the national editor, who was involved in the story’s conception.

“This is a very emotional issue, and a very hot one on many campuses,” she said. “The story set out to explain that.”

She stood behind its reporting and conclusions, and disagreed that the story was divisive, saying rather that the issues involved are divisive.

After speaking to Ms. Cohen, who confirmed, in general terms, the nature of the questions to Mr. McCleary, Ms. Mitchell told me, “If she indeed pursued that line of questioning, it was inappropriate.”

Here’s my take: Exploring the fraught subject of B.D.S. efforts on campus is, of course, valid. It’s easy to pick the article apart from every side, as I’ve found happens with nearly every piece of Times journalism involving Israel and the Palestinians. I also heard criticism that the story does not pin down B.D.S. supporters about what they think should happen in the future: Do they believe in two states? Do they believe Israel should exist in its current form?

And it doesn’t surprise me at all that lengthy interviews such as the one with Mr. McCleary may not be represented in a story. Reporters almost always have more material than they can use; in this case, two staff reporters and a stringer were all reporting from campuses around the country.

However, in this case, the article certainly would have benefited from quoting one or more Jewish students who support B.D.S. (The story does nod in that direction twice – including in a mention of Jewish Voice for Peace at Columbia University.)

As for the interview questions that Mr. McCleary complained about, they were indeed unprofessional and unacceptable.