Embattled DePaul Prof Agrees to Resign

Source: Associated Press

By DON BABWIN – 3 hours ago

CHICAGO (AP) — A DePaul University professor who has drawn criticism for accusing some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust agreed Wednesday to resign immediately "for everybody's sake."

University officials and political science professor Norman Finkelstein issued a statement announcing the resignation, which came as about 100 protesters gathered outside the dean's office to support him.

Finkelstein was denied tenure in June after spending six years on DePaul's faculty, and his remaining class was cut by DePaul last month.

His most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In his book, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyDaM-nXb1pmPgpf9IB8fDKUdLzw

I don't know enough about the situation or Finkelstein's work to comment specifically but this does NOT pass the smell test. Pressure tactics are not the way to respond to threatening ideas.

On edit: I'm a DePaul alum and I remember when the poli sci department was a placid place. How times change.

This is what republicans do, go after people who make statements with which they disagree. Whether I agree with this particular professor or not is immaterial, I don't like the precedent this kind of action sets.

More of a summary, really. Good book;
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/reprehensor/45

Dershowitz has the last laugh for now... there should be a campaign to have his professorship "pulled".

good for Israel, the U.S., and the world - in my opinion.

Dershowitz is just a game-player like *

Economic support is a good reply to authoritarian censorship.

is to give the professor in question an additional year to teach while looking for a new job. The reason is that most colleges and universities have completed next year's hiring for full-time positions by spring at the latest. When I was in academia, I saw job openings with application deadlines as early as December 1 for positions beginning in September of the following year.

By not allowing Finkelstein to teach an extra year, they are dooming him to a year of unemployment. The radio report I heard said that he had been given a monetary settlement, probably a year's salary in a lump sum.

Too bad Dershowitz already has tenure. A tenured professor can be fired for a very few reasons, such as "moral turpitude" (e.g. there was a professor who stole and sold rare books from the Yale library) or the abolition of his/her department or program. Unfortunately, being a loudmouthed, meddling asshole is not one of the permissible reasons, so Dershowitz's job is safe.

seeking to base your academic career on attacking a figure like Dershowitz strikes me as highly peculiar

other academics' ideas. In fact, when you write a dissertation, the first step is to review the previous literature on your topic and see if you can find any holes in it.

Besides, Finkelstein didn't base his career on attacking Dershowitz per se, but on attacking the idea of giving Israel a free pass because of the Holocaust.

. . to get Noam Chomsky fired or some people expelled from DU.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-finkelstein03sep03,0,770716.story

Perhaps that had some effect.

I've seen some real temper tantrums by alleged grown-ups in faculty meetings.

I once saw a senior professor instigate a heated argument at a faculty meeting, stretching the damn thing out an extra two hours, because he was offended at not being put on a committee that he thought he ought to be on.

Also, as I posted on another thread about this topic, subtly and persistently goading someone into blowing up is a common tactic of emotional abusers. The abuser remains smugly calm while the target, needled beyond endurance, is characterized as "unstable" or "unprofessional" or "hysterical."

If you've never seen this happen in a workplace or a family setting, you're unusual.

And I have both observed and been involved in rather heated arguements. But no one ever threatened anyone.

E.g. one professor to another: "Don't you 'For God's sake!' me! I won't be spoken to like that!!!"

I have not, however, seen people threaten each other physically. Now I am aware that there can be false allegations of such things. I do know someone who was alleged by another academic to be 'intimidating' when it was pretty clear to all who knew them that in this case 'intimidating' really meant 'Black'. However, if Finkelstein *has* been physically intimidating (and we don't have proof one way or another), then it's not just normal academic practice.

loved the deal he got.

A year's pay, no teaching or administrative duties. Just research with full pay. After all, in his case he probably has years of good teaching evaluations.

One rub is that he was denied his office. But that allegedly wasn't because of his research or teaching (the office had been denied before he made a big deal of it) but because of a scuffle he got into with a colleague in the department's space.

If he's gotten the year's pay as a settlement--something he was already going to get--it frees him to teach elsewhere without asking for permission. And I get the impression that he really hates being subject to supervision.

This is BULLSHIT. What happened to academic freedom? It's one thing to fire Holocaust deniers or people who espouse blatantly false things to support a political agenda. But he just has a different opinion and interpretation of the situation - this is just witch hunt crap at its finest. Ugh.

as do many peoples of the world, Africans, Native Americans, Cambodians, 1850's Irish, etc. Such historical experience does not bestow any of such groups perpetual clinging to that legacy as a pretext for oppressing weaker populations. Thus, Jews have no basis for occupying Palistine, but they do have a basis for defending their right to extistence by fighting radical Islamacist who would eliminate them and us from the face of the earth.

August 6, 2000
A Tale of Two Holocausts
The first one had victims, Norman G. Finkelstein says; the second has opportunists.
By OMER BARTOV

... The main culprit, in the world according to Finkelstein, is ''the Holocaust industry,'' made up of Israeli officials and fat lawyers, Jewish agents well placed in American political circles and ruthless Zionists determined to subjugate the Palestinians. Here he combines an old-hat 1960's view of Israel as the outpost of American imperialism with a novel variation on the anti-Semitic forgery, ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'' which warned of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Now, however, the Jewish conspiracy is intended to ''shake down'' (his favorite phrase) such innocent entities as Swiss banks, German corporations and East European owners of looted Jewish property, all in order to consolidate Jewish power and influence without giving the real survivors of the genocide anything but empty rhetoric.

Nowhere does Finkelstein mention that the main beneficiaries of compensation for forced labor will be elderly gentile men and women living their last days in poverty in Eastern Europe, or that German scholars like Ulrich Herbert, hardly an employee of ''Jewish interests,'' have been at the forefront of the struggle to gain compensation from corporations that for decades refused to admit their enormous gains from slave and forced labor. From the author's perspective, this is simply a case of organized American Jewry ''lording it over those least able to defend themselves,'' such as, presumably, the Swiss banks it was ''plotting'' to boycott, and ''the United States and its allies'' from whom it ''finagled another $70 million.'' ...

There is something sad in this warping of intelligence, and in this perversion of moral indignation. There is also something indecent about it, something juvenile, self-righteous, arrogant and stupid. As was shown in Peter Novick's far more balanced (though not entirely satisfactory) book, ''The Holocaust in American Life,'' the changing perception of the Nazi genocide of the Jews has also opened the way for a variety of exploiters and small-time opportunists. Yet to make this into an international Jewish conspiracy verges on paranoia and would serve anti-Semites around the world much better than any lawyer's exorbitant fees for ''shaking down'' a German industrialist ...

What I find so striking about ''The Holocaust Industry'' is that it is almost an exact copy of the arguments it seeks to expose. It is filled with precisely the kind of shrill hyperbole that Finkelstein rightly deplores in much of the current media hype over the Holocaust; it is brimming with the same indifference to historical facts, inner contradictions, strident politics and dubious contextualizations; and it oozes with the same smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority ...

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/08/06/reviews/000806.06bartovt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

marked for future review. . .

Peter Novick: Original English text of Novick's review of Finkelstein's book
SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, Féb. 7, 2001

... Among his more startling claims is that the treasury of the World Jewish Congress has "amassed no less than 'roughly $7 billion' in compensation monies." Finkelstein's source for this startling revelation is an article in FAZ which reported the very unstartling fact that the WJC was holding discussions about how such monies might be distributed IF AND WHEN THEY WERE RECEIVED. This is not just carelessness on Finkelstein's part, since he KNEW when he wrote the book that the WJC had not received ANY such funds: deliberate deception. (Examples could be multiplied. No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate, without taking the time to carefully compare his claims with the sources he cites.) ...

The overall argument of Finkelstein's book is that "American Jewish elites" conspire only in their private interest: to line their own pockets and to facilitate their "entry into the inner sanctums of American power." For these elites, he tells us, "the Holocaust performed the same function as Israel: another invaluable chip in a high-stakes power game." For Finkelstein, it is only by acknowledging this long-standing conspiracy of "Jewish elites" that one can REALLY understand what was involved in reparations and restitution negotiations ...

Germany's relationship to the Holocaust and its memory is not "given"--set in stone--but, must, like the relationship between any collectivity and its memories, be the subject of continued rethinking and renegotiation. Among American Jews, the rethinking and renegotiation of how we handle the memory of the Holocaust has been underway for some time, and it has been the occasion of lively debate. Though obviously the two cases are very dissimilar, many of the same issues arise. As the years pass, what should change and what should stay the same in our relationship to the memory? How does one steer a path between forgetfulness and obsession? What should be the relative weight of this memory compared to other memories of the collective past? If we've made mistakes in how we've memorialized the Holocaust, how can we learn from those mistakes and do better in the future?

On neither side of the Atlantic should discussion of any of these issues be "impermissible." Indeed such discussions are highly desirable. But Finkelstein's rant is not a contribution to such discussions; it is a subtraction from them.

http://vho.org/aaargh/fran/div/racket/holindustry/novickeng.html

By Ron Grossman | Tribune staff reporter
September 3, 2007

... The provost's memo, dated June 26, alleges that Finkelstein "angrily confronted" other faculty and staff and engaged them with "threatening and discourteous behavior" after being denied tenure.

On three such occasions, campus security officers were called to intervene, according to the provost's memo. When a dean attempted to escape a confrontation by ducking into an elevator, Finkelstein physically tried to keep the door from closing, according to the provost's account ...

On July 10, according to one newly obtained memo, the political science department informed the provost that Finkelstein's actions "constitute unacceptable and unprofessional behavior." It recommended that Finkelstein be granted "non-residential leave" for the 2007-08 academic year by DePaul, a Catholic university founded by the Vincentian order. Traditionally in academia, a faculty member denied tenure is owed a final year in the classroom ...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-finkelstein03sep03,0,770716.story

This is a situation in which several principles seem to come into conflict.

There is no doubt IMO that it's far too easy for anyone in academia, who offends the wrong people in their department, to get into serious trouble. Not saying it's routine for top professors to punish junior colleagues for offending or disagreeing with them - but it's not unknown. Over a fairly long period in academia, I've come across several examples of people being denied jobs, denied grants, kicked out of their offices, seriously marginalized in their subject, etc., because some high-ranking person disagreed with their views, or just because they, or somebody with whom they were associated, trod on the wrong person's toes. In particular, I've come across a few cases of internal or external examiners denying or delaying the award of doctorates to graduate students, because of some grudge usually not against the student but against the student's supervisor. In none of the cases that I know, was this related to any Political issue with a capital P, but it was often related to internal political issues with a small p. So I take the issue of academic freedom, and protection of academics from any possible vindictiveness, very seriously. And it may be happening in this case, for all I know. Quite apart from his views, Finkelstein seems to be the sort of person who could easily tread on someone's toes - and neither he nor anyone else should be denied tenure for that. (On the other hand, he also should not be treated as some sort of unique martyr. It's a problem that affects a lot of people.)

I have not read his writings on I/P issues and so cannot judge them. In any case, so long as the work is scholarly, I feel that all views on such issues should be represented in academia, and that tenure should not be denied because someone is pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian.

And yet. And yet...I *do* feel really uneasy about his writings about the Holocaust, as they come across on his own website. It's not Holocaust denial; but it is a rather IMO mean-spirited preoccupation with who may be benefitting too much from 'the Holocaust industry'. If he can prove actual fraud, then he should inform the relevant authorities so that relevant action can be taken. If he can't, then it just comes across as a fundamentally right-wing obsession with the idea that victims of crime or circumstance might receive too much help or compensation - similar to the right-wingers' obsessions with 'welfare cheats' or with 'trial lawyers' helping people to win compensation on 'frivolous lawsuits'. I particularly dislike his remark that 'the Holocaust industry' is one of the main causes of anti-semitism. Yes, let's blame anti-semitism on the bad behaviour of some Jews (huh!). As I said on another thread, I think most DU-ers would feel uncomfortable with a professor, even an African-American professor, who said that 'the affirmative action industry is the main cause of racism'. This is similar IMO.

So it's a very complicated issue, where academic freedom and anti-racism come into conflict.