All eyes on DePaul University: Norman Finkelstein and tenure battle
Posted on April 5 2007 by Cecilie Surasky under Educational Institutions.The tenure battle over The Holocaust Industry author Norman Finkelstein isn’t the only Israel-Palestine free speech controversy at DePaul in recent years.
In 2005, adjunct Professor Thomas Klocek sued DePaul for defamation and breech of contract after they suspended him following a heated argument with pro-Palestinian students. At the time, critics considered the case an example of the shutting down of free speech, in this case, of an advocate of Israel. The University said he was guilty of “threatening and unprofessional behavior.” Part of Klocek’s suit for breech of contract was dismissed, the rest is still pending.
Now, the Chronicle of Higher Education says reports are circulating that DePaul will deny Norman Finkelstein tenure despite the fact that “his department had voted 9-to-3 in his favor and that the College Personnel Committee had unanimously recommended tenure.”
Mr. Finkelstein, an assistant professor of political science, told The Chronicle in an e-mail message that he had been the target of “external intrusion in the tenure process — including a relentless campaign of character assassination directed at the faculty and administration” by his critics.
Inside Higher Ed says:
Norman G. Finkelstein has been more controversial off his campus than on it. On his frequent speaking tours to colleges, where he typically discusses Israel in highly critical ways, Finkelstein draws protests and debates. When the University of California Press published Finkelstein’s critique of Alan Dershowitz and other defenders of Israel in 2005, a huge uproar ensued — with charges and countercharges about hypocrisy, tolerance, fairness and censorship. But at DePaul University, Finkelstein has taught political science largely without controversy, gaining a reputation as a popular teacher.
But the debate over Finkelstein is now hitting his home campus — and in a way sure to create more national controversy. Finkelstein is up for tenure. So far, his department has voted, 9-3, in favor of tenure and a collegewide faculty panel voted 5-0 to back the bid. But Finkelstein’s dean has just weighed in against Finkelstein.
Why? Finkelstein is well known for his combative writing style. As in the Klocek case, university reps seem to say this has nothing to do with content, but rather with style of presentation.
In Dean Suchar’s letter, he starts by noting that there has been no dispute at DePaul over the quality of Finkelstein’s teaching. He has received “consistently high” course evaluations, Suchar writes, and many students report that they have had “transformative” experiences in his classes.
The dispute over the tenure review focuses on research. The College Personnel Committee, a faculty-elected body that reviewed Finkelstein’s candidacy and unanimously endorsed it, raised concerns about the “tone” and “frequent personal attacks” in Finkelstein’s work, Suchar writes. That committee, however, concluded that “the scholarship was, on balance, sufficiently noteworthy and praiseworthy to merit their support for the application for promotion and tenure.”
Listen to or read the transcript of a debate on Democracy Now between Norman Finkelstein and Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign minister under Ehud Barak.
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April 5th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
You can read an example of Finkelstein’s off campus work, and judge its quality (or lack thereof) for yourself at http://www.bluetruth.net/2007/03/exposing-lies-of-norman-finkelstein.html
it’s pretty long, because it is an abridged transcript of remarks he made at a recent appearance at Stanford University (yet another example of the fact that anti-Israel speech is NOT “muzzled”). However, when you read the transcript, you can understand why Finkelstein doesn’t like his remarks to be recorded. Comments exposing his fallacies and falsehoods are interspersed within the transcript.
Whether or not that justifies denial of tenure, I don’t know as I’m not an academic and am not conversant with what criteria are considered. But it didn’t take a lot of time, effort or research to debunk much of what Finkelstein presented as “straightforward’ and “uncomplicated”. Read it and judge for yourself.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Before going into specifics regarding Norman Finkelstein’s tenure issues, I’m looking over your sites and can’t find any other reference to the Thomas Klocek case. Given that Muzzlewatch exists to “track efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy,” (presumably regardless of whose ox is being gored), could you please provide your readers a link to any information you may have posted on the Klocek case.
If you’ve not yet gotten the chance to post on this case of a professor fired for communicating his political opinions, perhaps now would be a good time for Muzzlewatch (or its supporters) to present your views on this concrete, real case, beyond referencing this issue solely as a lead in to to what might hypothetically happen to Finkelstein.
April 5th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Mike,
Just finished reading the Bluetruth blog on the “lies of Finkelstein.”
Aside from correcting the misidentification of Ben Ami as a former Prime Minister, there doesn’t appear to be any expose of lies at all. In fact, in the Benny Morris section Bluetruth actually makes a stronger case for Finkelstein’s argument than Finkelstein does.
Through much of the rest Bluetruth merely answers with unsupported out-of-context quotes and assertions that often don’t even contradict Finkelstein.
April 5th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
The interesting thing is that despite the insane rants of Dershowitz and the Hasbaranik chorus, Finkelstein’s scholarship has never been questioned by any impartial reviewer. After Dershowitz’ failed efforts to muzzle Finkelstein’s “Beyond Chutzpah” by threatening law suits and the like; the U. of California not only put the manuscript in question but a whole series of Finkelstein’s writings under intense academic peer review looking for anything that might validate a law suit. They found absolutely nothing. Finkelstein’s scholarship is not at question at all (beyond a few pro-Israel propagandists that simply cannot see any factual information that conflicts with their worship of Zionist ideology & Israel). Even his foes at DePaul aren’t questioning any aspect of his scholarship or research, but his “tone.”
Make no mistake about it, this is nothing more than an effort to silence a Jew of conscience for speaking out against the Zionist orthodoxy. I’m proud that we’re bringing Prof. Finkelstein here in May: http://colorado-palestine.blogspot.com/2007/03/may-2-prof-norman-finkelstein-in.html
April 6th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Actually, plenty of people have questioned Finkelstein’s scholarship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein#Criticism_of_Finkelstein.27s_scholarship
Of course, John can just label them “hasbaraniks” and ignore substance.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I presume the lack of response to my question on the Klocek case means that no one here has any problem with a professor being fired for exercising his right of free speech, so long as such censorship is only targeted at people who express certain opinions (i.e., opinions with which JVP disagrees).
Given that at least half this site seems to celebrate the censorship of people with the “wrong” opinions, how seriously are we supposed to take this alarmist tone that Professor Norman Finklestein (someone with such a powerful scholarly mind that he can take apart the source material of a political rival - a German scholar writing about the Holocaust - without the ability to read German) as somehow being “muzzled” because tenure is not granted to him automatically?
As someone has asked elsewhere in this site: could it be that Finkelstein has gotten as far as he has with his career (given his complete lack of contribution to any scholarly endeavor) specifically because of his political opinions? Similarly, is it possible a play like “My Name is Rachel Corrie” has only seen the light of day because it fits a certain political framework, not because of its artistic merit?
It seems very much like people on this site reward scholarly or artistic merit solely on the basis of whether a person or work reflects their political biases. This being the case, it becomes more clear why JVP, Muzzlewatch and its supporters seem to get so offended when others do not immediately and unconditionally grant them the moral high ground on all matters.
If JVP/Muzzlewatch (like Norman Finkelstein) have yet to earn the respect they seem to think they deserve, perhaps a demonstration of political and scholarly virtues - rather than a constant condemnation of your critics - would help change minds about what you truly stand for.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
This is an important topic which deserves more publicity.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
free speech is one thing; blatant racism masquerading as scholarship must be called out. it’s the same with the people who wrote the bell curve, where are they today?
use your university position to further your racist views and you won’t last long. and that’s as it should be.
April 7th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Look, if Klocek or Finkelstein are being or have been forced out of their teaching positions merely because of their political opinions, that’s a grave injustice. I don’t know enough about Klocek’s case to judge exactly what happened and why. It’s entirely possible that the judgment of the university was that his behavior in the incident was enough to violate the basic rules of campus conduct. On the other hand, it’s possible that they were bowing too deeply to the sensitivities or to the political positions of the students. Hard to say from where I’m standing right now.
I also don’t know if the dean reversed the departmental and faculty committees decisions on Finkelstein’s case based on his own political views (or those of the administrators and trustees above him–or some influential donor to the university). I will say that it seems unlikely to me that he had a substantial *scholarly* case against Finkelstein (from what I’ve read there’s apparently no problem with his teaching). Finkelstein is a political scientist, and his books are substantial contributions to the analysis of the political discourses and institutions they examine. Some people disagree with his conclusions, others dismiss them because they simply don’t like them or find their implications offensive, but that doesn’t mean they don’t pass the test for academic authority and importance. His first book is the only one I myself have read, and I found it professionally and properly researched and forcefully argued. I didn’t accept every conclusion or every interpretation he offered of the evidence he brought to bear, but I found the thing on balance convincing enough that it complicated and changed my thinking about a number of things. The arguments, by and large, could not be simply dismissed. The book’s virtue is the same virtue of all good academic writing in a field like political science: by following rules of evidence and argumentation, it forces you to think in new ways about human actions, language, and institutions. These are things about which final, absolute conclusions are probably impossible. How would we achieve a final, complete account of the meaning that something like the Holocaust has in American political, moral, and ideological discourse and behavior? The thing is, anyone who does not read Finkelstein on the subject is simply not taking the subject itself seriously enough to entertain *all* of the reasonable possibilities offered by those who have studied it carefully. You can, of course, choose to ignore those who have studied a subject carefully. It’s certainly sometimes easier to just go on believing what you already believe and knowing only what you’ve already come to know by other means. I just don’t see the virtue in such a position.
Now it is possible that an injustice has been done to Mr. Klocek, and if that’s the case, I hope it is redressed. I also, however, hope that an injustice is not being done to Professor Finkelstein. There are a lot of considerations that go into a tenure decision, and academic performance and teaching are the most important, but not the only ones. There are matters of social behavior, institutional service, and professional decorum to be considered as well. These things, however, aren’t usually decisive unless there’s some problem with the scholarship and teaching. But administrators can usually do what they want in the end. When they reverse a positive or negative decision that has been made at the departmental or faculty committee level, one can only hope that they are doing so for legitimate purposes–that is, because they have real reason to believe that denying or granting someone tenure, even against the will of the majority of the faculty, will be what’s best for the institution. If they are doing it for that reason, they are acting within their rights–they are, in fact, doing their jobs. When they do so out of political or personal prejudice, they are acting immorally and unjustly. People are unfortunately people, after all, and those who have power will do what their power and their consciences allow them to do.
I hope that Finkelstein’s case falls on the side of justice. From what has been made public so far, and from what I know about the scholarship myself, it looks to me like justice should fall in his favor.
We’ll see.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
joshua - any cranky ideologue can cast aspersions on someone’s scholarly worth. the judgment of whether an academic’s contributions are sufficient for tenure purposes is a question left to one’s academic colleagues. in this case, finkelstein’s colleagues have judged his contributions as sufficiently meritorious to merit tenure.
jon - the comparison to klocek is inapt. finkelstein is not being accused of harrassing students, as klocek was. he’s being accused of being overly polemical in tone in his writings. if you can see the difference between me writing an article calling george bush a terrorist and me actually walking up to bush and shouting insults in his face, you can see the difference between finkelstein and klocek’s alleged behavior. punishing finkelstein for being overly polemical, like punishing me for writing that bush is a terrorist, is clearly unacceptable.
April 8th, 2007 at 12:51 am
[…] “His scholarship is no more than ad hominem attacks on his ideological enemies.” No, that’s not a statement about Alan Dershowitz (whose multi-part ad hominem attack on his ideological enemy Jimmy Carter is nicely dissected by Mitchell Plitnick here). That’s Dershowitz on Finkelstein, explaining why he sent a “dossier of Norman Finkelstein’s most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions” to “everybody who would read it.” (Dershowitz says he compiled the file at the request of some 24 people associated with DePaul.) We wrote earlier about The Holocaust Industry author Norman Finkelstein’s battle for tenure at DePaul. It should not come as a surprise that Dershowitz is back: several years ago the famed First Amendement advocate waged a scorched earth campaign, prior to publication, against Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah:On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, which contained several hundred pages chronicling, to put it more charitably than Finkelstein did, errors in Dershowitz’s book, The Case for Israel. […]
April 8th, 2007 at 5:17 am
One more thing writes, ‘When they reverse a positive or negative decision that has been made at the departmental or faculty committee level, one can only hope that they are doing so for legitimate purposes–that is, because they have real reason to believe that denying or granting someone tenure, even against the will of the majority of the faculty, will be what’s best for the institution. If they are doing it for that reason, they are acting within their rights–they are, in fact, doing their jobs. When they do so out of political or personal prejudice, they are acting immorally and unjustly.’
This is what FInkelstein has to say,
“DePaul is in a growth mode, and they see me as an albatross because they’re getting all this negative publicity because of me. And they want to get rid of me. And now the question is, what’s going to prevail? The principles of fairness, the principles of academic freedom, or power and money in the form of a mailed fist?”
In other words, the administration may or may not agree with Finkelstein. They expect his presendce to disadvantage the university. The reason they think this is that Finkelstein’s positions are controversial. They are willing to pander to the political prejudices of alumni, foundations, or wherever they get their money at the expense of academic freedom and robust debate within the university. Doubtless they believe that’s ‘what’s best for the institution’. I agree with Finkelstein on this - there are much more important issues at stake.
For those concerned about those issues, Gregory Meyerson, Assistant Professor of English (critical theory) at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, NC, has drafted a letter from ‘Scholars for intellectual freedom in support of Dr. Norman Finkelstein’ to DePaul University President The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., Ed.D. It is now circulating for signatures. Any practicing or former academics wishing to support the initiative to counteract Dershowitz’s pernicious machinations can find further details at:
http://tinyurl.com/ysot7r
April 10th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
One More Thing Says;
[Look, if Klocek or Finkelstein are being or have been forced out of their teaching positions merely because of their political opinions, that’s a grave injustice. I don’t know enough about Klocek’s case to judge exactly what happened and why. It’s entirely possible that the judgment of the university was that his behavior in the incident was enough to violate the basic rules of campus conduct. On the other hand, it’s possible that they were bowing too deeply to the sensitivities or to the political positions of the students. Hard to say from where I’m standing right now.]
I do find it interesting that when someone like Klocek is the apparent victim of “muzzling,” suddenly all posibilities are open and we must look at the issue from many sides. I’m sure once the owners of this site cannot avoid discussing their involvement with the ISB lawsuit in Boston anymore, they will also ask us to view the dispute between the ISB and Boston’s David Project from multiple perspectives, and present the argument that a defemation lawsuit designed to silence the ISB’s political opponents is really an attempt for that organization to preserve its own free speech.
And yet, once the alleged “victim” of supposed silencing is a Finkelstein, a Pappe or a Judt, suddenly the world becomes black and white. There is no review of relevant merit in each argument, just a case - stated as fact - that these people are having their rights abused by not automatically be granted tenure or speaking rights anywhere they wish, or by having their views questioned in any way.
April 11th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I understand your point, but all I was saying is what I felt I could say, given what I know about the two cases in question. I am certainly willing to allow that Finkelstein may be denied tenure because people in positions of administrative authority at De Paul think his academic tone and public and institutional conduct is uncivil to the point that it does damage to the mission of the institution. They might be right or they might be wrong about that, but as long as they’re not just saying it to mask a political agenda, it is within their rights to make that call. I hope that there’s no political agenda at work, but I simply don’t know. You, of course, are absolutely right that a political agenda might be at work in the *positive* judgment that the faculty made about the scholarship. All I can say is that to whatever extent I myself can be objective about the matter, I don’t see that a political agenda is *necessary* to explain the positive judgment on the scholarship. As went on to say in my other post: In a controversial field within a social science like political science, there are always going to be more than one viable interpretation of a given body of evidence. Finkelstein’s arguments strike me as serious and prosecuted in a way that adheres to professional norms and standards. They are contentious, but not gratuitously so.
The area of disagreement here is over tone and manner, and about what is good or not good for a university.
The position in support of Finkelstein and his sometimes intemperate tone claims that his behavior and the tone of his scholarship is not only within academic norms in a controversial field, but that having someone around who engages in or causes controversial intellectual debate–even a little intemperately–is exactly what’s good for an academic institution. I tend to agree with this position.
I do not know anything about Finkelstein’s behavior at work (in committee meetings, at the water-cooler, etc). From what I’ve read, he’s a good teacher, which must mean that however strongly he holds and is willing to debate controversial positions, he does not bully his students into simply agreeing with him. Since this judgment is based in part, I assume, on teaching evaluations made anonymously by students, I don’t see why we should assume that they’re lying about it (in my experience students are not shy about complaining about such things on their evaluations). I do, however, know something about his work, because I’ve read some of it and about his public persona because I’ve read his website and watched video of him speaking. He can certainly be intemperate from time to time–sometimes he seems justified in being so, other times he seems to overreact–but I see no evidence that he violates academic norms in a controversial field.
In any case, all of this is more knowledge than I have of Klocek’s situation. If I seemed to be willing to entertain more possibilities in Klocek’s case, it’s only because I know less about it, not because of the particular views he espoused.
April 11th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Jon Haber,
I just finished reading up on the Klocek case. If what I have read is correct (and it appears to be) then everyone ho believes in free speech and the frank exchange of ideas should be outraged - just as outraged as when the same occurs to Finkelstein, Judt, or anyone else on the anti-Zionist side.
I don’t agree with Klocek at all, but I am appalled at this present-day PC notion (existing on the right, as well as on the left) that those we disagree with, those whose beliefs we find offensive (a term much offended against), must in some manner be driven from the public arena.
And what an insult this is to the very students who demand his expulsion!
Are they admitting to a deficiency in intellect? Are they so precious and frail that they are incapable of intellectually surviving an angry discussion outside of class?
The Dean of DePaul’s School of New Learning, Susanne Dumbleton (Dickens could not have named her better), must concur with this patronizing attitude for she wrote to the school paper, “The students’ perspective was dishonored and their freedom demeaned. Individuals were deeply insulted…. Our college acted immediately by removing the instructor from the classroom.”
Oh dear, “dishonored” and “demeaned,” to say nothing of “deeply insulted.” I suppose there’s nothing left now but the bottle.
Of course, none of this occurred inside the classroom from which they so ungraciously removed the good professor (and a very good professor he is reported to be), but, moreover, just what sort of University does DePaul purport to be? Should not their students be expected to hold their own, even in an overheated extracurricular fracas such as this? Once upon at time, when the groves of academe were far more tolerant and livelier than they are now, all this was considered part and parcel of the environment. It was one reason why you went to university in the first place!
But now, as one of Italian extraction, I must say that Klocek appears to know little of hand gestures. He claims to have “thumbed his chin at the students in what he believed to be an Italian hand gesture meaning ‘I’m outta here.’” What he should have done was brush the back of his fingers off his chin, not his thumb. If he meant “drop dead,” then flicking the end of his thumb off his front teeth would have sufficed. Perhaps now the Italian Studies Department will also claim to be “degraded, demeaned, and insulted.”
Below is the pertinent contact info. DePaul should hear from all in support of both professors.
Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, President, DePaul University: 312-362-8000; dholtsch@depaul.edu
April 12th, 2007 at 8:58 am
If my last comment implied that you were being inconsistent or even hypocritical vis-à-vis your comments on the Klocek vs. Finkelstein cases, my apologies. I was making a general point of where one draws the line between what constitutes a black and white issue, and where one chooses to see shades of grey. Your last note made it clear that you have an open mind on both of these issues.
I think the only thing we can both agree on (something I suspect Grif would also support) is that something has gone terribly wrong at DePaul University. If a college is meant to provide a rich environment for learning, and an environment where people of different faiths, races and political persuasions can discuss their differences with civility, DePaul is clearly failing to meet those standards.
While some would blame this entirely on the administration, my experience on seeing what happens when the Middle East dispute is imported whole into a civic organization such as a university, church, city or non-profit organization tells me that school administrators, while not blameless, are also struggling with how to balance the need for allowing free speech with the bitterness that comes with allowing an Intafada and response to be the format for discourse on this volatile subject.
I’ll try to respond to your comments on Dr. Finkelstein later today if I can.
Jon
April 27th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Look What Roz Rothstein is typing in her anti Finkelstein petition:
“Holocaust survivor now living in California”
And there are many, many such signatures and they all seem fake.
When are people going to wake up? When Roz Rothstein starts burning Norman’s books in the village square like the Brown Shirts?
May 4th, 2007 at 10:16 am
It is interesting how the rationalization of the arguments in favor of Dr. Finkelstein go. If one is against him, they are trying to censor different point of view. It does not matter if he is accurate in his statements. It only matters that his statements are considered antiestablishment. Of course it is completely acceptable to be critical of the Jews. After all they control the government. Never mind that just a few years ago one could see signs on the beaches, “no dogs or Jews allowed”. Hey everyone knows the Jews are responsible for anything that happens to them. Academia just wants complete freedom. Just don’t criticize any other minority religion or anyone who is considered to have antiestablishment views. If you do, you will be kicked off campus and not allowed to speak. It will not be called censorship; other reasons will be given such as the person was critical of another individual, or did not respect the views of others. In academia it is not the accuracy of the statements that gets one respected, it is what group you attack. Goebbels had it right. One does not have to accurate in their statements; one only has to keep repeating the same statement enough times for the public to become believers. Just play on their prejudices.
May 11th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
The Chicago Tribune had an article on Norman Finklestein’s tenure problems today. As I read I was struck at the bias in the piece (against N.F., of course, one can never accuse the Chicago Tribune of been critical about anything concerning Israel), so I looked at who was reporting this information. I should not have been surprised that the reporter was Ron Grossman. He writes often about his Jewish faith, on anti-semitism, and related topics. WHY was he assumed to be objective on this topic? In 35 years of reading the Tribune, an Arab or Palestinian reporter has never been given that privelege, i.e. reporting on Middle Eastern affairs. They are presumed not objective enough. Finklestein very wisely refused to comment for the article. Grossman could barely contain his disdain.
Alan Dershowitz, on the other hand, commented ad nauseum. Why is he given a forum on Israel? His expertise is the law - why doesn’t he stick to that and let real political scientists do their job.
I thought Finklestein had tenure already - he is very brave to take on the sacred cows of Israel and the Holocaust without tenure. I have read his books. They are meticulously researched. Have his critics found fault with the facts he presents? No, they cannot attack him on the truth so they go for the personal attacks. They even go after his mother. It is beneath contempt.
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