Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Prominent Academic Denied U.S. Varsity Post For Being 'Critic' Of Israel.

It looks like even in the 'land of the free and home of the brave,' politics plays a big role in university appointments. Read of the discrimination at one such varsity in this article from The Independent:
A top American university has denied tenure to a prominent academic amid allegations of anti-Semitism and his defence of the Palestinian cause.

Norman Finkelstein, a frequent critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, said he had been "blacklisted" by the university and would now have to leave teaching. He had been offered lifelong tenure by the political science department of the Catholic DePaul University in Chicago, but faced with a bitter campaign against him, the university denied him the post.

Mr Finkelstein, whose family survived the Holocaust, has been public enemy number one of the Israel lobby in the US for a number of years. He has frequently accused American Jews of exploiting the Holocaust for financial gain and is a regular critic of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. He described DePaul's move as an "egregious violation" of academic freedom.

One of his main critics, Alan Dershowitz, an attorney and Harvard law professor, said: "It was plainly the right decision."
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1 Comments:

Blogger Monsterball said...

There's more to the controversy than just Norman Finkelstein's anti-Israel stance. The quality of his scholarship has been seriously challenged - his Princeton PhD thesis was held up for a long time. Of course, the anti-Semitism charge is a factor there.
Given all the hot air surrounding the candidate, DePaul probably decided it wasn't worth the trouble to have him on the faculty.

DePaul is a private university linked to the Catholic church, and it has more decision making freedom than a state university.

12:20 PM GMT+8  

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