The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., Ed.D.
President, De Paul University
1 E. Jackson
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Fax: 312-362-7577

Dear President Holtschneider:

I write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern and dismay at what appear to be your university's multiple and egregious violations of generally accepted standards of academic procedure in handling the tenure case of Professor Norman G. Finkelstein.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in its field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2700 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

As you will remember, the Committee sent you a letter dated April 10, 2007, in which it expressed its grave concern about the politicization of Professor Finkelstein's tenure case as a result of the campaign launched against him by Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard University Law School. In that letter we urged you to ensure that Professor Finkelstein be evaluated for tenure at DePaul solely on the basis of his scholarship, his teaching, and his service to his university and professional communities, and that all aspects of Professor Finkelstein's tenure process adhere to generally accepted procedures and standards. We regret that you did not choose to respond to that letter.

Unfortunately, developments at DePaul since that letter was sent indicate that proper procedures and standards were not being adhered to in Professor Finkelstein's case. As a consequence the Committee now feels compelled to write you again, because in the aftermath of DePaul's decision to deny tenure to Professor Finkelstein your administration appears to have violated accepted academic procedures and standards in at least two ways.

First, we deem unacceptable your administration's refusal to permit Professor Finkelstein to pursue a formal appeal of the decision to deny him tenure. As you no doubt know, such a right of appeal is accepted by most leading institutions of higher education in this country. Our concern about this arbitrary and unjust decision is shared by your own university's Faculty Council and by the American Association of University Professors, among others.

Second, we feel obliged to register our distress at reports that your administration has, just a few days before the beginning of the fall semester, suddenly decided to prevent Professor Finkelstein from teaching during his terminal year at DePaul, taken away his office, and put him on paid administrative leave. As you surely know, it is customary to permit faculty who have been denied tenure to teach for one final year. Your administration's abrupt decision to prevent Professor Finkelstein (who is by all accounts an outstanding teacher) from doing so, without his agreement and despite strong objections from members of your own faculty and student body, strikes us as high-handed, if not vindictive.

However one judges Professor Finkelstein's qualifi cations for tenure, it seems clear that DePaul has mishandled his case in a variety of ways and has repeatedly violated generally accepted standards of academic process and fair play. In so doing your administration has in effect given aid and comfort to those who seek to undermine the academy as a bastion of academic freedom and as a forum for the open and critical discussion of issues of vital public concern.

We live in a time when scholars, teachers and institutions of higher education across the United States are facing extraordinary pressures and vituperative assaults from individuals and organized groups based outside the academy and pursuing narrow partisan agendas, particularly with respect to United States policy in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict. It is therefore highly distressing that you and your administration at DePaul have in this case signally failed to adhere to accepted standards of academic procedure or to protect the rights of every member of your faculty.

We therefore call on you to promptly reconsider and reverse both of these arbitrary and misguided decisions, in order to undo the damage already done to DePaul University's reputation as an institution of higher education and to help protect the norms of academic life and the principle of academic freedom that your university professes to cherish.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

In wonderful company [Jamie]

08.30.2007 | AndrewSullivan.theatlantic.com
By Andrew Sullivan

Leon Wieseltier put it best when he referred to Norman Finkelstein--the hysterical, Hezbollah-loving, soon-to-be-late-of DePaul University political science professor--as "poison, he's a disgusting self-hating Jew, he's something you find under a rock." Finkelstein has built a career on defaming Holocaust survivors as greedy liars out to rob noble Swiss bankers, all the while using "I'm Jewish!" as a defense. The wife of the neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel once said, "I feel like a kid in a candy store… Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving." You get the picture. But if you don't, read Omer Bartov's review of Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry in the New York Times.

Well, it looks like Professor Finkelstein has some company under that rock: Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky and, perhaps more surprising, ostensibly respectable academic figures like Tony Judt and John Mearsheimer, author of the conspiratorial The Israel Lobby.

In June, DePaul University denied Finkelstein tenure. Of course, his defenders are all weeping the tears of those victimized by academic "censorship" (because, as we all know, it's leftists who are "censored" on college campuses). Ultimately, however, it was not Finkelstein's political views--odious as they are--that did him in, but his shoddy scholarship and unprofessional behavior. As DePaul's president wrote at the time, Finkelstein did not ''honor the obligation'' to ''respect and defend the free inquiry of associates.'' DePaul has canceled Finkelstein's class, but the good professor says he may carry out a "hunger strike" in protest. He'd be doing the world a favor if he did.

These academic heroes have joined an outfit called the "DePaul Academic Freedom Committee," the mission of which is to "preserve academic freedom for our faculty on campus." Ali, Chomsky, Judt and Mearsheimer will be convening a teach-in at DePaul in October to protest on behalf of Finkelstein. Though now lacking an academic perch (DePaul is the third university from which he has been fired) Finkelstein won't be out of a job for long; I imagine the Iranian mullahs, Hizbollah or Hamas would love nothing more than to have an energetic, American Jewish spokesperson to make their respective cases (though perhaps he's more effective advocating for them in an unofficial, unpaid capacity). If they don't come through, Finkelstein can always go climb back under his rock.

One expects these sorts of theatrics from Ali and Chomsky. But Judt and Mearsheimer have revealed much about themselves--and their intellectual motivations--by choosing to advocate for a Hezbollah propagandist and hero of neo-Nazis.

Dear Norman:

As you prepare for Wednesday's confrontation outside of 990 Fullerton, I wanted to let you know that there are faculty and students who will stand beside you as your return to your office and teach your classes. If you face arrest and confinement, we will be there with you. If you enage in a hunger strike, we will fast with you. If you face the blows of a policman's club, we will take those blows with you. As you prepare for this day of reckoning at DePaul, please know that you will not be alone!

In Solidarity,

Concerned Faculty and Students

A Battle for the Soul of DePaul, and for the Future of Academia: An Open Letter to DePaul Faculty

"For now, a great victory has been handed to people who are essentially fascists. Why is it a great victory? Because, as with Germany in 1933, a decisive role was played by people who are liberals and even progressives. Even more, because a university that should have been one of the last places where something like this could happen is instead one of the first."

-Prof. Bill Martin (Philosophy, DePaul)

www.defendcriticalthinking.org

Signed:

Gil Anidjar, Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University.

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Derrick Bell, Visiting Professor of Law, New York University School of Law.

Robert Brenner, History Department, University of California, Los Angeles.

George Caffentzis, Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine.

Eric Cheyfitz, Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters, Cornell University.

Ward Churchill, Scholar at Large.

Dana Cloud, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, University of Texas, Austin.

Drucilla Cornell, Professor in the Departments of Law and Political Science, Rutgers University.

Walter A Davis, Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University.

Richard Delgado, University Distinguished Professor of Law & Derrick Bell Fellow, University of Pittsburgh.

Silvia Federici, Emeritus Professor, Hofstra University.

Ruth Hsu, Associate Professor of English, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Christine Karatnytsky, Scripts Librarian, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Gary P. Leupp, Professor of History, Tufts University.

Peter McLaren, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

Bill Martin, Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University.

Tom Mayer, Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder.

E. Wayne Ross, Professor of Education, Department of Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia.

Henry Silverman, Professor and Chairperson Emeritus, Department of History, Michigan State University.

Natsu Taylor Saito, Professor of Law, Georgia State University.

Michael Vocino, Professor, University of Rhode Island.

Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar, Department of Sociology, Yale University.

Howard Zinn, Professor Emeritus, Boston University.

(Affiliations for identification only)

From: Abraham, Matthew

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 3:01 PM

To: Jones, Jay

Cc: Ortiz, Elizabeth; Suchar, Charles; Epp, Helmut; Holtschneider, Fr. Dennis; Vandenberg, Peter

Subject: incident report

Dear Jay:

I have just arrived to my office, McGaw 213, to find the Academic Freedom poster on my front door to have been defaced between yesterday evening when I left my office and just now. The poster has pictures of Professor Finkelstein and Larudee on it. An "X" has been placed over Professor Finkelstein's face. I consider this to be a form of intimidation and a threat. Please advise.

I have copied my chair, Professor Peter Vandenberg, Dean Suchar, Provost Epp, Vice President Ortiz, and Father Holtschneider on this message.

While there might be fierce disagreement within our community about the outcome of this year's tenure and promotion decisions, I do not believe any of us would condone behavior that can best be described as "sophomoric."

Best, Matthew Abraham

Norman G. Finkelstein has vowed to resist those thugs and hoodlums who are seeking to silence his provocative ideas. In an age when it seems most people, and most academics, come up with excuses to avoid acting on principle, Finkelstein has paid the ultimate price for speaking the truth. He has suffered the equivalent of the academic death sentence--the denial of tenure. Now, to add insult to injury, he is being placed on administrative leave and is being taken out of the classroom, despite consistently earning the highest teaching evaluations in the political science department for six years straight. To take such a gifted teacher away from his students is truly depraved.

Now, Finkelstein has vowed to engage in civil disobedience, to show up to his classes on September 5th, to undergo arrest, to endure jail time, to suffer through a protracted hunger strike.

How many academics, at DePaul and elsewhere, will stand up and say "I stand in solidarity with Norman G. Finkelstein." Let me say it now, and let me say it directly: I stand with Norman G. Finkelstein.

"As it happens, I was just this past week teaching about Paul Robeson in my political science class. When Robeson was crucified for his beliefs, he said, 'I will not retreat one-thousandth part of one inch.' That's what I say to the thugs and hoodlums who are trying to silence me . . . They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach. But they will never stop me from saying what I believe."

– Finkelstein to the Chicago Tribune.

DePaul's students have done a heroic job in defending the academic freedom of Norman G. Finkelstein and Mehrene Larudee. Hats off to them! What about the faculty? How many DePaul Faculty will now rise up and resist the evil winds that our blowing through the largest Catholic University in the country? I will do everything in my power, as insubstantial as it is, to defend academic freedom at DePaul University. If Finkelstein is denied office space, he is more than welcome to use my office.

In solidarity, MATTHEW ABRAHAM

Thank you very much in your interest in the DePaul Academic Freedom Committee. DePaul Universiy has been the site of a purge of professors who have been critical against Israel. Dr. Norman Finkelstein of the Department of Political Science and Dr. Mehrene Larudee of the International Studies program have recently been denied tenure at DePaul. After constant attack from Alan Dershowitz and the Israel Lobby, the DePaul administration has spinlessly succumbed to the pressures. As a result, DePaul has lost two of its finest professors and untenured faculty have received a wake up call to censor their work, or risk being denied tenure. It doesn't matter whether your scholarship is acceptable by the standards of peer-reviewed academic journals, or by your own department, as the purges are coming from the top echlons of DePaul.

Another case in which the critics of Israel have been suppressed is regarding Dr. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, and Dr. Stephen Walt of Harvard University. The MuzzleWatch blog posted an article from the Wall Street Journal, which I have reposted here:

Speechless in Chicago

Wall Street Journal

7 August 2007

Jay Solomon reports on controversy over a planned speech.

Available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/08/07/speechless-in-chicago/

 

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has canceled a September speech on U.S.-Israel relations and Washington’s pro-Israel lobby by two prominent U.S. political scientists.

 

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were scheduled to use the Sept. 27 address to outline their upcoming book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” which is expected to be released by Farrar, Straus & Giroux early next month. But the president of the Chicago Council, Marshall Bouton, canceled the event under pressure from critics who were uncomfortable with the academics’ arguments, according to a letter drafted by Mearsheimer and Walt to the Council’s board.

 

These opponents of the event argued that the two political scientists could only address the Chicago Council if someone from the opposing side, “such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, concurrently appeared on stage with the authors.

 

“One might argue that our views are too controversial to be presented on their own,” Mearsheimer and Walt wrote. “However, they are seen as controversial only because some of the groups and individuals that we criticized in our original article have misrepresented what we said.”

 

Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Walt, on the faculty at Harvard, set off a political firestorm last year when they penned an article for the London Review of Books, called the “Israel Lobby,” that argued pro-Israel interest groups had distorted U.S. policies in the Middle East. They also argued that these groups played a central role in promoting the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq.

 

Since the original article appeared in March 2006, the two academics have appeared at a number of ventures to explain their views, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Press Club and Georgetown University. But a number of leading Jewish-American organizations, such as the ADF and the American Jewish Congress, have consistently charged that Mearsheimer’s and Walt’s views are anti-Semitic and overemphasize the power of the pro-Israel lobby.

 

Mearsheimer and Walt deny being anti-Semites and said the charges are designed “to discourage respected organizations like the Council from giving us an audience.”

I found a letter that was sent to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs from Dr. Mearsheimer and Dr. Walt on the Antony Loewenstein's blog

August 5, 2007

 

Salutation

 

We are writing to bring to your attention a troubling incident involving the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We do so reluctantly, as we have both enjoyed our prior associations with the Council and we have great respect for its aims and accomplishments. Nonetheless, we felt this was an episode that should not pass without comment.

 

On September 4, 2007, our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most highly respected publishers in the United States. Through our publisher, the Council issued an invitation for both of us to speak at a session on September 27, 2007. We were delighted to accept, as each of us had spoken at the Council on several occasions in the past and knew we would attract a diverse and well-informed audience that would engage us in a lively and productive discussion.

 

On July 19, while discussing the details of our visit with Sharon Houtkamp, who was handling the arrangements at the Council, we learned that the Council had already received a number of communications protesting our appearance. We were not particularly surprised by this news, as we had seen a similar pattern of behavior after our original article on “The Israel Lobby” appeared in the London Review of Books in March 2006. We were still looking forward to the event, however, especially because it gave us an opportunity to engage these issues in an open forum.

 

Then, on July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us (Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was cancelling the event. He said he felt “extremely uncomfortable making this call” and that his decision did not reflect his personal views on the subject of our book. Instead, he explained that his decision was based on the need “to protect the institution.” He said that he had a serious “political problem,” because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the Council. “This one is so hot,” Marshall maintained, that he could not present it at a Council session unless someone from “the other side”—such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League—was on stage with us. At the very least, he needed to present “contending viewpoints.” But he said it was too late to try to change the format, as the fall schedule was being finalized and there would not be sufficient time to arrange an alternate date. He showed little interest in doing anything with us in 2008 or beyond.

 

Several comments are in order regarding this situation.

 

First, since the publication of our original article on the Israel lobby, we have appeared either singly or together at a number of different venues, including Brown University, the Council on Foreign Relations, Columbia University, Cornell University, Emerson College, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, Georgetown University, the National Press Club, the Nieman Fellows Program at Harvard University, the University of Montana, the Jewish Community Center in Newton, Massachusetts, and Congregation Kam Isaiah Israel in Chicago. In all but one of these venues we appeared on our own, i.e., without someone from the “other side.” As one would expect, we often faced vigorous questions from members of the audience, which invariably included individuals who disagreed in fundamental ways with some of our arguments. Nevertheless, the back-and-forth at each of these events was always civil, and quite a few participants said that they benefited from listening to us and to our interlocutors.

 

Second, the Council has recently welcomed speakers who do represent a “contending viewpoint,” and they have appeared on their own. Consider the case of Michael Oren, an Israeli-American author, who appeared at the Council on February 8, 2007, to talk about “The Middle East and the United States: A Long and Complicated Relationship.” Oren has a different view of U.S. Middle East policy than we do; indeed, he gave a keynote address at AIPAC’s annual policy conference this past spring that directly challenged our perspective. We believe it was entirely appropriate for the Council to have invited him to speak, and without having a representative from an opposing group there to debate him. The Council has also welcomed a number of other speakers on this general topic in recent years, such as Dennis Ross, Max Boot and Rashid Khalidi, and none of their appearances included someone representing a “contending view.”

 

One might argue that our views are too controversial to be presented on their own. However, they are seen as controversial only because some of the groups and individuals that we criticized in our original article have misrepresented what we said or leveled unjustified charges at us personally—such as the baseless claim that we (or our views) are anti-Semitic. The purpose of these charges, of course, is to discourage respected organizations like the Council from giving us an audience, or to create conditions where they feel compelled to include “contending views” in order to preserve “balance” and to insulate themselves from external criticism.

 

In fact, our views are not extreme. Our book does not question Israel’s right to exist and does not portray pro-Israel groups in the United States as some sort of conspiracy to “control” U.S. foreign policy. Rather, it describes these groups and individuals—both Jewish and gentile—as simply an effective special interest group whose activities are not substantially different from groups like the NRA, the farm lobby, the AARP, or other ethnic lobbies. Its activities, in other words, are as American as apple pie, although we argue that its influence has helped produce policies that are not in the U.S. national interest. We also suggest that these policies have been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well, and that a different course of action would be better for both countries. It is not obvious to us why such views could not be included in the Council’s schedule.

 

Although we find it somewhat unseemly to refer to our own careers, it is perhaps worth noting that we are both well-established figures with solid mainstream credentials. We are fortunate to occupy chaired professorships at distinguished universities, and to have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We have both held important leadership positions at Chicago or Harvard, each of us serves on the editorial boards of several leading foreign policy journals (such as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy), and we have both done consulting work for U.S. government agencies. Given our backgrounds, the idea that it would be inappropriate for us to appear on our own at a Council session seems far-fetched.

 

Finally, and most importantly, we believe that the decision to cancel our appearance is antithetical to the principle of open discussion that underpins American democracy, and that is so essential for maximizing the prospects that our country pursues a wise foreign policy. In essence, we believe this is a case in which a handful of people who disagree with our views have used their influence to intimidate Marshall into rescinding the Council’s invitation to us, so as to insure that interested members will not hear what we have to say about Israeli policy, the U.S. relationship with Israel, and the lobby itself. This is not the way we are supposed to address important issues of public policy in the United States, and it is surely not the way the Council normally conducts its business. This is undoubtedly why Marshall, who is a very smart and decent man, felt so uncomfortable calling us to say that the event had been cancelled. He knew this decision was contrary to everything that the Council is supposed to represent.

 

The Chicago Council is obviously under no obligation to grant us a venue, and we are not writing in an attempt to reverse this decision. But given the importance of the issues that are raised in our book, we are genuinely disappointed that we will not have the benefit of open exchange with the Council’s members, including those who might want to challenge our arguments or conclusions. The United States and its allies—including Israel—face many challenging problems in the Middle East, and our country will not be able to address them intelligently if we cannot have an open and civilized discussion about U.S. interests in the region, and the various factors that shape American policy there. Regrettably, the decision to cancel our appearance has made that much-needed conversation more difficult.

 

Sincerely,

 

John J. Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science
University of Chicago

 

Stephen M. Walt
Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs
Harvard University