Finkelstein dumped - nothing personal
/Jews sans frontieres: Finkelstein denied tenure at DePaul University
UPDATE: Geras, to his great credit, has questioned the decision. He is no fan of Finkelstein but as a vociferous supporter of academic freedom and someone who is enegetically opposing the proposed UCU boycott of Israeli universities he set aside any antipathy towards Finkelstein to defend a principle. On a purely pragmatic level, with Dershowitz due here soon to support the Stop the Boycott campaign, to not at least question the DePaul decison would have been a glaring own goal.
Now we shouldn’t assume that the tenure has been denied because of his stance on such issues as holocaust “compensation,” zionism generally and, of course, Professor Alan Dershowitz in particular but it does seem rather odd that Dershowitz has a prestigious seat at Harvard and Finkelstein can’t get tenure at DePaul. It’s like zionists have some special influence in US academia but they can’t have, can they?I do hope we see posts condemning this decision from the likes of Geras, Phillips, Grant et al.
UPDATE: Geras, to his great credit, has questioned the decision. He is no fan of Finkelstein but as a vociferous supporter of academic freedom and someone who is enegetically opposing the proposed UCU boycott of Israeli universities he set aside any antipathy towards Finkelstein to defend a principle. On a purely pragmatic level, with Dershowitz due here soon to support the Stop the Boycott campaign, to not at least question the DePaul decison would have been a glaring own goal.
