Norman Finkelstein lives on
Norman Finkelstein may have been forced out at DePaul University -
barely missing tenure - but the Holocaust denier's spirit lives on at DePaul where there's now a food fight over
where to buy the Humus.
Apparently the activists at De Paul University are made of sterner stuff and prepared to make the ultimate snack-rifice. That institution, which briefly banished and then reinstated the offending legumes last fall, has become a battlefield once again.
Sabra hummus reappeared on the dining tables there until the Fair Business Practices Committee could issue a judgment, but in the meantime, SJP, unwilling to wait for the result, secured a referendum on a proposed ban. As the Huffington Post puts it with understatement, the language on the ballot is "somewhat leading":
“Sabra, which currently supplies hummus to the DePaul cafeteria, is co-owned by the Strauss Group. The Strauss group provides financial support and supplies to the Golani and Givati brigades of the Israeli military, which have been found by the United Nations to be violators of human rights. Are you in favor of replacing Sabra with an alternative brand of hummus?”
Subtle. As one might suspect, the issues are actually a tad more complicated.
Voting is open until Friday. This is the first such campus-wide referendum there in a decade. (Nice to know the students have their priorities straight.) Oh, and by the way, according to a University spokeswoman: the result is not binding.
Two clashes over hummus at DePaul in half a year: once more into the fridge fray. Not exactly the Second Battle of the Marne, but as they say of academic politics: the fights are so nasty because the stakes are so low.
Norman Finkelstein would be proud.
Labels: BDS, DePaul University, hummus, Norman Finkelstein, Strauss
When sticking up for Israel is a career-ending move
Thomas Klocek has been fired by Chicago's De Paul University for defending Israel.
Here's part of a press release issued by his law firm.
On Monday, November 29, 2010, the Illinois Supreme Court decided not to hear Professor Thomas Klocek’s appeal, bringing an end to his five-year suit against DePaul University for destroying his reputation. The case had been litigated in the circuit court for years in front of a number of different judges: two of which ruled Klocek properly stated valid claims against DePaul; the last of which, however, unexpectedly threw the entire case out on the eve of the trial in 2009. The appellate court was unwilling to disturb any of the circuit court’s holdings, issuing a short order, rather than a published opinion, simply rubber-stamping the circuit court result.
As those who have followed the case may recall, little more than six years ago, Klocek was a well respected part-time professor at DePaul's School for New Learning who, as DePaul’s own Father Kevin Collins put it, was "more likely to talk an ear off about religious and historical fine points than mean to offend" and was "as gentle as he was opinionated and on the erudite side." This gentle and erudite man, who had enjoyed a fourteen year unblemished record of teaching diversity and culture courses to working adults at DePaul apparently talked about religious and historical fine points with the wrong groups (the Students for Justice in Palestine and the United Muslims Moving Ahead) on the wrong campus. What he understood to be a simple, albeit contentious, dialogue lasting all of five minutes with the student activists about their pet issues, turned out to be beyond DePaul's threshold for academic freedom.
The students with the help of the Council on American and Islamic Relations quickly filed complaints with the administration demanding Klocek's removal, and in a rush to a politically-correct judgment, DePaul caved. Instead of caving privately with an eye to Klocek’s rights and reputation, DePaul's administration, without a hearing or even notice to Klocek of the students' charges against him, made a public spectacle of defending the students from the professor who had dared to "dishonor" their perspective and "assault" their beliefs. Though DePaul later claimed Klocek was suspended for his conduct and not his views or his speech, Dean Susanne Dumbleton, Klocek's supervisor, ruled that "No one should ever use the role of teacher to demean the ideas of others or insist on the absoluteness of an opinion, much less press erroneous assertions."
Oh by the way, the third judge that they mention just happened to graduate law school at... DePaul University. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. After all, nothing corrupt ever happens in Chicago.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: DePaul University, freedom of speech, Thomas Klocek
Norman Finkelstein may have been forced out at DePaul University - barely missing tenure - but the Holocaust denier's spirit lives on at DePaul where there's now a food fight over where to buy the Humus. 
