DePaul tiff comes to end
Finkelstein resigns and college lauds his teaching—terminating their showdown
By Ron Grossman | Chicago Tribune staff reporter
10:30 PM CDT, September 5, 2007
The long-running battle between outspoken professor Norman Finkelstein and DePaul University administrators ended Wednesday as the two sides agreed on a private settlement, cutting short a planned day of protests.
But the underlying struggle between supporters of Israel and champions of the Palestinians continues, not just at the North Side campus but across the academic world.
Finkelstein's case attracted far greater public attention than tenure struggles usually do, with supporters across the nation demanding the Catholic university grant him tenure and detractors just as vehemently insisting he be fired. Wednesday's settlement did little to calm those waters.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a strong supporter of Israel, has been engaged in a long and bitter public debate with Finkelstein. Dershowitz expressed outrage at the apparent compromise Wednesday, especially a written statement from the university that declared, "Professor Finkelstein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher."
"The university has traded truth for peace," said Dershowitz. "The statement that [Finkelstein] is a scholar is simply false. He's a propagandist."
Finkelstein's cause, meanwhile, has found support among academic powerhouses such as the late Raul Hilberg, the dean of Holocaust historians, and Noam Chomsky, linguist and social critic. Finkelstein is something of a protégé of Chomsky, with whom he shares a critical stance toward Israel and American foreign policy.
Chomsky said he had not seen the terms of the settlement, but added in an e-mail: "Of course, the whole affair was an utter outrage, a cowardly attack on academic freedom."
Earlier this year, DePaul Dean Chuck Suchar had rejected tenure for Finkelstein, saying the political scientist, known for his red-hot rhetoric, hadn't been true to the school's "Vincentian values," including respect for the views of others.
But supporters felt Finkelstein was being intellectually martyred for his strong criticisms of Israel.
Opponents, meanwhile, saw Finkelstein, himself Jewish, as peddling a brand of anti-Semitism for which there should be no place on campus.
Finkelstein has rejected charges of anti-Jewish bias in his books, telling an Israeli newspaper: "I am just the messenger who reports on the actions of the Jewish establishment, actions that are encouraging anti-Semitism," he said.
After losing his tenure battle in June, Finkelstein was unexpectedly put on administrative leave shortly before classes started at DePaul on Wednesday.
He vowed in return to commit an act of civil disobedience and stage a hunger strike, which guaranteed a parade of protesters and television trucks on the first day of the new quarter.
Wednesday's demonstration witnessed the way in which the professor's personal and academic struggle has been subsumed into a constellation of larger issues. Though the majority in the pro-Finkelstein ranks were college age, some in the crowd of 120 looked like veterans of many an earlier protest. One carried a placard and a portable oxygen supply.
But instead of a dramatic standoff, Finkelstein stood beside a statue of St. Vincent DePaul, for whom the university is named, and announced that he and the school had come to an amicable agreement: He resigned, and the university acknowledged his scholarship and teaching.
Recently, both supporters of the Palestinians and those of the Israelis have exchanged cries of "foul" during bitter campus debates. Jewish college students have complained of being harassed, in and out of the classroom. After an incident at the University of Chicago, that school brought in counselors, hoping to restore civility to the dorms.
Scholars of Middle Eastern studies have complained that Jewish organizations were out to censor them.
But Finkelstein himself was soft-spoken in what had been billed as his final class session.
His voice cracked with emotion when he thanked his students for their support through some dark periods.
"My spirits have been lifted when I walked into a classroom," he said. "You have put a high burden on my shoulders."
rgrossman@tribune.com
