REINSTATE PROFESSOR NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

COMMENTARY

CONTROVERSIAL PROFESSOR FIRED BY DEPAUL UNIVERSITY

Hey, the situation in the so-called hallowed groves of academia is getting a little tense this summer, to say the least. First, they finally got controversial University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. In July the Colorado Board of Regents acting on a recommendation by the school voted 8-1 to fire him. Ostensibly, as always, it was for some academic infractions but we know the real reason.

Now Professor Norman Finkelstein has had his contract with DePaul University canceled. Ostensibly for being ‘too controversial’. Where have we heard that before? The professor, son of Holocaust survivors, is known for his forthright views, as stated in his book Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, that the State of Israel and others have used the Holocaust as a bloody flag to justify any and all repressive policies, including denial of the rights of Palestinians in Israel, the West Back and Gaza.

What is important here is that speech, academic speech in this case, is really what drove the DePaul Administration’s decision, as it did in the Churchill case. Aided here, no doubt, by the smear campaign of one Zionist zealot Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz. Free speech is the real issue and the one that all militants, leftists, and just plain old ordinary garden variety democrats should be howling to the rooftops over. One does not have to be in political agreement with the good professor to know that the whole point of the vaunted freedom of expression that we are desperately trying to defend against the yahoos only works when controversial expression is safeguarded. Otherwise it is just something nice for the bourgeois democrats to point to in their constitution. Thus, the spearhead of the free speech fight right now is to defend Professor Finkelstein. Reinstate Professor Finkelstein! Send messages of solidarity and support to Professor Finkelstein and to the DePaul University Administration now.