Reflections on the Recent Finkelstein Tenure Denial

Most readers of this blog will be aware that Norman Finkelstein, political science professor in Chicago's DePaul university was recently denied tenure. Although approved by his department and a College faculty committee, Finkelstein was denied tenure by Dean Chuck Suchar of the College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences. That decision was further upheld by the highest decision maker, DePaul university president Rev. Holtschneider.

For Norman Finkelstein, this is only the latest in a continuum of stormy situations. With a successful intellectual record of dismantling prevailing ideology, propaganda, and falsehoods relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Holocaust reparations, and Zionism, Finkelstein has long been the target of attacks by the pro-Israeli perception in the media and among fellow scholars.

Both Suchar and Holtschneider have made it clear that their decision to deny Finkelstein tenure is not based in his research and teaching record, the two strict criteria for professorial tenure. Indeed, with five widely read and impactful scholarly books, and an enviable teaching record that has given his students "transformative" experiences, they could scarcely have challenged his academic stature on legitimate grounds. Instead, the "tone" with which he writes and engages the academic community seems largely to be the issue. As reported in the news, Suchar wrote, "I find this very characteristic aspect of his scholarship to compromise its value and find it to be reflective of an ideologue and polemicist who has a rather hurtful and mean-spirited sub-text to his critical scholarship - not only to prove his point and others wrong but, also in my opinion, in the process, to impugn their veracity, honor, motives, reputations and/or their dignity. I see this as a very damaging threat to civil discourse in a university and in society in general."

President Holtschneider has seconded this opinion in a three-page letter to Finkelstein. One might think of three possible reasons for this decision on the part of President Holtschneider (and this same reasoning may be applied to other officials like Suchar). One is that he personally believes that Finkelstein's so-called lack of collegiality is a factor that tops the professor's ample scholarly accomplishments and teaching credentials (or, indeed, more importantly, that collegiality even factors in the tenure decision). Another possibility is, to put it crudely, "he has been got at". The third possiblity is that Professor Finkelstein is considered trouble, as he himself has stated to The Chronicle, "DePaul is in a growth mode, and they see me as an albatross because they're getting all this negative publicity because of me. And they want to get rid of me." Or it may have been a combination of these.

At the outset, the first possibility brings up a very basic idea of fairness. As Finkelstein has pointed out, this is a newly invented criterion in a process that has established criteria of research and teaching records, and "You can't spring new criteria at the second stage of the last year of a tenure-track position". Secondly, it raises questions about the entirely unclear idea of collegiality. Making this a hard criterion for tenureship can easily turn into a slippery slope of conformity and homogeneity, and create an environment that is eeriely similar to a monarchy or dictatorship. A trend of this kind would be something to fear, since it will represent yet another hacking away of the fragile and limited scope for free debate in our democracy.

Lest I be accused of leftist conspiracy theories, I may add that it is perfectly logical to fear an enforced conformity as a consequence of including collegiality as a tenure factor. The only benign aspect of a formal notion of collegiality is a minimum courtesy that we are obliged to afford one another. But that hardly needs to be chosen as a formal criterion for university tenure, which is a privilege that individuals earn after years of dedicated work. In fact, one may even spend a few moments thinking about why our society still supports tenure for professors and Supreme Court judges, especially since the very idea is antithetical to the neoliberal ideas that govern our economy.(*) The rationale behind tenure, as it was originally envisaged, an idea that is even more critical today, is to enable scholars to devote their time and talents to research that may not have apparent tangible material benefit, and to pursuing truths of interest to the society, even when they run contrary to the powers-that-be. Tenure for scholars and scientists is one of the few crucial safety valves available to protect the public interest in our democracy. But that function breaks down if holders of this elite position, like Alan Dershowitz, are themselves allowed to subvert the tenure process in order to satisfy personal urges. Neither does it work effectively if a majority of the tenured scholars do not consider it their responsibility and duty to uphold truth and justice, and challenge falsehood, ideally anywhere they detect it, and certainly when it is within the purview of their discipline. As we have more and more scholars engaging in self-censorship in the interests of professional and personal rewards, those who do uphold truth must be allowed to flourish.

Additionally, I might be inclined to give the idea of collegiality a moment's attention if I believed that the standard would be uniformly applied irrespective of whether one's research runs along or against the mainstream current. I find it hard to believe that a scholar whose research celebrates the prevailing beliefs, but with similar alleged grounds for being called an uncollegial polemicist intolerant of other viewpoints, would be penalized in this fashion. In any case, this is perhaps a logical impossibility, since someone who toes the established line of thought is hardly going to be fingered vindictively in the manner Finkelstein has been over the last several years. As a self-described forensic scholar in an area in which barrels of money are poured into the propaganda machinery, Finkelstein calls out hoaxes and frauds in the scholarship. He has been at the receiving end of vicious personal attacks, as has been painstakingly documented in a letter by one of his many supporters to Holtschneider. Moreover, are verbal attacks the only things that "impugn a person's reputation and dignity"? If one were to consider the enormous amount of financial and professional hardship that has been inflicted on Finkelstein, the burden of any negativity or mean-spiritedness falls squarely on his attackers.

Lastly, if Finkelstein was indeed consummately intolerant of opposing viewpoints, is it not logical that he would be so not just with colleagues who disagreed with him, but also with his students? And if he has a penchant for saying controversial things in a direct manner, then surely there might have been countless occasions when students disagreed with him. How come there is no such pattern in his teaching evaluations? If he had been mean-spirited with his students, they would not have given him such glowing reviews. As a graduate student who until very recently was taking classes, and who has learned teaching the hard way (with the first semester of teaching culminating in somewhat weak evaluations), I can safely vouch for the fact the students will not be reticent on their evaluations if they had a bad experience.

The second possibility is a chilling prospect, but hardly a surprising or novel one. The question remains, of course, about whether DePaul officials have been compelled to act solely by the dastardly agenda of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, or by a broader spectrum of individuals including Dershowitz. I am inclined to be sceptical that Dershowitz alone could have influenced the outcome on his own, in the absence of support from other powerful sectors, who may be sympathatic to him personally, or who have their own interests in silencing Finkelstein. These sectors may have used monetary pressures to get their own way. DePaul university is hardly unique in being a center of learning that is beholden to corporate funding. There are some speculations on this floating in the blogosphere.

The last scenario, of course, depends on the fact that there was "trouble", and it may be noted that most of the trouble, at least most recently in the public arena, was being stirred up by Dershowitz. In some ways, this last possibility seems to me to be the most outrageous one. It sets a contemporary precedent for any academic to be silenced simply because a malicious person with dubious claims to scholarship and a shaky ego had the inclination and the time to singlemindedly and obsessively incite controversy based entirely on lies and slander in order to exact a personal revenge.
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(*) To be precise, though, the idea of a permanent job security is antithetical to the neoliberal agenda only when it concerns jobs for rank and file workers, not for those who have any degree of power.