DePaul: Harvard-2?

It is now twenty days since professors Norman Finkelstein and Mehrene Larudee were denied tenure by DePaul University in Chicago. Despite approval from faculty colleagues, Finkelstein's tenure bid was turned down by Dean Chuck Suchar on the sole grounds that Finkelstein's tone of writing somehow violates "some basic tenets of discourse within an academic community." After a few days the university President, Rev Holtschneider, issued the final ruling in support of the tenure denial.

Whatever imagined reasons one might try to wring out to justify the denial of tenure to Finkelstein, the accompanying tenure denial to Larudee should make it clear even to sceptics that this was as nearly a deliberate move to silence the likes of Finkelstein as it could be. Larudee, although an accomplished scholar in her field, is hardly the kind of controversial figure like Finkelstein.(*) The latter has had loud attacks directed against him from mainstream media and academia, mostly only in this country, for exposing utter falsehoods in the public debate on Israel's US-backed occupation of Palestinian territory. In Larudee's case, there seems no conceivable reason other than her open support of Finkelstein.

Even a quick browsing of Norman Finkelstein's website clearly shows the overwhelming and unambiguous support his work has earned him from scholars, students, and readers from all over the world. The torrent of letters of support is such that he has had to post the letters in batches on his website. Several of the letter writers have also taken the additional step of writing personally to Holtschneider.

Several actions have been taken by DePaul students, who have been protesting the tenure denials. Certainly Holtschneider has had his share of the students' ire directed against him. The students initially organized a sit-in to pressure the president to reverse his decision. At the recently held convocation ceremony, student protests came in a large poster that said "Tenure for Finkelstein and Larudee", chants of "tenure, tenure" during Holtschneider's speech, and letters to him from graduating students. Now they have begun a hunger strike, which they promise will last as long as it has to last.

I cannot help wondering whether things at DePaul will come to a head like they did at Harvard last year, in the case of university president Laurence Summers. Of course, faculty complaints against Summers were varied and comprehensive, and included heavyhandedness, arrogance, intimidation and shouting down of faculty who expressed dissenting views.(**) I certainly do not want to make a direct comparison between Holtschneider and Summers as individuals. And, admittedly, I know virtually nothing about Holtschneider, other than the fact that he ignored the faculty recommendations in favor of Finkelstein and Larudee at the department and college levels, and instead upheld Dean Suchar's rejection.

However, one doesn't necessarily need to look for similarities in the two cases to wonder whether DePaul will go the Harvard way. Following the Summers presidency debacle, there has been a series of ousters of university presidents. "Circumstances vary, but the overthrow of Dr. Summers may have been contagious", wrote the New York Times earlier this year. (***)

What are the chances that this will happen at DePaul? At Harvard, the faculty was more or less united in their censure of Summers on various grounds. As reported by the Harvard Crimson, however, Summers had considerable support from the student body. At DePaul, so far, students are not calling for the president's ouster. They are simply demanding that the two professors be granted tenure. And it is unclear how removing Holtschnieder will aid the case of tenure for the two. DePaul faculty have not publicly called for an ouster, either, although they have raised the possibility of a no-confidence motion.

I have titled this post 'DePaul: Harvard-2', although other Harvards (that is, ousters of university presidents following challenges by faculty and/or students) have happenend since Summers left. None of the others have been quite nearly as high profile and controversial as the Harvard story, though. If a Presidential ouster, although unlikely, happens at DePaul, it would be every bit as high profile, if not more.
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(*) As Finkelstein himself tirelessly points out, though, there is very little genuine controversy in his work. He mostly quotes undisputed facts recorded by mainstream sources. It is only in the United States that he is treated as controversial, because certain sectors have an interest in doing so.

(**) Incidentally, while he was President, Summers joined those who express purported fears of a new anti-Semitism, although he admittedly seems to have done it in a non-rabid and non-obsessive tone that comes rarely from the "new anti-Semitism" camp. "I spoke out in 2002 because I was concerned about a rising tide of anti-Israeli, and possibly even antisemitic, sentiment on university campuses around the world.", he says, in an interview for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, referring to a campuswide move by Harvard faculty urging the university to divest from companies that did business with Israel. Although admitting that he had never experienced any anti-Semitism firsthand, Summers said in the interview that he was particularly concerned, among other things, about "...the proposals taken seriously in many parts of British academia for academic boycotts of Israeli scholars, what was taking place in continental Europe...".

(***) The article is mainly about the crisis brewing at Pace University, with faculty and students listing objections about the president, including outrage about his large salary. Around the same time, the campus Hillel apparently complained that university officials forced them to cancel the screening of ''Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West'', a film featuring, among others, .... yes, you guessed it, Alan Dershowitz.

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.

Palestinian Journalist from Rafah

Last week, CSPAN broadcast a talk by Mohammed Omer, a young Palestinian journalist and photographer, at the Palestine Center. The presentation was very powerful. I have been reading actively about the Israel-Palestine conflict for the past couple of years, and I thought nothing would shock me. However, I was deeply moved by his account. For people who are not very acquainted with the issue, much of what he says will come as very shocking and, more importantly, as news. For those who are abreast of the developments, it is still a stirring experience to watch the video he plays (of a peaceful demonstration by Palestinian children and youths, which is indiscriminately fired at by Israeli forces), and the many photographs he shows, and to hear about 'Gaza on the Ground' from this young Palestinian who was born and raised in the Rafah refugee camp of Gaza.

One of the things that struck me was that Mohammed Omer spoke with the tone of a dispassionate observer, which makes his account even more shocking, because some of what he talks about are his personal experiences, like the killing of his brother, other relatives, and neighbors by Israeli snipers, and the complete destruction of his family's house and property by Israeli bulldozers. (He begins his chilling story by calmly stating that, as the oldest of eight children, he had to work since the age of six, because his father languished in an Israeli jail for twelve years for no just cause.)

It is hard for me to believe that after watching this, one would not feel outraged at the atrocities committed by Israel on Gazans. One would also wonder at the motivation behind some of the wanton actions by Israel. For instance, Mohammed describes how, after the houses have been completely demolished by bulldozers, the Isreali soldiers then dig holes to bury and burn the remnants of the demolition. I am sure that there are official and seemingly rational explanations for these actions, but to me, it seems like gratuitous cruelty. How are Palestinians retaining their sanity and humanity in the face of such dehumanizing experiences?

More and more people living in the United States, especially those unacquainted with the Palestine issue, need to watch the presentation. You can find his video in RealPlayer format on CSPAN's website (do a search on "omer").

Please visit Mohammed's website to learn more about the events, past and present, in the Rafah refugee camp, and to view some of the photographs he has taken in Gaza. Also, look at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs for more of his writings, and of others, on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

Caste in Contemporary India - The Deep-Rooted Racism

I have just ordered the latest book by Narendra Jadhav, titled "Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Journey out of the Caste System in Modern India". (The book is originally written in Marathi, and titled "Aamcha Baap Aan Aamhi", which translates into "Our Father and Us". If you can read Marathi, you might want to purchase this.)

I have read excerpts of the book, and also some interviews with the author, and I look forward to reading the book. Jadhav is a very well-known Indian economist, and is the Principal Advisor and Chief Economist of the Reserve Bank of India. He is also a Dalit. Dalits are perhaps the most down-trodden group in India. The realities faced by the lower rungs of the caste system are bitter and potent, and contrary to the beliefs (or claims) by several upper-caste people, very alive.

I write this afternoon's blog partly to mention this book to you. Primarily, however, I have started writing this piece because reading about Jadhav and his book brought back several of my own thoughts and experiences into sharp focus in my mind. I intend to write several blogs on the caste system, and I think this one is a very appropriate beginning.

The thing that struck me the most on reading Jadhav's own comments (and I will try and post a link to this asap) is the fact that people still ask him about his caste, and that caste is an inseparable part of his identity. More than anything else, more than any post-modern analysis of the Indian society, more than any statistics (dire and shocking as they are) on the socioeconomic status of the lowest castes, this is the most damning fact that allows one to truly understand how deep and rigid and leech-like is the hold of caste identity in Indian society. To this day, great numbers of dalits in rural India are being subjected to rapes, murders, lootings, and burnings. Most of the atrocities on Dalits occuring today have a medieval flavor, and a question that makes me lose sleep very often is, although many things have improved, how come we are not outraged to the point of eliminating this inhumane behavior. And I believe that I will get the answer to my question by understanding the place of caste identity in the minds of the higher-caste people of India, mainly the Brahmins, but not only them. And by understanding why Jadhav's fellow-Indians still need to know his caste.

If you have interacted with Indians in the United States (most of whom belong to higher caste rungs), and if you ask them about the caste system, ask them if they believe in the caste system, the answer invariably will be an emphatic 'No'. Of course, no Indian Brahmin today will openly admit to an outsider that she believes in the caste system, which would imply that she believes that the lower castes are lesser beings. Obviously, only a really stupid or crazy person will admit that openly today. It would be akin to a white American saying to an international audience today that she does not believe in black Americans having civil rights. But not openly acknowledging the caste system does not mean that it does not exist in the minds of most Indians. The fact that they still buy into it comes out in more subtle and devious ways. If you are an Indian, and if people ask you your surname (especially if you are Marathi) or if people ask you whether you are vegetarian, that is often an underhand way of probing for caste information (Brahmins generally tend to be militant about vegetarianism. I will write about the reasons for this in another blog). There are other ways they probe for caste, which I can talk about another time.

That said, social conversation by Indians on the caste system can often become less subtle and more revealing when Indian Brahmins or other higher caste folks are by themselves, say, during a typical Diwali get-together or one of the countless pot-luck dinners in the U.S. Those coversations will, I am certain, sound similar to conversations over, say, thanksgiving dinners at a neo-conservative's house. (BTW, what I would give to be a fly on the wall at the neo-con's house!) That's when all the pretences are dropped and the real contempt and hatred towards the lower castes (or towards blacks) comes out.

It is this deep-rooted racism and hatred towards a particular group that is handed down across generations that holds the answer for the caste ills in contemporary India. It reminds me of something Noam Chomsky had once said. He said that you can look at any instance of racism and atrocities and colonialism and slavery, and wonder how it is these terrible things are done by one group to another. And the key aspect to understand is that the hooligan who has his boot on the little guy's throat does not say to himself - I am a hooligan and a barbarian, and that is why I am inflicting cruelty on this guy. No. In order to allow himself to keep his boot there, he has to somehow rationalize and justify his action. He does that by convincing himself that the little guy is horrible and awful and he deserves it. By dehumanizing the little guy.

Thus, the only explanation one can find for the continuing of caste evils in India today is that we Indians (high caste Indians) still believe that the Dalit deserves to have our boot on his throat. This is the real caste-based racism. That is why, when we run into a fellow-Indian, we still feel the need to find out his caste. (Another related point is our collective Indian contempt of dark-skinned people. The skin color thing is somewhat orthogonal, and hence outside the scope of today's blog, but still closely correlated to caste.) And when I say 'high-caste Indians', I don't just mean Indians who grew up in India. People of other nationalities who are children of Indian Brahmins are also included in this group. Just glance at any US-based matrimonial website, and you'll know what I mean.

And talking about caste identity, the point is that we Indians do not merely still buy into it. It is much more than that. Much of our identity and feeling of self-worth revolves around it. We slot ourselves and fellow Indians into categories based on caste (and other things, but primarily caste). Therefore, the caste system will end only when individuals born into Brahmin and other higher caste families can have the courage (and frankly, the ego and self-respect) to remove caste from their own personal identity. Until, that happens, nothing essentially will change.

For those of you who will inevitably wonder why I say that one would need self-respect and ego to dissociate one's identity from caste, here is my logic for this: The way I see it, for a person with a strong sense of self-respect and self-worth and ego, it should be disturbing to have the need to use an external prop like caste, and the need to become part of a group, to proclaim his position in the world. Wearing membership in a caste group as a medal implies that you need this medal since you haven't got other medals from your own accomplishment. A person with a real ego should have a problem with this.

Thus, in an way, it is not merely a matter of a desire for social justice that will motivate a movement away from the caste system, but also a purely self-centered desire to refuse to use caste identity to prop oneself up to a position of worthiness in the eyes of oneself and others.

More anon...

Democracy Now: Student Scares Away Minuteman Gilchrist

Yesterday's edition of Democracy Now! had a piece on the incident involving the anti-immigration group Minuteman's founder Jim Gilchrist at Columbia University. Apparently the man was invited by the institution's student Republicans. As he started speaking, several students got up on the podium and started chanting progressive slogans and held up banners that said that no human being is illegal, etc.

Amy Goodman had invited Gilchrist and Karina Garcia, senior at Columbia. This piece is a must-watch for the bizzare exit made by Gilchrist right in the middle of the dialogue. Also a must-watch to see Garcia, who is a courageous young person, openly taking on Gilchrist and NY Mayor Bloomberg, and speaking freely and unambiguously about her position on racism, free speech, and facism. I think a lot of people can watch this spunky young person and learn a thing or two about standing for something worthwhile and having the courage to speak out for one's principles.

Here is the link: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/1430231

The "American's Energy Diet"

I just read the article titled "The Energy Diet" in the NYT -
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/garden/05green.html?8dpc

It is a very interesting account, humorously penned, of the energy-saving travails of the article's author, Andrew Postman. He talks about the sacrifices he has chosen to make and not make (a big-screen hi-def television being one of the latter). He talks about energy-saving tactics for the "lazy man".

Given my own desires to incorporate an environment-friendly lifestyle, I started reading the article with a lot of anticipation. However, as I was half-way through it, I realized that his prescription for an energy diet were really for the "American", and that there was nothing new in it for me.

Now, I have lived in America for several years, and do consider myself an American in several ways. But this is one area where my Indian upbringing totally dominates my personality. Because virtually everything that Postman suggests as ways to cut down energy usage is something we do anyway in India. In fact, we even do things that Postman rejects as too much sacrifice. For example, he says he simply will not put out a clothes-line for drying his clothes. That is exactly what practically all of India does, hangs washed clothes on lines. A pretty sight they are not, but a rudimentary calculation will reveal colossal amounts of unspent energy. We line-dry most of all our clothes in the U.S., too, although it is usually more of a pain than in India to figure out an out-of-the-way spot in the house for the clothes-lines. Interestingly, though, our original motivation for line-drying in the U.S. was the appalling state in which clothes come out of most electric dryers (except for some very good Swedish dryers).

So, all in all, Postman's ideas are going to be new only for Americans like him. My guess is that most of the rest of the world is already far ahead.