Tenure denied to professor who accused Israel of exploiting Holocaust

An AOL news article described a tenure denial that echoed the denial of tenure to pro-ID Iowa State University professor Guillermo Gonzalez:
.

CHICAGO (AP) - A DePaul University professor who has accused some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust to get compensation payments has been denied tenure after a drawn-out public fight.

Norman Finkelstein, whose work led to a long-running public feud with a Harvard law professor and lawyer famous for representing O.J. Simpson, said he was disappointed by the faculty panel's 4-3 decision.

"They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach," the 53-year-old told the Chicago Sun-Times. "But they will never stop me from saying what I believe."

Finkelstein's most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Alan Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it, Finkelstein argues Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.

Dershowitz, who threatened to sue the book's publisher for libel, has urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein's tenure bid . . .

The debate over his tenure raised the ire of many in academic and religious circles, and blogs and petitions that both support and deride him have appeared on the Internet . . .

"In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration," school President Dennis Holtschneider wrote in a letter dated June 8.

Finkelstein is not even a holocaust denier or revisionist.

I think that tenure is bad because it is unfair to those who can’t get it, but I feel that it should be administered fairly so long as we have it. So even though I am against tenure in general, I am supporting tenure for Gonzalez and Finkelstein because of the principles “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” and “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Using tenure for the purpose of enforcing academic conformity rather than tenure’s intended purpose of protecting academic freedom removes all justification for having tenure at all.
.