Monday, August 27, 2007

DePaul cancels Finkelstein's fall classes

Tenure-denied DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein won't be teaching classes this quarter--the beginning of his "terminal year"--after a confrontation in June with Charles Suchar, dean of DePaul's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. According to Dissident Voice:

On Friday, August 24th, it was learned that DePaul’s University has decided to cancel Professor Norman G. Finkelstein’s classes for the autumn quarter. Finkelstein was scheduled to teach two undergraduate courses in the political science department, one called “Freedom and Empowerment” and the other called “Justice and Social Equality”.
Great lead. Farther down, DV explains:
In a previous article, I documented that Finkelstein simply confronted Dean “Chuck” Suchar outside of 990 Fullerton on June 14th after the special LA&S emergency meeting [hey, they had an emergency meeting, too!] devoted to discussing the procedural and academic freedom violations in the Finkelstein and Larudee cases. . . . Suchar apparently alleged that he felt harassed by Finkelstein, calling for the administration to issue a restraining order against his colleague. . . .
Couldn't find this incident recounted anywhere reputable. DV continues:

Finkelstein is being thrown out of his office and might not even have access to office space this coming academic year at DePaul. Naturally, DePaul students are outraged and are demanding a serious explanation from Dean Suchar and other DePaul administrative officers.

But apparently DePaul administrators are trying to think up a good joke:
Not expecting a serious answer from the administration, while anticipating wider assaults against critical thinking and dissent [oh, yeah--ed.], the students are planning an academic freedom conference at the University of Chicago for October 12th. The conference’s keynote speakers are Noam Chomsky (MIT), John Mearsheimer (Univ. of Chicago), Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia), Neve Gordon (Ben-Gurion University, Israel), and Tariq Ali (Verso Books). See here.
A likely bunch.

Update: The DePaul Defend Academic Freedom Committee has a press release.

Update II: I always call it Dissident Voices instead of Dissident Voice, which, after all, is what the rag is named. Fixilated.

No comments: