Professor Finkelstein had this to say to the Chicago Sun-Times: “I would be disingenuous if I said I were not disappointed [...]. On the other hand, both of my parents survived the Nazi death camps. Growing up, what I remembered most was my late mother used to say, ‘Some people are beasts, and there’s nothing to be done with them. But what about the silence of everyone else? That I cannot understand.’ Those were thoughts that left a deep mark on me.” – Link
Some reactions below:
From The Heathlander: Very sad news
From The Fanonite: The Israel Lobby has claimed another victim
Background:
Norman G. Finkelstein Solidarity Campaign
A conversation with Professor Norman Finkelstein
See also Philip Weiss’ travails to which he draws our attention following Professor Finkelstein’s muzzling.
My personal reaction:
Since everything is interconnected in this World, it remains to be seen how that event will impact on this one. Dershowitz may yet come to regret he ever started this witch-hunt!
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UPDATE:
“I have a sinking feeling about the damage this will do to academic freedom …” Raul Hilberg
Muzzle Watch is covering it!
Also Media Lens contains some threads that deal with this outrage: here and here and here.
The MSM as well is joining in. Besides the Chicago Tribune quoted by Muzzle Watch, there is this poignant response from Dr. Finkelstein:
Mr. Finkelstein said he plans to leave Chicago for New York. “Teaching is in my bones. I love to teach,” he said, but he added that as a result of this “blacklisting, I will be barred from ever entering a college classroom again.” Nonetheless, any temptation to “indulge in a bout of self-pity,” he said, was halted by thinking of his parents, who survived the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi death camps while the rest of his relatives were exterminated. “They survived,” he said. “I’ll survive.” – The New York Times
More reactions:
Norman Finkelstein denied tenure
Finkelstein and academic freedom
DePaul genuflects to Dershowitz
Of right mind – Part deux [An interesting interchange with David Horowitz]
The Finkelstein Principle – “They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach. But they will never stop me from saying what I believe.”
DePaul U. Turns Norman Finkelstein Down for Tenure
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Cross-posted @ The Cylinder – The Voices of Dissent
