Academic Freedom regarding the Middle East

Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK

• Terror in AcademiaA rant by Melanie Phillips in the Spectator, 15th April 2008, concerning the way a module entitled "Understanding Terror: Perspectives on Terrorism" is taught.

Harvard University, USA

• What Do Critics of Israel Have to Fear? J.Lorand Matory in The Harvard Crimson, 5th June 2008.

McMaster University, Canada

• Academic Freedom for Some But Not for All Judy Haiven in Canadian Jewish Outlook, Jan/Feb 2008.
  Also here in PDF format
• Fact Sheet Related to "Israeli Apartheid" Ban On the Window into Palestine site, approx. 2th Feb 2008.

De Paul University, USA: Professor Norman Finkelstein

• In praise of smoking guns: the Dershowitz files
  "Readers can now judge for themselves whether the famed civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz sought to suppress publication of Beyond Chutzpah."
• DePaul and the Vatican's Long Leash: Norman Finkelstein and the Catholic Church Linda Brayer in Counterpunch, July 3, 2007.
• Finkelstein case: Academic freedom loses to Israeli lobby Electronic Intifada, Jun 25, 2007
• Finkelstein and academic freedom Letters to the Guardian, 15th June 2007
• Students sit-in to demand tenure for Palestine supporting professors The Electronic Intifada, 13th June 2007
• DePaul Professor Who Supported Finkelstein Also Was Denied Tenure The case of Mehrene E. Larudee, On Finkelstein's own site, 12th June 2007.
• DePaul University Statement on the Tenure and Promotion Decision Concerning Professor Norman Finkelstein 8th June 2007.
• Letter from Francis Boyle: De Paul & Dershowitz v. Finkelstein On the Palestine Chronicle site, 10th June 2007.
• A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein - Target of a Witch Hunt Kathryn Weber on Counterpunch, 9th May 2007
• Suppressing critics of Israel: The campaign against Norman Finkelstein Bitta Mostofi, The Electronic Intifada, 10th May 2007
• "It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There" Interview with Raul Hilberg and Avi Shlaim (sound and transcripts) on the Democracy Now site, 9th May 2007.
• Fear and loathing on an American campusRobert Fisk in the Independent, 14th April 2007.
• War in Academe on Charlie Pottins' blog, 9th April 2007.
  (Charlie has other items on this elsewhere on his blog).

Columbia University: Joseph Massad and general

• Columbia University Faculty Action Committee Statement of Concern In Columbia Spectator News, 14th Nov 2007. Just a tad critical of President Bollinger ...
• Full text of "Columbia Unbecoming" (Transcript of the film, provided as far as I can see by the Zionist bunch who made it!)
• Witch Hunt at Columbia: Targeting the University by Joseph Massad. In Counterpunch, 3rd June 2005.
• Twenty Students Sign Petition Stating That Claim Against Massad Is FalseOn the Censoring Thought website, around 5th May 2005.
• Israel's PR war on U.S. campusesAl Jazeera, 17th April 2005
  Mainly about Columbia. Interestingly this story is listed under "Conspiracy theories" - you can vote as to whether you believe it or not!
• Petition to the President of Columbia University re. Joseph Massad
• An Open Letter to Congressman Weiner
  by Professor Andrew Rubin, Georgetown University, 9th November 2004
• Joseph Massad's response to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report (The Electronic Intifada, 5 April 2005)
• "Columbia Unbecoming" in the clear light of day
  (Monique Dols, The Electronic Intifada, 5 November 2004) - about the witch-hunt against Prof. Joseph Massad.

University of South Florida, USA: Professor Al-Arian

• U.S. May Yet Deport Acquitted Ex-Professor (9th Dec 2005, Ely Times)
• Petition for Professor Al-Arian
• History of the Al-Arian case
• Campaign for Prof. Al-Arian

University of Birmingham, UK

• "University lecturer branded `racist' for weblink" by Simon Aronowitz, on the Thoughtcrime News website, 26th August 2003. The lecturer in question is Nat Queen.
• "Like Ripples on Water"
  Here's one of the items in question: a website attacking myself and my colleagues at Birmingham Andrew Rouse and Tom Marshall.
• "Academic Scandal" (Justin Cohen on the "Totally Jewish" website, 21st Aug 2003: again concerning Nat Queen)
• Guild is BUSTed: BUGS under fire for 'illegal' censorship
  In Redbrick, 6th-13th June 2003: another instalment in the long-running row about the Guild of Students' attempts to prevent free speech on Palestine.

University of Michigan, USA: Catherine Wilkerson; Pluto Books

• Michigan Severs Ties to Controversial Publisher On the "InsideHigherEd.com" site, 18th June 2008.
• Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in Ann Arbor: Wilkerson Acquitted by Alexander Cockburn on Counterpunch, 4th Dec 2007
• Catherine Wilkerson trial underway in Arbor Update, 1st Dec 2007.
• Welcome to the Jackboot State, Ann Arbor Division: The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson, M.D. by Alexander Cockburn on Counterpunch, 24-25th Nov 2007.

General

• Israel, free speech, and the Oxford UnionAvi Shlaim on the Open Democracy site, 13th Nov 2007.
• A2 doctor found not guilty in lecture fracas case The Michigan Daily, 4th Dec 2007.
  A meeting sponsored by the American Movement for Israel led to protestors being arrested and a doctor who tried to assist one of them being charged by the police ....
• Watch this film: Campus Conflict - USA A well-researched documentary by Journeyman Pictures describing the witch-hunting of US academics like Joseph Massad (see below) by the likes of Daniel Pipes and his "Campus Watch" lobby.
• UST president says he made wrong decision, invites Tutu to campus On the Uni of St. Thomas official site, 10th Oct 2007. A piece of good news for a change, undoing the ban (see below).
• Banning Desmond TutuBy Matt Snyders on Citypages.
  "Put off by his controversial words on Israel, the University of St. Thomas snubs a Nobel Laureate"
• British Left Publisher Under Attack from US Israeli Lobby Spectrezine, 3rd Oct 2007.
• Banning Desmond Tutuin Citypages, 3rd Oct 2007.
  "Put off by his controversial words on Israel, the University of St. Thomas snubs a Nobel Laureate".
• Pro-Israel Campaign to Deny Nadia Abu El-Haj Tenure On the Tikun Olam site, 17th August 2007
• Maxwell's Silver Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists In The Global War On Terror Linda Ford & Ira Glunts on Countercurrents.org, 3rd August, 2007
• Middle East Wars Flare Up At YaleJewish Week, 9th June 2007.
  Looks like another Finkelstein type case in the making ....
• Dr Matthias KüntzelUniversity of Leeds Press Release, 15 March 2007
• San Francisco State University tries to ban Palestinian Cultural Mural Honoring Edward Said(On Norman Finkelstein's website)
• Free Kareem!
  Campaign to free the jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, aka Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman. Among other things, he has attacked Al-Azhar University for its "Apartheid Policy between Male and Female Students" and called for it to be shut down ...
• The new Jewish questionGaby Wood in The Observer, 11th Feb 2007
• Muslim student forces college boss to back down "Following a year of wrangling, ex-SOAS head Colin Bundy has retracted his claim in spring 2005 that he had reprimanded student Nasser Amin over an article Amin had written ..."
• Press statement: Jewish students at Leeds
  Official statement by the University of Leeds, 13th Dec 2006.
  Here is the wording of the Leeds Student Union policy, adopted through a referendum, that all the fuss is about: it ensures that supporters of the Palestinian Solidarity Group (a student society) are allowed to criticise Israel.
• US free speech row grows as author says Jewish complaints stopped launch party Guardian, 11th October 2006.
  "The British-based author and former publisher Carmen Callil has become embroiled in a growing dispute over the limits of freedom of speech in America after a party celebrating her new book on Vichy France was cancelled because of the opinion she expresses about the modern state of Israel." ...
• 
  The Belgian professor in question is Herman De Ley of the Centre for Islam in Europe at the University of Gent. And the "misrepresentation" was deliberate, of course. See his original letter, which sent the SPME into paroxysms of fury, and which appears at the end of the page.
• The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity (Observer, 13th August 2006)
• Controversial academic shot down for appointment; was campaign against him politically motivated? (The Jewish Week, 9th June 2006)
• Brandeis University shuts Palestinian exhibit
  (Y-Net news, 5th April 2006).
• Silence in class (Gary Younge in the Guardian, 4th April 2006).
  "University professors denounced for anti-Americanism; schoolteachers suspended for their politics; students encouraged to report on their tutors. Are US campuses in the grip of a witch-hunt of progressives, or is academic life just too liberal?"
• Free Speech? Not When It Comes to State of Israel By Robert Fisk, in Arab News, 12th March 2006
• Westminster University cancels debate
  A debate organised by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), due to take place at Westminster University on 8th December 2005, was cancelled after protests by student organisations and death threats against the speakers. Fortunately the meeting was able to go ahead in the Friends Meeting House, no thanks to the University. See the following:
  • Dirty Saga Gets Even Murkier
  • The Vanguard Stands Firm: Talk To Go Ahead Tomorrow

• Concordia University blocks Israeli Apartheid Week Reported by the Electronic Intifada site, 10th Feb 2006.
• Calls to Monitor pro-Arab bias rejected (in Forward, 25th Nov 2005.)
  "Members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights rejected calls from Jewish organizations last week for federal oversight of government-funded Middle Eastern studies programs at American universities."
• J'accuse (Gary Younge in the Guardian, 10th August 2005, on the battle between Dershowitz and Finkelstein)
• Giving Chutzpah New Meaning Jon Wiener in The Nation, on Dershowitz's attempt to prevent publication of Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.
• UO professor, authors settle defamation suit (The Register-Guard, 2nd December 2004)
  A University of Oregon sociology instructor has settled a defamation lawsuit against Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer for a column that labeled him anti-Semitic and listed him as one of six examples of "left-wing extremists" who indoctrinate students.
• "Short Cuts" (Sara Roy, London Review of books, 1 April 2004) - about attacks on academic freedom in the USA.
• Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
  Currently running a project entitled "The Palestinian Declaration of Academic Freedom"
• World famous philosopher Honderich hit with "Anti Semite" slur in Germany(Counterpunch, 13th August 2003)
• "Academic Freedom and the 'Intifada Curriculum'" (in Academe, June 2003).
  In early May 2002, the English department of the University of California, Berkeley, published a description on its Web site of a section of English R1A, a course in basic reading and writing skills. The course was titled "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" ...

• "Academic Freedom and National Security in Times of Crisis" (By Robert M. O'Neil in Academe, June 2003)
  "A survey of academic freedom since September 11, 2001, reveals few direct threats but a variety of subtler dangers. The AAUP has taken up the task of monitoring and acting on these threats and dangers."

• "Academic Freedom as a Human Right: An Internationalist Perspective" (By Balakrishnan Rajagopal in Academe, June 2003)

• "Reluctant Foot Soldiers: America's Undergraduates Rebuff Opponents of Academic Freedom" (By Daniel P. Denvir in Academe, June 2003)

• "Web warfare"(Lawrence Davidson in the Guardian, 1st Oct 2002)
  Academics who criticise Israeli actions against the Palestinians are being targeted by computer hackers. Lawrence Davidson looks at a web war now raging in the UK and the US.

• Faculty for Israeli-Palestine Peace
  An American organisation which campaigns for academic freedom in the Occupied Territories, and provides speakers (presumably only within the USA though).
  Petition by the FFIPP
  on the Petition Online site.
• "Professors of Conscience"
  Following the letter by Israeli academics released on 29th September 2001, warning of imminent "crimes against humanity" by the Israeli government, over 800 American academics have now signed a similar letter.

This site is owned and maintained by Sue Blackwell.
It was last updated on 3rd September 2008.