The Tutu Episode — Whither Academic Freedom?
Friday, October 05, 2007 at 6:00 pm
- 14 Comments
To avoid offending some in Minnesota’s Jewish community, the University of St. Thomas scrubbed a plan to invite Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, to speak at its campus next year. But along the way the Catholic university offended many others and rekindled a debate about a larger question: Is there an effort to stifle a critical discussion about the Israel-Palestinian conflict in this country?
Some say that the Tutu episode is emblematic of a successful campaign to reduce anyone who criticizes the state of Israel as anti-Semitic.
“Objectively speaking, you could say that there’s no serious debate about our foreign policy toward Israel,” said Cris Toffolo, an associate professor at St. Thomas who was demoted as the director of the justice and peace program after she questioned the university’s decision to disallow Tutu to speak.
“Israel receives large military and financial aid from the United States. As U.S. taxpayers, we’ve a perfect right to debate the issue. It’s an analogous public policy debate,” she said.
Julie Swiler, a spokeswoman for the Jewish Community Relations Council, or JCRC, the organization that voiced concerns about Tutu, denied that there’s a nefarious agenda to smear critics of Israel.
“All opinions ought to be aired in the marketplace of ideas,” she said. “But when stereotypes about Jews are invoked, that’s when it goes beyond legitimate debate.”
Tutu, a Nobel laureate is currently in Sudan as part of The Elders, a group of respected leaders from around the world, including former president Jimmy Carter. They are trying to stop the bloodletting in Darfur.
As has Carter, the Anglican archbishop criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied land in 2002 as part of a speech he gave in Boston. In it he drew a parallel between the apartheid regime in his native South Africa and some of the tactics used by Israeli settlers.
Recent incidents in academia
In recent years there have been incidents involving academics who are critical of Israel who were either denied permanent positions at universities or accused of anti-Semitism.
In Chicago, DePaul University, a private Catholic school, denied last month tenure bid by Norman G. Finkelstein. A descendent of Holocaust survivors, he criticized how Israel and some Jews used the tragedy “to perpetuate occupation.”
Last year, Richard Drake, the chair of the history department at the University of Montana, was called anti-Semitic and received hate mail for inviting Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor who recently co-wrote a book critical of Israel titled “The Israeli Lobby.”
“One of my critics told me before startled witnesses that he would not rest until I had been stripped of my position of power, which manifestly had corrupted me,” Drake wrote on the website of the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP. “He initiated a campaign to bring about my dismissal.”
Last month Barnard College in New York was the subject of an intense pressure by Jewish groups because of a tenure bid by Nadia Abu El-Haj, an American of Palestinian descent, who wrote a book questioning some aspects of Israel’s archaeological claims in the Holy Land. The case is still pending.
The rash of incidents involving people who are critical of Israel is a sign “that the wall of silence is finally cracking. We need to get beyond this taboo,” said Toffolo, the St. Thomas professor.
Next week, many of the scholars denied tenure positions are descending on Chicago to participate in a conference titled “In Defense of Academic Freedom.”
Controversial speakers at St. Thomas
In April 2005, Ann Coulter, the provocative conservative commentator, spoke at St. Thomas. Shortly after her appearance University President the Rev. Dennis Dease wrote in a letter: “Ms. Coulter was unsparing in her vitriolic criticism of “liberals” and treated in a sarcastic, disrespectful and mean-spirited manner any audience members who challenged her viewpoints,” he said.
But then he gave a hint of how the university will handle potentially controversial speakers. “We need to continue to carefully examine requests to bring speakers and performers to campus in order to assure that their presentations will comply with our controversial issues statement.”
Remarkably, that statement says in part that “open forums through which controversial issues may be addressed in a responsible and educative manner will be available.”
The AAUP isn’t convinced that Tutu’s previous remarks warrant the actions taken against him and is investigating the case. Eric Combest, a senior program officer, said the episode “raises concerns for us” and that “a valid invitation was extended for Tutu.”
He said his organization, which promotes academic freedom, will urge St. Thomas to reexamine its decision.
Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations at St. Thomas, says he doesn’t think that will happen. Asked about the Coulter case, Hennes said: “In hindsight, we probably made a mistake. We would probably not invite her again.”
As it was with Tutu, Coulter was invited by an outside group. The university never had “disinvited Tutu, as widely circulated,” said Hennes. However, he said, the school routinely conducts a thorough vetting process.
“Red flags came up on Tutu,” he said. “We consulted with our Jewish community, whose opinions we value. They didn’t persuade us to not invite him. We made that decision.”
Swiler, the JCRC spokeswoman, praised Tutu as someone “who made great contributions to human rights.” And though he’s not anti-Semitic, she said, he has made extreme remarks.
Ivan Suvanjieff, the president of PeaceJam, the Colorado-based youth group that invited Tutu, was incensed. “Tutu is one of the greatest moral arbitrators of our day. This is loss for Minnesota.”
Maybe not quite: Tutu will speak at Metropolitan State University in April next year.
14 Comments
Comment posted October 6, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
St. Thomas is Carrying Water for the Powerful This is a perfect case of a powerful lobby in the United States stifling a valuable public figure to avoid legitimate questions about its own motives and conduct. Does the Israeli lobby truly think that Desmond Tutu is going to use St. Thomas as a forum to push an anti-semitic agenda? No. The fact of the matter is that they believe anyone who questions how Israel uses its power and purse–both of which are entirely a product of billions of U.S. dollars–is blacklisted and smeared, Nobel Laureate or not.
If St. Thomas believes that Tutu’s past comments about Israel were harmful, does that mean they believe Ann Coulter’s disgusting remarks about gays, Muslims, women, minorities, immigrants, democrats, Arabs, Persians and poor people are warranted. It seems to me that St. Thomas is sending a very dangerous message and setting ridiculous precedent. Shame on them.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 11:10 am
Yup; it’s them sneaky Jews, again, stifling dissent. It’d be horrible if these Secret Masters of Zion had put words like these in Tutu’s mouth:
People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God’s world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.
Imagine: suggesting that Tutu would equate Israel with all of those horrible regimes, and suggesting that it would suffer the same fate — how care anybody suggest that a decent man such as Tutu would say such a thing.
Except, of course, he did . . .
He has, of course, every right to say such things; St. Thomas, of course, has the right to disassociate itself from him.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Do you think, herhaps… … that your reporting would be better with a little more, well, honest reporting in it?
Just to pick one example from your story: wouldn’t it be good to know if Nadia Abu El-Haj’s “questioning” is legitimate, albeit perhaps controversial, academic inquiry, or the sort of “questioning” of the standards of, say, David Duke or Ward Churchill? Wouldn’t it be kind of peachy-keen to even acknowledge that the link you cite refers to objections to her work, such as it is, by individual academics and not “Jewish groups” as you say it does, and that the online petition referred to in the story has been signed by more than 2,000 individuals, many of them members of the Columbia faculty who object to El-Haj’s scholarship (such as it is) rather than her politics?
Doesn’t the Minnesota Monitor have an ethics policy?
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
You missed the point… ..that stiffling the dissent is NOT only coming from Jewish groups, but others.
Having said that, the NY Times article I cite mentions that the petition against Dr. Abu El-Haj is launched by, well, check this out:
“As Dr. Abu El-Haj’s tenure deadline approached, Paula R. Stern, a 1982 Barnard graduate who lives in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, began an online petition against the professor for what it called her “demonstrably inferior caliber, her knowing misrepresentation of data and violation of accepted standards of scholarship.” As of yesterday, it had more than 2,000 signatures, some of them from Columbia faculty members.
“I am horrified,” Ms. Stern said in an interview, “that Barnard would even consider tenure for a professor who is so clearly unqualified.”
Stern is not even in the United States. But that’s beyond the point. The thesis of my story is that Tutu’s episode is a microcosm of other incidents involving in respected scholars who were denied of tenure positions after they criticised Israel, NOT JEWS.
Some of them, like Finklstein are actually Jews.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
No, you missed the point: The cite you give doesn’t point to anything that could be called “stifling of dissent” by a Jewish group; you’re “having said that” points to an online petition begun by a woman, not a group, over Dr. El-Haj’s “demonstrably inferior caliber, her knowing misrepresentation of data and violation of accepted standards of scholarship.”
Your cite doesn’t show this supposd “stifling of dissent” coming, at all, from “Jewish groups”.
Perhaps you wish to argue that somebody who lives in a settlement on the West Bank should not be allowed to start a petition without it being alleged to be the work of unnamed “Jewish groups” wishing to “stifle dissent.” If so, please say so explicitly.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
Bad thesis; no cookie The thesis of my story is that Tutu’s episode is a microcosm of other incidents involving in respected scholars who were denied of tenure positions after they criticised Israel, NOT JEWS.
Then you failed, miserably.
1. Tutu is not a “respected scholar,” or much of a scholar at all; his status does not come from his scholarship, but from his political activism;
2. He was not, in the incident you cite, “denied of tenure”, or, for that matter, denied tenure;
3. Therefore, his “episode” cannot be a “microcosm” of “other” incidents involving the denial of tenure, etc. etc.
Isn’t this something a New Journalistic Fellow should have been able to figure out? If not, where was the New Journalistic Fellow’s editor?
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
The Tutu Episode — Whither Academic Freedom? Tutu is an antisemite, at least according to the The EU’s Definition of Antisemitism:
“Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self
Comment posted October 6, 2007 @ 8:41 am
St. Thomas is Carrying Water for the Powerful This is a perfect case of a powerful lobby in the United States stifling a valuable public figure to avoid legitimate questions about its own motives and conduct. Does the Israeli lobby truly think that Desmond Tutu is going to use St. Thomas as a forum to push an anti-semitic agenda? No. The fact of the matter is that they believe anyone who questions how Israel uses its power and purse–both of which are entirely a product of billions of U.S. dollars–is blacklisted and smeared, Nobel Laureate or not.
If St. Thomas believes that Tutu's past comments about Israel were harmful, does that mean they believe Ann Coulter's disgusting remarks about gays, Muslims, women, minorities, immigrants, democrats, Arabs, Persians and poor people are warranted. It seems to me that St. Thomas is sending a very dangerous message and setting ridiculous precedent. Shame on them.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 6:10 am
Yup; it's them sneaky Jews, again, stifling dissent. It'd be horrible if these Secret Masters of Zion had put words like these in Tutu's mouth:
People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.
Imagine: suggesting that Tutu would equate Israel with all of those horrible regimes, and suggesting that it would suffer the same fate — how care anybody suggest that a decent man such as Tutu would say such a thing.
Except, of course, he did . . .
He has, of course, every right to say such things; St. Thomas, of course, has the right to disassociate itself from him.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 6:21 am
Do you think, herhaps… … that your reporting would be better with a little more, well, honest reporting in it?
Just to pick one example from your story: wouldn't it be good to know if Nadia Abu El-Haj's “questioning” is legitimate, albeit perhaps controversial, academic inquiry, or the sort of “questioning” of the standards of, say, David Duke or Ward Churchill? Wouldn't it be kind of peachy-keen to even acknowledge that the link you cite refers to objections to her work, such as it is, by individual academics and not “Jewish groups” as you say it does, and that the online petition referred to in the story has been signed by more than 2,000 individuals, many of them members of the Columbia faculty who object to El-Haj's scholarship (such as it is) rather than her politics?
Doesn't the Minnesota Monitor have an ethics policy?
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 8:04 am
You missed the point… ..that stiffling the dissent is NOT only coming from Jewish groups, but others.
Having said that, the NY Times article I cite mentions that the petition against Dr. Abu El-Haj is launched by, well, check this out:
“As Dr. Abu El-Haj's tenure deadline approached, Paula R. Stern, a 1982 Barnard graduate who lives in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, began an online petition against the professor for what it called her “demonstrably inferior caliber, her knowing misrepresentation of data and violation of accepted standards of scholarship.” As of yesterday, it had more than 2,000 signatures, some of them from Columbia faculty members.
“I am horrified,” Ms. Stern said in an interview, “that Barnard would even consider tenure for a professor who is so clearly unqualified.”
Stern is not even in the United States. But that's beyond the point. The thesis of my story is that Tutu's episode is a microcosm of other incidents involving in respected scholars who were denied of tenure positions after they criticised Israel, NOT JEWS.
Some of them, like Finklstein are actually Jews.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 8:28 am
No, you missed the point: The cite you give doesn't point to anything that could be called “stifling of dissent” by a Jewish group; you're “having said that” points to an online petition begun by a woman, not a group, over Dr. El-Haj's “demonstrably inferior caliber, her knowing misrepresentation of data and violation of accepted standards of scholarship.”
Your cite doesn't show this supposd “stifling of dissent” coming, at all, from “Jewish groups”.
Perhaps you wish to argue that somebody who lives in a settlement on the West Bank should not be allowed to start a petition without it being alleged to be the work of unnamed “Jewish groups” wishing to “stifle dissent.” If so, please say so explicitly.
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 8:33 am
Bad thesis; no cookie The thesis of my story is that Tutu's episode is a microcosm of other incidents involving in respected scholars who were denied of tenure positions after they criticised Israel, NOT JEWS.
Then you failed, miserably.
1. Tutu is not a “respected scholar,” or much of a scholar at all; his status does not come from his scholarship, but from his political activism;
2. He was not, in the incident you cite, “denied of tenure”, or, for that matter, denied tenure;
3. Therefore, his “episode” cannot be a “microcosm” of “other” incidents involving the denial of tenure, etc. etc.
Isn't this something a New Journalistic Fellow should have been able to figure out? If not, where was the New Journalistic Fellow's editor?
Comment posted October 8, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
The Tutu Episode — Whither Academic Freedom? Tutu is an antisemite, at least according to the The EU's Definition of Antisemitism:
“Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self
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