Marathon Pundit: Breaking: DePaul's Finkelstein denied tenure

In a case I've been following closely, the Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting tonight that Norman G. Finkelstein, a DePaul political science professor who many call a holocaust-minimizer and an anti-semitic Jew, has been denied tenure:

Norman G. Finkelstein, the controversial political scientist who has been engaged in a highly public battle for tenure at DePaul University, learned today that he had lost that fight. In a written statement released to The Chronicle, the university confirmed that Mr. Finkelstein had been denied tenure.

Mr. Finkelstein’s department and a college-level personnel committee both voted in favor of tenure, but the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences wrote a memorandum against it, and the University Board on Promotion and Tenure voted against granting tenure. The final decision rested with the university’s president, the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, who said in the statement that he had found “no compelling reasons to overturn” the tenure board’s recommendation.

"I played by the rules, and it plainly wasn’t enough to overcome the political opposition to my speaking out on the Israel-Palestine conflict," Mr. Finkelstein said in an interview. "This decision is not going to deter me from making statements that, so far as I can tell from the judgment of experts in the field, are sound and factually based."

The Finkelstein tenure quest generated an unusually high amount of outside interest, mainly because of the dogged involvement of Harard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, who opposed Finkelstein's tenure at the Chicago Catholic university.

DePaul's president, the Reverend Dennis Holtschneider, denounced the outside involvment, and said in a written statement, "This attention was unwelcome and inappropriate and had no impact on either the process or the outcome of this case."

Hat tip to Richard Baehr of the American Thinker.

Related posts:

Thomas Klocek's free speech struggle with DePaul: A blog-ography

News to watch in June: Norman Finkelstein and DePaul

Fisk on Fink: Robert Fisk joins the Norman Finkelstein tenure debate as DePaul's "perfect storm" gathers strength

Finkelstein, Dershowitz battle catches the eye of the New York Times

Thanks for the links:

Pirate Ballerina
Meryl Yourish

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