Friday, June 15, 2007

Pro-Finkelstein protest ends at DePaul's Loop campus

In a follow-up to a story first broken on Marathon Pundit, the pro-Norman Finkelstein protest outside the office of DePaul President Rev. Dennis Holtschneider has ended.

From CBS 2 Chicago:

Clutching blankets, pop bottles and signs saying "Just Grant It," two dozen students protesting the tenure denial of a popular but controversial professor were forced to leave a 22nd-floor conference room outside DePaul President Dennis Holtschneider’s office Wednesday.

The students were threatened with penalties including expulsion if they didn’t leave after they spent nearly three days in the room.

"This is going to be a long battle," said student Evan Lorendo, 22. "DePaul will be embarrassed by this activity."

Several floors below, nearly 150 faculty attended a special meeting of the Faculty Council to discuss the tenure denials of Norman Finkelstein and Mehrene Larudee. Larudee publicly backed Finkelstein despite outside pressure against him. Many faculty took DePaul to task for overruling early approvals of both candidates’ tenure bids by their faculty colleagues. But Provost Helmut Epp said proper protocol was followed and the president had affirmed the decisions of a university-wide faculty committee to deny tenure.

Finkelstein of course is the holocaust-minimizing author who is a disciple of Noam Chomsky.

Merhene Larudee, according to Solomonia, is the sister of Paul Larudee, who is described as a "piano tuner and non-violent activist." He's also a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a radical organization best-known as the group Rachel Corrie was a member of when she made her ill-fated trip to Gaza.

Ms. Larudee is not a member of ISM, but apparently shares her brother's leftist view points.

According to the DePaul Activist Student Union web site, there is still a sit-in going on at the DePaul Student Activities Center on the school's Lincoln Park campus.

For more on Finkelstein, just scroll down.

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