Elvira Arellano has been deported to Mexico, but a new courageous woman has stood up for immigrant rights, Flor Crisostomo has taken refuge in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago. Let me take this moment to make a tactical suggestion for the immigrant rights movement. While Arellano was seeking refuge, many supporters compared her to Rosa Parks. I see many similarities between the two. Both were courageous women who fought for justice.
However there are also many differences. In one sense, Arellano is less like Rosa Parks and more like Claudette Colvin. Colvin was a black woman who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, but whose case didn't mobilize the community the way Rosa Parks would later.
I think the most important difference between Arellano and Parks has to do with the movement and their demands. The whole time Arellano was in Adalberto United Methodist Church, she only requested amnesty for herself. She even asked Senators Obama and Durbin to take one person off the list of immigrants allowed into the country to allow her to take their place. In some ways this would be like Rosa Parks saying that she only cared about herself sitting in the front of the bus.
This should not have discouraged supporters though. If Arellano succeeded, it would open the door for other immigrants to get amnesty like that. But that's why Arellano didn't succeed. Because it was one person, and not many. If one person walks off the job and calls in a strike, they win nothing, they just get fired. Same goes with civil disobedience. If the Montgomery Bus boycott, which followed and supported Rosa Parks, wasn't made up of the entire community, it would have failed.
My suggestion to the immigrant community: have thousands of immigrants seek sanctuary in churches, it will be more than a nuisance for Homeland Security, it will be a serious threat to it's authority and ability to operate.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Bin Laden Did It
We need to talk. You and I. We both like to question the official narrative, but you've gone to far. Now, I'm way out in left field, but I'm grounded in reality. You've gone somewhere the X-Files would go.
Underneath all the hyperbolic reports about how the planes couldn't have caused the towers to collapse, all written by people who aren't engineers, is a sort of logic. There are right-wingers who believe these conspiracy theories as well as left wingers, but one of the explanations left wingers use to justify these theories, is anti-war and anti-bush.
Of course I'm talking about 9/11. There are a host of conspiracy theories out there attempting to deny the official US government story. Now I'm no expert, I haven't read the 9/11 commission report, and I'm no demolitions or engineering expert. I do have common sense though. I saw the video of those planes going through the towers, and while I can't fully explain why the hole in the pentagon was shaped the way it was shaped, I can tell you that anything that heavy going that fast, was not just going to bounce off a wall and lay strewn apart the lawn.
Popular Mechanics ran an excellent piece debunking many of the conspiracy theories. Of particular note was their explanation for why the hole in the Pentagon was shaped the way it was (“a crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building” “What was left of the plane flowed into the structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass”) and issue of how the steel beams of the World Trade Towers Melted (“Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat”).
Underneath all the hyperbolic reports about how the planes couldn't have caused the towers to collapse, all written by people who aren't engineers, is a sort of logic. There are right-wingers who believe these conspiracy theories as well as left wingers, but one of the explanations left wingers use to justify these theories, is anti-war and anti-bush.
They argue, that the only way Bush would have been able to go to war (in particular with Iraq) would be if America were attacked and the American people blinded by their bloodlust, giving Bush an opportunity to attack. They point to the burning of the Reichstag by Hitlers goons and how Hitler blamed the fire on unions and used it as an opportunity to tighten his dictatorial control.
Bullshit. First of all the Reichstag was empty when it was burned. Second of all, the people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the cream of the crop in terms of the ruling class. They were Stock brokers, CEO's, generals, weapons contractors. OK, sure there were some janitors, secretaries and plenty of innocent people, but if they were filled with nothing but janitors, those towers would not have been targets. That said, why would Bush kill 3,000 of the military industrial complexes best most loyal corps? “Well because he wanted to go to war,” they tell me.
But he could go to war without killing about 3,000 Americans. Take a look and the Gulf of Tonkin Bay and Vietnam. President Johnson, the liberal democrat, goes on TV, tells the American people that the US was attacked by Vietnamese forces in the Gulf of Tonkin bay, and before you know it, ground troops are landing in Vietnam. Turns out, it never happened. It was a complete lie.
Some of these 9/11 conspiracy people tell me that that was before this multi-media age we live in. It's harder to make up complete fabrications like that. Really? Any harder than covering up a conspiracy to kill 3000 people? If anything the 24 hour news world we live in makes it easier for people to be deluded. Remember how many people were convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Or that Iraqi troops were killing Kuwaiti babies in incubators? With all the computer special effects we have today, if the government really needed an excuse to go to war, couldn't they have made a video of the towers going down, broadcast it live and convinced most of America that the towers went down, even if they were still standing.
Ordinary Americans civilians have never really had a say in whether or not to go to war before. Most Americans don't know where Afghanistan and Iraq are on a map, most Americans wouldn't know if we bombed them. Matter of fact, ask the next person you see if they know the US just bombed Somalia. The people in power have their reasons to go to war- resources, money, power, just look at the Pentagon Papers or the Bush administrations National Security Statement of 2002. They lie to the American people, tell them it's not about oil, rubber, free trade, but democracy and human rights, not so much because they need them their approval, but because they want less disruptions of their plans. But to kill 3000 of their people and lie about it? It doesn't make sense. This wasn't Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers or MOVE that was killed. These weren't people challenging those in power, THESE WERE THE PEOPLE IN POWER!
These 9/11 conspiracy theories assume that US policies don't create their own resistance. When the US gives billions of dollars worth of military aid to Israel for it's occupation of Palestine and wars against Lebanon, when the US bombs Sudan, imposes genocidal sanctions against Iraq, and supports dictatorships around the world, do you seriously think that people aren't going to get angry and hit back? With US foreign policy as aggressive as it was and is, it was only a matter of time before a 9/11 like event happened. It wasn't a question of if, but only who, when, where, how and for what.
These theories take away credit from third world people. Because behind every theory that Bush did it, it the idea the Bin Laden couldn't have. That no person from the third world could ever challenge the empire in such a devastating way. That the US is invincible. Well, all empires turn to dust. The question is what will stand on the ashes of this empire- religious fundamentalists who received their training from the Empire, or a radical democracy with peace, justice and equality.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
My Reply to Horowitz
This was my reply to David Horowitz's letter in the Spring 2007 issue of the Illinois Academe, the newsletter of the Illinois chapter of the American Association of University Professors. My response was printed in the Fall 2007 issue of the same publication.
I want to note that the editor did take out one of my quotes, probably he felt the article was to long. I had a quote from the Communist Manifesto to illustrate my point that ideas develop out of material reality. Since Horowitz was claiming that abolitionists derived their ideas from white Chrisitian men, I wanted to illustrate that abolitionism evolved out of the material conditions of the age.
The quote goes, "Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?... When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence."
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I want to note that the editor did take out one of my quotes, probably he felt the article was to long. I had a quote from the Communist Manifesto to illustrate my point that ideas develop out of material reality. Since Horowitz was claiming that abolitionists derived their ideas from white Chrisitian men, I wanted to illustrate that abolitionism evolved out of the material conditions of the age.
The quote goes, "Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?... When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence."
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Friday, September 28, 2007
DePaul: Class Education
I was requested by some students at DePaul to write a piece for a "Disorientation Guide" on the school. The guide never came out, the students just didn't have the initiative or drive to make it a reality. I'm posting this article with the hope that DePaul students will find it of use someday.
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Welcome to DePaul. You are one of two kinds of students. The kind that can afford the school, or the kind that will leave with a large amount of debt. Either way, you have a responsibility to challenge the school place in our capitalist society. Whether it's in your own benefit, the benefit of your fellow classmates or the benefit of workers here or abroad, it's time to fight the power.
Before you run out and start blocking streets, occupying offices, and rioting, you should know a a little bit about the school that will regulate your life for the next couple of years. This guide that you hold in your hand will help you figure out the best way to make that change you want to see happen.
First of all, contrary to what the deans and administrators will tell you, there is an activist history at DePaul. There have been students fighting for justice since the early days of the school. Whether it be students speaking out against US involvement in World War I, shutting down the school in opposition to the Vietnam war or holding rallies to oppose the Iraq war today. Students have also fought against discrimination, from the Black Student Union's occupation of the Schmidt Academic Center in 1969, to fighting for the right to have a gay student group in the 1980's, to creating new academic programs like Latino Studies, Asian Studies, Black and African Diaspora studies. There have been academic freedom issues, where students and faculty had to take on a Catholic Universities dogma like in 1986 when students and faculty brought pro-choice speaker Eleanor Smeal, or in 2007 when students occupied the President's office to support pro-Palestine Professor Finkelstein. Students have held campaigns to support unions and against sweatshops, the same way they have always spoken out against the high price of tuition and in the early 1990's even held large rallies against increases.
One of the important things to keep in mind with the school and your dealings with it is it's position in society and the contradictions inherent in a Catholic University in capitalist America.
There have been times when the religious nature of the school and the business nature of the school have been at odds. For a school that talks so much of it's “Catholic, Vincentian and Urban” values, the instinct of many progressives might be to side with the value oriented religious nature of the school, against the greedy materialistic business aspect of the school, for example on labor issues, priests like Jack Egan were supportive of student anti-sweatshop struggles while the board of trustees was made up of corporate executives who were certainly not sympathetic to such struggles.
However in many ways the business aspect of the school has pushed progressive change. The priests certainly didn't want a Queer studies minor, but the business aspect showed that there was a demand for it and DePaul could make money with it. The business aspect also forced DePaul to open up more in terms of academic freedom in many ways, the school simply could not go on treating religion as something to be indoctrinated, and with the introduction of the curricular reform of the 1960's, DePaul allowed much greater academic freedom.
What to make of this? What to make of someone like Father Richardson, the former president of the school who would condemn students who spoke out against the occupation of Palestine. The same Fr. Richardson who testified to Congress in the 1980's to take money away from the military budget and put it towards education (a good suggestion, but maybe motivated by a little self-interest on his part).
What to make of it? Socialism. You will have to build a socialist movement that will challenge the school, and the society it exists in, to value all people. DePaul is not a democracy, or a cooperative, it allows more freedom to it's employees and consumers than say a factory, where speaking out against the boss gets you fired, but students, faculty and staff have no direct voice in the decisions that are made behind closed doors. We do not elect the secretive board of trustees or the members of the corporation. We do not set the tuition rate or decide if, where and how the school will expand. A socialist DePaul would be one where power comes from the bottom up. Until we have that new era, we have to fight for it. We can play the business and religious aspects of the school to get some of the changes we want, and we will get some concessions, some breathing room. Ultimately though we will need strong radical student, faculty and staff unions that will unite with the broader community and radical movements to fight for the basic demand of all progressive movements, “Power to the People!”
Whatever you get involved in, anti-war work, labor issues, women's rights, or civil rights, just remember that activism can be boring and frustrating at times. When you spend weeks handing out fliers, knocking on dorm room doors and talking to people, it can seem repetitive. Then when you have a rally and only 10 people show up, it can be disheartening. You have to keep fighting though. Maybe the people you spoke to weren't ready for a rally this time, but might be next time. Then maybe the 10 new people who did show up might become dedicated activists.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that change only happens because of the unreasonable man, the reasonable man will simply accustom himself to the way things are. It should be clear that the way things are is not how things should be. It's time to fight for a better world.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Welcome to DePaul. You are one of two kinds of students. The kind that can afford the school, or the kind that will leave with a large amount of debt. Either way, you have a responsibility to challenge the school place in our capitalist society. Whether it's in your own benefit, the benefit of your fellow classmates or the benefit of workers here or abroad, it's time to fight the power.
Before you run out and start blocking streets, occupying offices, and rioting, you should know a a little bit about the school that will regulate your life for the next couple of years. This guide that you hold in your hand will help you figure out the best way to make that change you want to see happen.
First of all, contrary to what the deans and administrators will tell you, there is an activist history at DePaul. There have been students fighting for justice since the early days of the school. Whether it be students speaking out against US involvement in World War I, shutting down the school in opposition to the Vietnam war or holding rallies to oppose the Iraq war today. Students have also fought against discrimination, from the Black Student Union's occupation of the Schmidt Academic Center in 1969, to fighting for the right to have a gay student group in the 1980's, to creating new academic programs like Latino Studies, Asian Studies, Black and African Diaspora studies. There have been academic freedom issues, where students and faculty had to take on a Catholic Universities dogma like in 1986 when students and faculty brought pro-choice speaker Eleanor Smeal, or in 2007 when students occupied the President's office to support pro-Palestine Professor Finkelstein. Students have held campaigns to support unions and against sweatshops, the same way they have always spoken out against the high price of tuition and in the early 1990's even held large rallies against increases.
One of the important things to keep in mind with the school and your dealings with it is it's position in society and the contradictions inherent in a Catholic University in capitalist America.
There have been times when the religious nature of the school and the business nature of the school have been at odds. For a school that talks so much of it's “Catholic, Vincentian and Urban” values, the instinct of many progressives might be to side with the value oriented religious nature of the school, against the greedy materialistic business aspect of the school, for example on labor issues, priests like Jack Egan were supportive of student anti-sweatshop struggles while the board of trustees was made up of corporate executives who were certainly not sympathetic to such struggles.
However in many ways the business aspect of the school has pushed progressive change. The priests certainly didn't want a Queer studies minor, but the business aspect showed that there was a demand for it and DePaul could make money with it. The business aspect also forced DePaul to open up more in terms of academic freedom in many ways, the school simply could not go on treating religion as something to be indoctrinated, and with the introduction of the curricular reform of the 1960's, DePaul allowed much greater academic freedom.
What to make of this? What to make of someone like Father Richardson, the former president of the school who would condemn students who spoke out against the occupation of Palestine. The same Fr. Richardson who testified to Congress in the 1980's to take money away from the military budget and put it towards education (a good suggestion, but maybe motivated by a little self-interest on his part).
What to make of it? Socialism. You will have to build a socialist movement that will challenge the school, and the society it exists in, to value all people. DePaul is not a democracy, or a cooperative, it allows more freedom to it's employees and consumers than say a factory, where speaking out against the boss gets you fired, but students, faculty and staff have no direct voice in the decisions that are made behind closed doors. We do not elect the secretive board of trustees or the members of the corporation. We do not set the tuition rate or decide if, where and how the school will expand. A socialist DePaul would be one where power comes from the bottom up. Until we have that new era, we have to fight for it. We can play the business and religious aspects of the school to get some of the changes we want, and we will get some concessions, some breathing room. Ultimately though we will need strong radical student, faculty and staff unions that will unite with the broader community and radical movements to fight for the basic demand of all progressive movements, “Power to the People!”
Whatever you get involved in, anti-war work, labor issues, women's rights, or civil rights, just remember that activism can be boring and frustrating at times. When you spend weeks handing out fliers, knocking on dorm room doors and talking to people, it can seem repetitive. Then when you have a rally and only 10 people show up, it can be disheartening. You have to keep fighting though. Maybe the people you spoke to weren't ready for a rally this time, but might be next time. Then maybe the 10 new people who did show up might become dedicated activists.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that change only happens because of the unreasonable man, the reasonable man will simply accustom himself to the way things are. It should be clear that the way things are is not how things should be. It's time to fight for a better world.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Scott Scarborough: We Won't Miss You
The same day DePaul reached it's settlement with Norman Finkelstein, another, though very different, person left DePaul. Scott Scarborough was the executive vice-president of finances. It would be difficult to find a job position more insidious, or a person who fit the job profile more accurately.
As the person chiefly responsible for DePaul's finances Scarborough was responsible for bringing Barnes and Noble to the loop campus, forcing local coffee shop Gi-Gi's to close. He was the person who held the keys to DePaul's contracts and kept the deals in the dark, away from the students, faculty, staff, and external workers whom they affected. We approached him several times about Starbucks' illegal union-busting tactics, and Coca-Cola's murdering of union organizers in Colombia, he never lifted a finger to help us. Vincentian values indeed.
One shouldn't be surprised, Scarborough has a history of reactionary politics. Despite all of DePaul's claims about being Urban, it recruited Scarborough not from Chicago, but from Texas. According to the Daily Texan, Scarborough was actually the President of the University of Texas Austin Student Government while he was a student in the 1980's. During his tenure, a number of students proposed a gay rights bill, which would simply require the school to not discriminate against queer students. Scarborough opposed this resolution, telling the school's newspaper that since Gays were more likely to have fecal matter under their fingernails, which could spread STD's like AIDS, that preventing them from accessing certain public spaces would be legit.
Granted AIDS education has come along way since the 1980's, but even then it was known that AIDS transmission isn't that easy, and besides, there are plenty of straight people with AIDS, or who don't know how to wipe their butt properly and end up with fecal matter under their fingernails. Did Scarborugh still have these ideas at DePaul? How did DePaul's Queer community feel about this? I left copies of the relevant newspaper articles with leaders of DePaul's queer community. As far as I know they never followed up on the issue. I'm not sure why.
When the bill came to a vote in the Texas student government, Scarborough actually led a walk-out of conservative members to attempt to prevent quorum. They failed and the bill passed.
Then there are the rumors. You would think that someone so anti-gay would believe in family values and not want to do anything that would upset his white picket fence nuclear family fantasy. A number of reliable sources have told me that despite being married, Scarborough had an affair with a woman who worked in DePaul's General Counsel office. Lots of people have extra-marital affairs though, and it's not something I'm willing to condemn as I believe marriage is an outdated institution, but Scarborough got this woman pregnant according to my sources. Paid her off to keep quiet, and DePaul's administration turned a blind eye. Nothing quite like Christian hypocrisy on family values, right Mark Foley?
Now granted Scarborugh was hired under Fr. Minogue, and Minogue, besides being a Gynecologist, well there are rumors about him and maids as well. It seems as though Holtschneider is still cleaning house from Minogue's era. I wonder what will happen to those poor tigers.
So now the question is who will take Scarborough's place? Maybe it will be an arch-Finkelstein who will block any attempts to boycott the apartheid state of Israel. Maybe it will be a friendly liberal face who talks and talks, but when push comes to shove supports the corporations against the people. One way or the other, we should demand that all administration positions are appointed by a democratic vote among students, faculty and staff.
Of course, anyone willing to clarify these assertions, (Scott?) is welcome to visit www.depaulasu.net and e-mail asudepaul@yahoo.com
Monday, September 24, 2007
Ghosts of Columbine
The massacre at Virginia Tech has opened up a lot of old wounds. I remember where I was when I first heard about the school shootings in Colorado. April 20, 1999. I just got off the bus and walked into a guitar store for lessons and on the TV was news of a shooting. Even at the guitar store, they blamed the murders on rock music. With Virginia Tech, I was at work. Both times the US was at war. In 1999 it was the former Yugoslavia, in 2007 it was Iraq and Afghanistan.
Brazilian cartoonist Latuff acurately describes the contradictions in the public and media reaction to the shootings. “What if Cho Seung-Hui joined the US Marines and all of his victims were Iraqi? Would he be called a murderer or a hero?” Readers of the Chicago Tribune soon saw the answer.
Allen Lee, a student at Cary-Grove High School wrote an essay describing himself going on a shooting spree and having sex with the dead bodies. He was promptly suspended from classes and had disorderly conduct charges brought against him. More disturbing than the essay was his career choice. Allen and his friend Jamie Emling both planned on entering the military after high school. The Chicago Tribune was flooded with letters defending the students, saying that the assignment was to vague, that teachers and administrators were being to sensitive and that the students were no threat, after all, they were going to be protecting our country.
Eventually the school dropped the charges, and the students were allowed to graduate. I hope we don't hear about US soldiers raping dead Iraqi's. This Iraq war has already produced enough monsters in uniform. From the massacre at Haditha, to the torture at Abu Ghraib, to the rapes US soldiers have committed.
At Virginia Tech, connecting the dots between the violence our government commits and the isolated violence of lone nuts didn't seem to be a priority. Their commencement speaker after the shooting? General John Abizaid, who was in command of Iraq.
Brazilian cartoonist Latuff acurately describes the contradictions in the public and media reaction to the shootings. “What if Cho Seung-Hui joined the US Marines and all of his victims were Iraqi? Would he be called a murderer or a hero?” Readers of the Chicago Tribune soon saw the answer.
Allen Lee, a student at Cary-Grove High School wrote an essay describing himself going on a shooting spree and having sex with the dead bodies. He was promptly suspended from classes and had disorderly conduct charges brought against him. More disturbing than the essay was his career choice. Allen and his friend Jamie Emling both planned on entering the military after high school. The Chicago Tribune was flooded with letters defending the students, saying that the assignment was to vague, that teachers and administrators were being to sensitive and that the students were no threat, after all, they were going to be protecting our country.
Eventually the school dropped the charges, and the students were allowed to graduate. I hope we don't hear about US soldiers raping dead Iraqi's. This Iraq war has already produced enough monsters in uniform. From the massacre at Haditha, to the torture at Abu Ghraib, to the rapes US soldiers have committed.
At Virginia Tech, connecting the dots between the violence our government commits and the isolated violence of lone nuts didn't seem to be a priority. Their commencement speaker after the shooting? General John Abizaid, who was in command of Iraq.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Who Is John Simon?
In the week since Professor's Norman Finkelstein and Marueen Larudee were denied tenure by DePaul University, a lot has happened. Feeling that the two progressive faculty members were being targeted because of their political views critical of US and Israeli foreign policy, many took action. Students met with President of the school Fr. Holtschneider, and unhappy with his rationalizations, they sat in his office for 3 days and 2 nights before being kicked out under threat of arrest and expulsion. Community members joined a rally to support academic freedom and the Faculty Council and Administrative Faculty Council held meetings which affirmed that DePaul did not follow the tenure process according to the faculty handbook and authorizing an appeal to the professor's denied tenure.
What is becoming clearer over time is the behind the scenes role played by those who should not have a say in the tenure process. It should be a faculty and student decision, but more and more we are seeing evidence of interference by those with political agendas.
While many people are aware that Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and apologist for Israeli torture tactics, has been lobbying to prevent Finkelstein from receiving tenure, few are aware of some of the details of his influence at DePaul. Dershowitz has claimed in print that his involvement in DePaul's tenure process was a result of being asked into it by Patrick Callahan, the former Political Science department chair. In student's meeting with Fr. Holtschneider though, Holtschneider explained that Dershowitz was inviting himself into the tenure process by e-mailing and asking Holtschneider for a meeting. Holtschneider explained to us that he didn't even read the letters but instead handed them over to DePaul's general council.
It's becoming clear though that Dershowitz's influence at DePaul might go above Holtschneider.
The director of DePaul's Board of Trustee's is a lawyer, John Simon, who works for the law firm Jenner and Block. Jenner and Block has ties to anti-Finkelstein groups like the Jewish United Fund. In fact 50 lawyers with the firm attended a fund raiser for the group, featuring keynote speaker Alan Dershowitz. Recently the Jewish United Fund released a press statement praising DePaul's decision to deny tenure to Finkelstein.
This raises troubling questions. Did John Simon meet with Dershowitz to discuss the Finkelstein tenure case? How much money do anti-Finkelstein groups like the Jewish United Fund donate to DePaul and how much of an influence does this have on a tenure process which is supposed to be independent of the corrupting influence of money? How much influence does the Board of Trustee's have over the tenure process? I am e-mailing both John Simon and Alan Dershowitz with these questions today. Stay tuned for their responses.
What is becoming clearer over time is the behind the scenes role played by those who should not have a say in the tenure process. It should be a faculty and student decision, but more and more we are seeing evidence of interference by those with political agendas.
While many people are aware that Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and apologist for Israeli torture tactics, has been lobbying to prevent Finkelstein from receiving tenure, few are aware of some of the details of his influence at DePaul. Dershowitz has claimed in print that his involvement in DePaul's tenure process was a result of being asked into it by Patrick Callahan, the former Political Science department chair. In student's meeting with Fr. Holtschneider though, Holtschneider explained that Dershowitz was inviting himself into the tenure process by e-mailing and asking Holtschneider for a meeting. Holtschneider explained to us that he didn't even read the letters but instead handed them over to DePaul's general council.
It's becoming clear though that Dershowitz's influence at DePaul might go above Holtschneider.
The director of DePaul's Board of Trustee's is a lawyer, John Simon, who works for the law firm Jenner and Block. Jenner and Block has ties to anti-Finkelstein groups like the Jewish United Fund. In fact 50 lawyers with the firm attended a fund raiser for the group, featuring keynote speaker Alan Dershowitz. Recently the Jewish United Fund released a press statement praising DePaul's decision to deny tenure to Finkelstein.
This raises troubling questions. Did John Simon meet with Dershowitz to discuss the Finkelstein tenure case? How much money do anti-Finkelstein groups like the Jewish United Fund donate to DePaul and how much of an influence does this have on a tenure process which is supposed to be independent of the corrupting influence of money? How much influence does the Board of Trustee's have over the tenure process? I am e-mailing both John Simon and Alan Dershowitz with these questions today. Stay tuned for their responses.
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