Finis à l'affaire Finkelstein

Nifty tidbit via Little Green Footballs:

Anti-Israel wacademic Norman Finkelstein has resigned from DePaul University, after being denied tenure.

For those who haven't been following the ongoing chaos, Finkelstein is yet another example of the kind of "professor" whose notion of intellectual engagement is hurling unsubstantiated opinions and biases forth as fact. Scholarship this ain't. What makes it worse is that, like the execrable Ward Churchill (whom we think might finally be well and truly removed from his former position), Finkelstein had a habit of being chronically disagreeable. Particularly when denied tenure:

In fact, according to the Chicago Tribune, Finkelstein had several encounters with DePaul administrators, and cops were called:

Oral and physical confrontations between Finkelstein and university officials began shortly after his tenure denial, according to a memo written by university Provost Helmut Epp.

The provost's memo, dated June 26, alleges that Finkelstein "angrily confronted" other faculty and staff and engaged them with "threatening and discourteous behavior" after being denied tenure.

On three such occasions, campus security officers were called to intervene, according to the provost's memo. When a dean [Chuck Suchar, of course] tried to escape a confrontation by ducking into an elevator, Finkelstein physically tried to keep the door from closing, according to the provost's account.

In an Opinion Journal piece this spring, under the general head of "Academentia," Alan Dershowitz described in detail Finkelstein's brilliant academic career prior to arriving at DePaul:

Norman Finkelstein brags that "never has one of [his] articles been published in a scientific magazine." By his own account he has been fired by "every school in New York," including Brooklyn College, Hunter and NYU. His chairman at one of these colleges said that Mr. Finkelstein was fired for "incompetence," "mental instability" and "abuse" of students with politics different from his own. His prospects seemed bleak, so when radical Islamist Aminah McCloud--a follower of Louis Farrakhan--helped him land a job at DePaul, a school that Mr. Finkelstein describes as "a third-rate Catholic university," he accepted "exile."

What a sweetie. There's gratitude for ya.

The only thing more astounding than DePaul's hiring this obvious troublemaker is the language his former colleagues used to describe him above, the kind of verbiage normally mild-mannered academics usually reserve for describing George W. Bush. Which gives you a pretty good idea as to the extent of Finkelstein's social skills.

To make a long story short, Finkelstein is yet another active Holocaust Denier. This is easily seen in his curriculum vitae (academic resumé), still posted via the DePaul website, although we're not quite sure how long the link will remain. Tellingly, on the last page, he lists, without honoraria, two and only two references:

Noam Chomsky, M.I.T.

Avi Shlaim, Oxford University

The latter is an anti-Israeli Baghdadi Jew who teaches at Oxford, while the former...well, the less said about this notorious lifetime Communist and Amerikkka hater, the better. DePaul should have 86'd Finkelstein's resume at this point.

Here we have yet another example of the kind of "academic" that hiring committees make job offers to while doing their best to blackball any scholar whose opinion might be one millimeter to the right of Karl Marx. That the faculty and administration of DePaul did the right thing here is to be commended. That they even took this fellow seriously, however, illustrates how badly removed from current reality the modern academic really is.

A thought: If you have a kid in college today, you're paying for stuff like this.