Moonlighting: Non-Specialists in the News

Closed Out? Norman Finkelstein, Controversial Scholar Denied Tenure, Can't Find a Job

by Robin Wilson
The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog
July 7, 2008

http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=4796&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/5343

It's been just over a year since DePaul University denied the tenure bid of Norman G. Finkelstein, the political scientist who has attracted both venom and praise for his writings on the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now no one in academe will give him another job — not even as an adjunct, he told The Jewish Week this month.

In an article, Mr. Finkelstein said he had lectured at 40 campuses in the last year. "I would ask faculty there about a position and was told it was out of the question," he said. "I can't even get an adjunct appointment for one semester."

Mr. Finkelstein is living in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he grew up, in the apartment of his deceased father. He told The Jewish Week, a local newspaper, that he doubted he could get even a job teaching high school.

"The way they do background checks is to Google your name," he said. "With me, they would get 30,000 Web sites, one-third of them saying I am a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism, a crackpot, and a lunatic."

Mr. Finkelstein said he was working on a new book, A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-Up of American Zionism, although he does not yet have a publisher.

Note: Articles listed under "Moonlighting: Non-Specialists in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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