Peter N. Kirstein

There are six reasons why Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, will not receive the  Democratic Party presidential nomination:

1) Senator Barack Obama–a unique and rare individual of immense eloquence, charisma and an innate capacity to draw contrasts with his opponents without bitterness and rancor.

2) The Iraq War Authorization to Use Force in October 2002. Senator Clinton’s execrable support of the war “with conviction” was a fatal factor in her candidacy and totally mishandled by President Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” charge of alleged differences over the war with the Illinois senator.

3) Her famed decisiveness proved porous with her vacillation over a proposal by the nation’ most famous john–the despicable former Democratic New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Senator Clinton could not decide whether she approved or disapproved of providing drivers licenses to undocumented workers. Neither did Senator Obama but it was her issue initially and affected her I believe in a more pronounced manner.

4) The race-baiting by both the New York senator and the former president. This galvanised in particular a skeptical African-American community and many liberals that had been unconvinced about the electability of Senator Obama and a predisposition to support anything Clintonesque into a crusade for Senator Obama. It was no longer an issue of whether he was “black” enough but one of rallying around a series of offensive race-baiting or race-innuendo remarks by the amoral Clinton combat team.

5) The personality of Hillary Clinton: While brilliant, talented, articulate and well-schooled in public policy issues, there emerged a persona of vindictiveness, rage and anything-to-get-elected that drove down her favourable ratings and reduced dramatically her capacity to increase her base of support. Unpopular candidates with huge unfavourable ratings rarely win presidential nominations, much less general elections.

6) Her defeat in the Iowa Caucus on January 3, 2008 revealed some need for revisionism of her alleged invincibility as frontrunner.

No. I don’t believe her repeated lies about narrowly escaping death in Bosnia in 1996 were significant. By then, her litany of lies and half-truths were somewhat predictable. No I don’t think the McCain-Clinton gas-tax holiday adventure was that damaging but it did lessen somewhat the racist, reactionary media obsession with the eloquent Reverend Doctor Jeremiah Wright.  Governor Howard Dean, chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, was spot on when interviewed on FOX News Sunday, May 4, 2008. He referred to it as “race-baiting.”

See Louisville Courier-Journal interview.

This is the link to the article on the status of the Clinton campaign in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The article was written by James Carroll, a Washington-based reporter for the paper. Kentucky, the land of blue grass, Muhammad Ali, Vice President  Alben Barkley and Senator/Baseball commissioner Happy Chandler, holds its primary on May 20, 2008:

WASHINGTON — While Hillary Rodham Clinton should win some of the six remaining primaries, including Kentucky’s, she doesn’t have enough money and time to prove herself a viable alternative to Barack Obama, political observers said yesterday.

And the Democratic presidential nomination, they said, is effectively beyond her reach.

“It’s over — it’s over,” said Peter Kirstein, professor of history at Chicago’s Saint Xavier University. “She is in somewhat of a delusional state. I don’t mean that literally, but she simply cannot accept the fact she has lost. … I don’t think it’s quite hit her yet that he’s going to get the nomination.”

On Tuesday, Clinton won a skin-of-the-teeth victory in Indiana and lost to Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina.

Clinton, a U.S. senator from New York, insisted yesterday that her campaign would continue.

“I’m staying in this race until there’s a nominee,” she told reporters in Shepherdstown, W.Va., where that state votes Tuesday. “And I obviously am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee.”

Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, appears to be turning his attention to the fall campaign against the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. Still, his campaign is continuing to open offices in Kentucky in advance of the May 20 primary.

“We need change in America. And that’s why we will be united in November,” Obama told cheering supporters in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday night. He was in Chicago yesterday, with no public events on his schedule.

The math seems to show that Clinton has little chance of overtaking Obama’s delegate lead.

A count by The Associated Press shows that Obama is only 184.5 delegates away from the 2,025 needed to claim his party’s nomination.

Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, an Obama supporter, said it is time for Clinton to shut down the contest.

“She has been absolutely heroic in this presidential race,” Chandler said. “But she will not make it to (next week’s primary in) West Virginia.”

That’s what many lawmakers in both the Obama and Clinton camps are telling each other privately, he said. But at least some Kentucky Democrats are still anticipating a rare chance to have a say in the presidential campaign and energize party activists for the fall contest.

There’s no hurry for Clinton to quit, said Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, who is backing Obama.

“I don’t want her to drop out until after May 20,” Yarmuth told reporters in a conference call yesterday. To quit before then “would temper enthusiasm for the election,” he said.

“We need in Kentucky to make a show of strength for Senator Obama because we are not writing off Kentucky in the general election at all,” he said. “Because of the economic challenges Kentuckians face, I believe Kentucky can be a state that votes for Senator Obama in the fall.”

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Jennifer Moore said there is no reason for Clinton, who is slated to attend a state party fundraising event in Louisville tomorrow, to quit the race now.

“It is important for Kentucky to express its voice in the primary,” she said, adding that she doesn’t believe the battle will create any wounds that can’t be healed before November.

“There is nothing wrong with primaries,” said Moore, an uncommitted superdelegate who said she plans to make her decision after the May 20 primary. “At the end of the day, Democrats will come together because the last thing we want is to have a third Bush term and send John McCain to the White House.”

Jefferson County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Longmeyer, an Obama supporter, agreed.

“I don’t want anybody to give up on the race, both personally and as party chair, before Kentucky gets a chance to vote,” he said.

Longmeyer said he doesn’t see a problem with Clinton continuing to run a tough race in which she attacks Obama on important issues.

“It gets the two candidates in front of American people,” he said. “All the buzz, all the discussion is going to Democrats now, and I think ultimately that’s a good thing.”

But former state party chairman Bill Garmer, also an Obama supporter, said Clinton should abandon her campaign.

“It looks to me as if the time has come for the Democratic Party to close ranks behind Senator Obama,” he said.

Chandler said he doesn’t see how Clinton can continue.

“I think she clearly is out of money, and she’s got to ask herself how much she is going to invest in an effort where the math doesn’t work and she has very little shot,” Chandler said. “I think it would make sense for her to get out. I don’t know what purpose she is serving by carrying on.”

But Phil Laemmle, a retired University of Louisville political science professor, said Clinton should stay in and end her race gracefully at the end of the primary season.

“It would be best for the Obama people to agree to let the process work itself out, let her go through the process,” he said. “… Of the states left, none of them are major states; even if she won all the delegates … she still couldn’t catch him.”

While this blog has not endorsed a candidate in either party, I believe this document is historically significant. This blog will however endorse a Democratic candidate just prior to the Montana primary if both candidates are still actively pursuing the presidential nomination of the Democratic-cowardly vote-funding-for-the-war party. I have also been quite critical of Senator Hillary Clinton for her positions on nuclear deterrence, Iran and the Iraq War but have not been uncritical of Senator Barack Obama. Yet I do construe his approach to international affairs as more conducive to international peace and security. I particularly embrace his intention to engage in direct diplomacy with the heads of state of Iran, Syria, Cuba and presumably the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

TO:                 Superdelegates

FROM:           David Plouffe, Campaign Manager

RE:                 An Update on the Race for Delegates

DA:                 May 7, 2008

There are only six contests remaining in the Democratic primary calendar and only 217 pledged delegates left to be awarded. Only 7 percent of the pledged delegates remain on the table. There are 260 remaining undeclared superdelegates, for a total of 477 delegates left to be awarded.

With North Carolina and Indiana complete, Barack Obama only needs 172 total delegates to capture the Democratic nomination.  This is only 36% of the total remaining delegates.

Conversely, Senator Clinton needs 326 delegates to reach the Democratic nomination, which represents a startling 68% of the remaining delegates.

With the Clinton path to the nomination getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in the coming days. While those scenarios may be entertaining, they are not legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or its millions of supporters, volunteers, and donors.

We believe it is exceedingly unlikely Senator Clinton will overtake our lead in the popular vote and in fact lost ground on that measure last night. However, the popular vote is a deeply flawed and illegitimate metric for deciding the nominee – since each campaign based their strategy on the acquisition of delegates. More importantly, the rules of the nomination are predicated on delegates, not popular vote.

Just as the Presidential election in November will be decided by the electoral college, not popular vote, the Democratic nomination is decided by delegates.

If we believed the popular vote was  somehow the key measurement, we would have campaigned much more intensively in our home state of Illinois and in all the other populous states, in the pursuit of larger raw vote totals. But it is not the key measurement. We played by the rules, set by you, the DNC members, and campaigned as hard as we could, in as many places as we could, to acquire delegates. Essentially, the popular vote is not much better as a metric than basing the nominee on which candidate raised more money, has more volunteers, contacted more voters, or is taller.

The Clinton campaign was very clear about their own strategy until the numbers become too ominous for them. They were like a broken record , repeating ad nauseum that this nomination race is about delegates. Now, the word delegate has disappeared from their vocabulary, in an attempt to change the rules and create an alternative reality.

We want to be clear – we believe that the winner of a majority of pledged delegates will and should be the nominee of our party. And we estimate that after the Oregon and Kentucky primaries on May 20, we will have won a majority of the overall pledged delegates  According to a recent news report, by even their most optimistic estimates the Clinton Campaign expects to trail by more than 100 pledged delegates and will then ask the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters.

But of course superdelegates are free to and have been utilizing their own criteria for deciding who our nominee should be. Many are deciding on the basis of electability, a favorite Clinton refrain. And if you look at the numbers, during a period where the Clinton campaign has been making an increasingly strident pitch on electability, it is clear their argument is failing miserably with superdelegates.

Since February 5, the Obama campaign has netted 107 superdelegates, and the Clinton campaign only 21. Since the Pennsylvania primary, much of it during the challenging Rev. Wright period, we have netted 24 and the Clinton campaign 17.

At some point – we would argue that time is now – this ceases to be a theoretical exercise about how superdelegates view electability. The reality of the preferences in the last several weeks offer a clear guide of how strongly superdelegates feel Senator Obama will perform in November, both in building a winning campaign for the presidency as well as providing the best electoral climate across the country for all Democratic candidates.

It is important to note that Senator Obama leads Senator Clinton in superdelegate endorsements among Governors, United States Senators and members of the House of Representatives. These elected officials all have a keen sense for who our strongest nominee will be in November.

It is only among DNC members where Senator Clinton holds a lead, which has been rapidly dwindling. 

As we head into the final days of the campaign, we just wanted to be clear with you as a party leader, who will be instrumental in making the final decision of who our nominee will be, how we view the race at this point.

Senator Obama, our campaign and our supporters believe pledged delegates is the most legitimate metric for determining how this race has unfolded. It is simply the ratification of the DNC rules – your rules – which we built this campaign and our strategy around.

I have previously written about Senator Hillary Clinton’s threat to exterminate Iran’s civilian population if it were to attack a nuclear-rogue state-Israel. The latter, unlike Iran, has not ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. The Boston Globe  wrote an editorial that was also critical of this despicable senator’s nuclear brinkspersonship.

Hillary Strangelove

Wheaton College is more medieval than modern; more oppressive than enlightened; more radical than measured; more intolerant than tolerant.

First: They fired Professor Joshua Hochschild for converting to Roman Catholicism. Yes in the United States of America, the beacon of freedom and liberty, a college fired a philosophy professor for committing the grave offence of converting to Roman Catholicism. I fail to see how such a conversion would reduce one’s capacity to teach, publish or perform service. It is beyond belief that a faith-based institution would harbour such bias and prejudice.

Professor Kent Gramm: Photo courtesy of Chicago Sun-Times

Second: Kent Gramm, an English professor at Wheaton College was fired for divorce. Precise reportage would concede he would have been allowed a final terminal contract year, but he refused that opiton. Yes in the apogee of the free world that bills itself as the enemy of the Axis of Evil and the paragon of democracy, a professor can lose his or her livelihood because of a marriage that did not perdure. Presumably, Wheaton College tolerates and retains those professors who are separated, married without love, or married without a harmonious relationship. While Wheaton College occasionally allows its employees to obtain a divorce, they must provide a transparent explanation of its cause. No-fault divorce may be legal in every state but a backward, vicious institution of higher learning may actually fire professors who cannot justify their divorce according to Pauline scriptural utterances.

What is equally egregious about this facade of an open and democratic society is that faith-based institutions can get away with this monstrous intrusion into an academician’s private life. The limitations clause of the American Association of University Professors 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure does appear to permit such a violation of academic freedom:

“Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.”

I say appear because in 1970, the Statement was updated including a Third Interpretive Comment. This comment stated, “…we do not now endorse such a departure.” Well which is it? Does the limitations clause represent an appropriate denial of academic freedom or does it not? A.A.U.P. appears to be disavowing this component of its 1940 iconic document and, therefore, ought to immediately launch a Committee A investigation of Wheaton for its blatant violation of the “human rights” of its professorate. I think firing professors for religious conversion or divorce does not merit an exception for the autonomy of faith-based institutions but a robust denunciation and censure of this draconian and immoral administration running wild at Wheaton.

Wheaton College, you may fire a professor who is proven to be incompetent, fails to perform her or his duties, is guilty of moral turpitude or fired as a result of a legitimate declaration of financial exigency. To fire professors for merely attempting to be happy in terms of marital choices or religious denominations is totally irrelevant in assessing the academic and professional qualities of an academician. This is utterly shameful and a disgrace to higher education in the United States.

Chris Wallace conducted one of the better interviews in recent years on national television. His interview of Illinois Senator Barack Obama on FOX News Sunday, April 27 was polite, respectful, substantive and penetrating. Unlike the ABC tandem of George Stephanopoulus and Charles Gibson’s shameful race-baiting during their Philadelphia “debate,” Mr Wallace demonstrated a capacity to rise above the usual partisanship on his own network as well and frankly display significant journalistic talents. I hope Ruppert Murdoch can tolerate such objectivity and lack of bias on this component of News Corp.

Senator Obama (l); Chris Wallace (r) Courtesy of FOX News

FOX news had made a big issue of the senator’s reluctance to appear on FOX and used a Jack Bauer ”24″ second clock–no N.B.A. pun intended–to update the period since the Democratic senator was initially offered an invitation for an interview. Perhaps, Chris Wallace ironically felt it was preferable to display journalistic independence and skill than to affirm, through an ersatz, vicious attack ad for the Republican party, Senator Obama’s hesitancy to appear on the conservative Murdoch-run network. I remember when President Bill Clinton was interviewed by Mr Wallace, that the former was so furious, so enraged and so vituperative that Mr Wallace was barely able to ask his questions. Perhaps the journalist wanted to avoid a repetition of such a failed endeavor–although Senator Obama is not prone to histrionics– and frankly to merely ask questions that could elevate the rather banal state of political discourse in the country.

This is a link to the written transcript–thanks to FOX news–of the interview. I noticed it lasted forty-five minutes which is quite a bit longer than their usual format. Perhaps that also contributed to the in depth reportage of this significant exchange.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/27/transcript-obama-on-fns/

This video consists of excerpts from my talk on February 23, 2008 at the “Freedoms at Risk” conference at New York University. The conference was organised by the Student Council of the College of Arts and Science. This is a link to the entire printed version of my remarks.

Hillary’s World.

Senator Hillary Clinton has threatened “massive retaliation” against the Islamic Republic of Iran were it to use nuclear weapons against the State of Israel. She has engaged in on-the-run extended deterrence by threatening the destruction of Iran were it to use weapons of mass destruction on third countries in the region as well. For  the record, Iran is a non-nuclear weapons state and has issued a Fatwa against pursuing a nuclear weapons capacity. Even If insincere, it is many years away from weaponising and deploying atomic systems in its arsenal. There is no urgency or hint of such a capacity on the part of Iran.

What she is advocating is the extermination of tens of millions of Iranians and a possible second-strike retaliation against the United States were it to engage in a preemptive nuclear war against Iran. The senator appears unaware that Israel is a major nuclear power and possesses between 150 and 200 nuclear warheads that can be deployed on both United States built fighter aircraft or launched by missiles.  I have never, even during the days of the Cold War, witnessed such reckless if not evil rhetoric in which innocent civilians would be slaughtered by the millions in such an indiscriminate manner. Israel hardly requires an extended deterrence from the United States: the nuclear nation which worked with South Africa during its apartheid regime to acquire and refine its nuclear capacity, does not require American nuclear protection. Iran would hardly benefit from a nuclear attack on a nuclear power in the region. The only group that needs our protection are the Palestinians who are the victims of one of the greatest violations of human rights since the end of World War II.

For Senator Clinton to be even contemplating a nuclear attack on a country as part of a political campaign strategy is unseemly and I believe an evil and despicable lack of ethics and morality. Her initial description of her nuclear plans of deterrence as “massive retaliation” was uttered during the disturbing high-tech lynching of the Philadelphia debate.  Massive Retaliation was introduced by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in 1954. At the time, the United States believed it lacked the conventional might to restrain a possible Soviet attack on Western Europe and so Secretary Dulles suggested that the U.S. might use nuclear weapons to deter both a CONVENTIONAL as well as a Soviet nuclear first-strike assault. The policy of massive retaliation ratcheted up the scenarios in which these monstrous atomic and thermonuclear weapons would be used. The policy even for the United States was quickly discredited as a doomsday strategy in which nuclear warfare would be triggered by even a limited Soviet conventional surge across the Fulda Gap–the symbolic division between the boundaries between the former West and East Germany that was closest to the Rhine River. Of course its successor, Flexible Response, was equally flawed even if never fully articulated by either Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara and his successors at DoD.

The New York senator has cynically and ignorantly taken a Cold War doctrine and to put it mildly given it a horrific new level of application. If a nuclear state is attacked by another nuclear state, the U.S. will attack the attacker with nuclear weapons. I have never heard of a nuclear umbrella being extended to a major nuclear power such as the State of Israel. I also construe Mrs. Clinton’s remarks to be racist, antithetical to the need for diplomacy and reconciliation and a political ploy to appear to be out Thatchering, Margaret Thatcher, the former blustering British Prime Minister.

I say shame on Senator Clinton and under no circumstances, do I see any qualities in this individual that would be worthy of an American president. She should suspend her candidacy and be condemned by the Democratic Party as unprofessional, violent-prone and a threat to global justice and the international community.

The Iraq War which only one major candidate for the presidency opposes, Senator Barack Obama (Ill), has led to the needless deaths of 135 American troops this year. Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorise the use of military force in October 2002. The Bush administration which is guilty of war crimes under international law, but immune from prosecution due to their “defence” establishment’s power, conceals photos of caskets that arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The “elites’” sartorial adornment of flag-lapel pins merely emphasise their violent nationalism in which others sons and daughters perish in this war for geostratetgic hegemony in the Middle East.

These are real people and this is the latest American casualty of war:

04/19/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty: DoD Identifies Army Casualty Staff Sgt. Jason L. Brown, 29, of Magnolia, Texas, died April 17 in Sama Village, Iraq.

Clinton Campaign Spokesperson George Stephanopoulus.

Not only did this former Clinton administration White House official–senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy–conduct a high-tech lynching during the “debate” in Philadelphia on April  16, but also for the last month or so presented highly biased reporting on the Democratic party primary campaign on Charles Gibson’s evening newscast.  This fellow slants the news from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s perspective and the candidates’ “debate” was simply the most egregious form of his campaigning for a high-level position in a possible Clinton administration.

I have never witnessed such pandering on mainstream television during a debate to right-wing nationalism as orchestrated by this fromer Oxford  University Rhodes Scholar. This was conducted during the inquisition of the Illinois Senator Barack Obama. The questions on flag-lapel fashion, Bill Ayers’s days as a weatherperson and the supposed lack of partriotism of the senator’s pastor, former U.S. marine Reverend Jeremiah Wright, were unbecoming a supposed professional journalist and frankly an unseemly waste of time.

While Mr Stephanapoulus, ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent, did not produce the show, I noticed that Ms Chelsea Clinton and her entourage were shown throughout the debate in full colour, but none of the Obama supporters or even the rest of the audience were: it was like night-vision videography in which the audience did not know when on camera but the Clinton elites did.

“Tear down that wall Mr Olmert!”

It is essential that the United States adopt Senator Barack Obama’s approach to external relations. Namely negotiate with our adversaries and derivately compel our dependent allies to do the same. I wish Senator Obama, however, would more consistently adhere to his unique position vis a  vis Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Sen. Obama has criticised President Jimmy Carter’s peace mission to dialogue with Hamas–the legally elected government since January 2006 of the open-air concentration camp in Gaza.

The Illinois Senator is being coerced to abandon his ideology of compassion and hope and peace by Clinton surrogate George Stephanopoulus and other media stars. Mr Stephanopoulus and the shallow Charles Gibson were appropriately called “despicable” and the former ”slimy” as well for their unprofessional, almost defamatory performance in the Democratic presidential candidate debate from Philadelphia on April 16, 2008: The absurd demands that he leave a church that Reverend Jeremiah Wright so courageously led with his denunciations of American genocide in World War II and its legacy of slavery and Jim Crow; the criticisms of his rather tangential interaction with former Weatherperson Professor Bill Ayers (we were both included in David Horowitz, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America); and the curious insistence that he wear an American flag lapel pin despite the apparent decisions of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vietnam-genocide veteran Senator John McCain to eschew such silly sartorial ornamentation. {If I were the president of ABC news, Mr Stephanopoulus would have been fired for his biased incompetence in allowing a “debate” to become a “lynching” of Senator Obama. Mr Gibson would have been rebuked and removed from any future debate format.}

By Mahmoud al-Zahar
Thursday, April 17, 2008; A23

This article appeared in the Washington Post

GAZA — President Jimmy Carter’s sensible plan to visit the Hamas leadership this week brings honesty and pragmatism to the Middle East while underscoring the fact that American policy has reached its dead end. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is “business as usual” for the Palestinians.

Last week’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal — from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that “legalizes” the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less.

The U.S.-Israeli alliance has sought to negate the results of the January 2006 elections, when the Palestinian people handed our party a mandate to rule. Hundreds of independent monitors, Carter among them, declared this the fairest election ever held in the Arab Middle East. Yet efforts to subvert our democratic experience include the American coup d’etat that created the new sectarian paradigm with Fatah and the continuing warfare against and enforced isolation of Gazans.

Now, finally, we have the welcome tonic of Carter saying what any independent, uncorrupted thinker should conclude: that no “peace plan,” “road map” or “legacy” can succeed unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.

Israel’s escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis “peace conference” in November has been consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment — in violation of international conventions. Israeli military strikes on Gaza have killed hundreds of Palestinians since then with unwavering White House approval; in 2007 alone the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 40 to 1, up from 4 to 1 during the period from 2000 to 2005.

Only three months ago I buried my son Hussam, who studied finance at college and wanted to be an accountant; he was killed by an Israeli airstrike. In 2003, I buried Khaled — my first-born — after an Israeli F-16 targeting me wounded my daughter and my wife and flattened the apartment building where we lived, injuring and killing many of our neighbors. Last year, my son-in-law was killed.

Hussam was only 21, but like most young men in Gaza he had grown up fast out of necessity. When I was his age, I wanted to be a surgeon; in the 1960s, we were already refugees, but there was no humiliating blockade then. But now, after decades of imprisonment, killing, statelessness and impoverishment, we ask: What peace can there be if there is no dignity first? And where does dignity come from if not from justice?

Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state — the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees — to slip out of world consciousness, forgotten or negotiated away. Judaism — which gave so much to human culture in the contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modern proponents of tikkun olam — has corrupted itself in the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.

A “peace process” with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

I am eternally proud of my sons and miss them every day. I think of them as fathers everywhere, even in Israel, think of their sons — as innocent boys, as curious students, as young men with limitless potential — not as “gunmen” or “militants.” But better that they were defenders of their people than parties to their ultimate dispossession; better that they were active in the Palestinian struggle for survival than passive witnesses to our subjugation.

History teaches us that everything is in flux. Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun, and adversity has taught us patience. As for the Israeli state and its Spartan culture of permanent war, it is all too vulnerable to time, fatigue and demographics: In the end, it is always a question of our children and those who come after us.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a surgeon, is a founder of Hamas. He is foreign minister in the government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, which was elected in January 2006

Barnard College Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, who was another tenure target of the Zionist thought police, is profiled in a brilliant,  magisterial article in the New Yorker. Entitled The Petition: Israel, Palestine, and a tenure battle at Barnard, its author is Jane Kramer and it appears in the April 14, 2008 issue on pp. 50-59.

 Anthropology Professor Abu El-Haj

I addressed her egregious auto-da-fé when I spoke at DePaul University’s academic freedom conference on  February 2, 2008:

While Barnard College anthropology Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj was granted tenure this past fall, her seminal monograph, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society generated websites, blogs and online petitions that tried to use virtual referenda to deny her tenure; there were pro-tenure online efforts as well.

Dan Rabinowitz and Ronen Shamir of Tel Aviv University in a recent article, “Who Got to Decide on Nadia Abu El-Haj’s Tenure,” Academe, named Paula Stern, a Barnard University alumnus, living in an Israeli settlement in occupied Palestine, as having initiated the “Deny Nadia Abu El-Haj Tenure” petition. The authors report primarily American Jews signed the anti-tenure petition. Professor Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University, in his remarks at the October 12, 2007 University of Chicago academic freedom conference in Rockefeller Chapel, revealed that most of the opposition to his receiving tenure emanated from American Jews, not Ben Gurion University or other Israeli academics. Professors Gordon, Rabinowitz and Shamir affirm it is easier for Israeli academics to criticise Israel than it is for Americans.

To quote Rabinowitz and Shamir:

To put it bluntly, their sensitivity [and they are referring to American Jews] to critical inquiry that questions the practices and sensibilities of Israel and Israelis is much greater than anything we have experienced in the Israeli academic, public, or political arenas. Israeli academia, by and large, is fairly tolerant when it comes to critical thinking in the social sciences and the humanities… Israeli academic institutions are tolerant when it comes to critical thinking voiced by Jewish Israelis… Not so in the United States, where the prevailing climate, especially among Zionist Americans, tends to label dissenting voices-regardless of the scientific merit they reflect-as anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist and to try to suppress them.

I also briefly referred to her case at an academic freedom conference at New York University on February 23, 2008:

There also emerged an online petition drive to deny Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj tenure at Barnard College. External constituencies chose not to merely critique or denounce her, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, but as enemies of modernism, to silence the author by denying her an appointment in academia. They failed in this instance but are not deterred in their anti-modernist assault on the academy.

Usually spelled Reopening

• Law enforcement officials determine threat no longer viable;
• Graduate classes resume the evening of Wednesday April 16;
• Undergraduate classes resume 8:00 a.m., Thursday April 17

Saint Xavier University President Judith A. Dwyer, Ph.D., announced today that all Saint Xavier University campuses will reopen Wednesday, April 16. On the evening of Wednesday, April 16th graduate classes at all locations will resume. Undergraduate classes will resume the morning of Thursday, April 17th. University employees are expected to return Wednesday, April 16th at normal business hours Students who cannot return before the following Monday will not be penalized academically. Students can return to residence halls beginning 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 16.

All University campuses were closed Friday evening due to incidents of threatening graffiti found in a restroom in Regina Hall, a residence hall on SXU’s Chicago campus. The second piece of graffiti noted the date April 14.

“I am deeply proud of the judgment and actions of our University community during this challenging period,” President Dwyer said. “I could not imagine a more dedicated commitment to students. Students and parents can rest assured that in times of emergency this university acts with decisiveness and coordination to ensure safety of everyone.”

Law enforcement officials said the ongoing investigation into the graffiti has discovered nothing else that would indicate the existence of a continuing viable threat or that the April 10th graffiti in Regina Hall remains credible. The investigation continues. A heightened level of police and public safety personnel will remain in effect.

“We are confident in the professionalism and capabilities of our emergency responders as evidenced during the extensive incident pre-planning and continuing coordination with the Chicago’s Police and Fire Departments and the City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, along with the Chicago Field Office of the FBI,” said SXU Police Chief Paul Kolessar. “We are extremely grateful to these agencies, whose guidance and support have been invaluable.”

Students and parents are encouraged to call the University hotline for additional information: 1-866-209-9945.

• Law enforcement officials determine threat no longer viable;
• Graduate classes resume the evening of Wednesday April 16;
• Undergraduate classes resume 8:00 a.m., Thursday April 17

Oakland University has reopened and Malcolm X College has reopened. Two adjoining high schools near Saint Xavier that had not received any threats of violence, Mother McAuley and Brother Rice High Schools, have resumed classes on April 15, 2008. 

Saint Xavier University remains closed for the fourth day counting the weekend:

April 14 update on University closing

The multi-agency investigation into threatening graffiti found in Regina Hall continues. The Saint Xavier University campuses remain closed until further notice. Students and non-essential personnel will not be allowed on campus during this period. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and ask that you visit update.sxu.edu regularly for continued updates regarding when the University will re-open. Please call our hotline for additional information: 1-800-462-9288 or 1-866-209-9945.

I sent this message to two of  my classes via Blackboard as I begin to progressively reflect and comment on the current situation in loco parentis and nationally.

Dear Class [Both sections of United States History 104: 1877 to the Present]:

I know you are wondering what is going on but for now S.X.U. remains closed. I believe it is best to err on the side of caution even though it is maddening that toilet graffiti can shut down an institution of higher learning. Yet the bosses here are probably doing the right thing. I do think, however, it raises broader questions of gun violence, popular culture faddism in which these actions are copycats, the wars, the media’s infatuation with violence, the obsession with domination and control. It is good to take current crises and learn from them. However I am also writing to state the following.

The syllabus has dates on completing the Zinn chapters. [I am using Howard Zinn, The Twentieth Century: A People's History] Let’s stick to those dates. The Hersey book on Hiroshima [John Hersey, Hiroshima was originally published in The New Yorker] will be scheduled the SECOND class after return since some folks are out-of-state or may not get the return word right away. So if we return on a MONDAY, the book test will be WEDNESDAY etc. I have a hunch they may have to extend the semester if this continues much longer but the bosses make that call.

In any event, I would use this period to reflect on peace and the meaning of behaving in a caring manner which obviously someone in this instance forgot to do. It might also be a good period to catch up in classes you have fallen behind in. It is also a time perhaps to take a walk, run a few miles =), go to a museum and maybe partake of a “beverage” too.

See you soon, I hope.

Peter

Oakland University canceled today’s classes and activities after graffiti messages threatening a campus attack were found scrawled in three men’s restrooms.

The Auburn Hills campus is expected to reopen at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

The threats were found Saturday in three buildings — O’Dowd Hall, the Oakland Center and Kresge Library. The buildings form a triangle in the heart of the West campus.

Students spotted the first two messages; the third was discovered when police officers scoured campus buildings Saturday night.

After the third find, officials canceled Sunday activities and closed the campus.

The university’s dorms stayed open, but students were encouraged to go home if possible, said Michelle Moser, a university spokeswoman.

The messages referred to possible on-campus attacks on “4/14″ — or April 14 — said University Police Chief Samuel Lucido.

He declined to release the content of the messages, citing the ongoing investigation, but said the threats didn’t target anyone specifically.

“We’re convinced it’s the same person” who left all three threats, Lucido said.

Jayson Moss, a political science major, said it’s disturbing.

“I’m trying not to get super alarmed or anything,” said Moss, 27, of Bloomfield Hills. “I’m glad they’re erring on the safe side.”

Trouble at other schools

Similar messages were found over the weekend at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. That campus is shut down indefinitely.

According to a statement released by Saint Xavier President Judith Dwyer, graffiti messages were found April 5 and Thursday. One read, “Be prepared to die on 4/14.”

This week marks the anniversary of the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech University massacre, during which a gunman killed 32 people and injured at least 20 more before killing himself.

‘It scares me’

Ashley Fairless, who is majoring in elementary education at OU, said the threats should not be taken lightly.

“It scares me,” said Fairless, 20, of St. Clair County’s Riley Township. “Something really could happen. They needed to take action.”

The three buildings in which the messages were found are popular with students, she said, especially the Oakland Center, where students surf the Internet, buy food and mingle.

Like other Oakland students, Fairless received an e-mail Saturday night after the first message was found.

The e-mail, sent by university officials, said that police were investigating a message that “may be interpreted by some as being somewhat disturbing, but it is quite vague and contains no specific threat of any kind.”

Lucido said the subsequent messages were worrisome enough to warrant closing the campus down as a precaution.

As of the fall 2007 semester, OU had just more than 18,000 students, according to the university’s Web site.

Safety before studies

For John Locklear, the threats bring to mind both the Virginia Tech massacre and the February shooting at Northern Illinois University, in which six people died.

Locklear, a 23-year-old journalism major from Clinton Township, said he has a project due today in preparation for upcoming finals, but he won’t be coming to campus to turn it in until he feels safe.

“I don’t want to go to school and worry about being shot in the back,” he said. “I’m more worried about people being safe than I am about my studies.”

The university is keeping faculty and students updated through its Web site at www.oakland.edu.

Anyone with information about the threatening messages can call campus police at 248-370-3331 or dial 911 from a campus telephone.

Contact AMBER HUNT at 586-469-4682 or alhunt@freepress.com.

April 13, 2008 Received Sunday 6:26 P.M.

The multi-agency investigation into threatening graffiti written in Regina Hall continues. The Saint Xavier University campuses remain closed until further notice.

The well being of our University community remains our primary concern.

Students and non-essential personnel will not be allowed on campus during this period. Students who live too far away to travel home have been provided with hotel accommodations. Others who could not afford travel were assisted with transportation.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and ask that you visit update.sxu.edu regularly for continued updates regarding when the University will re-open. Please call our hotline for additional information at 1-800-462-9288.

This post appeared in the Washington Post blog today. He is referring to Cardinal Bernard Law who resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002 and was involved in a series of sex scandals involving underage youth. Mr Hitchens wrote the important and provocative work, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. The pope is scheduled to visit the United States between April 15 and April 20 and will celebrate Mass and visit inter-faith religious leaders in Washington, D. C. and New York.

Christopher Hitchens

What I’d Ask the Pope

If [Ed: Pope Benedict XVI] Ratzinger is not asked at every stop he makes, and in level yet firm tones, why he and the Vatican continue to shelter Cardinal Law, our profession will have shamed and disgraced itself. We already know that the Pope is a Roman Catholic. What we need to hear is his reason for giving sinecure and asylum to the man who organized and excused the rape and torture of tens of thousands of American children. And then, when he has given his first answer, we need to hear how he answers all the supplementary questions. [Ed:  I believe the figure of 600 is closer to the numbers possibly defiled by pedophilic priests in the Boston archdiocese. Cardinal Law was appointed to the position of archpriest of St Mary Major Basilica in Rome.]

What I would ask Christopher Hitchens?

Are you a hypocrite to raise the issue of pedofilia and sex crimes within the Roman Catholic church but dismiss your support of mass murder in Iraq in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and over 4,000 American troops? Are you comfortable with your apparent disregard for the lack of proportionality and discrimination in this unjust war?

Why did you support a war of mass murder in Iraq? Were you blinded by an ultranationalistic, ethnocentric Zionism which frankly created a monolithic RELIGIOUS entity in the middle of the Arab world which has led to sixty years of mass misery and apartheid for the Palestinians?

Why do you harbour such puerile notions that violence against Muslim peoples and in particular Saddam Hussein’s secularist, Baathist government was in the national interest and an example of appropriate realism?

While your question for the pope is important and worthy of discussion, only in militarised, sociopathic America would such a person as yourself  apparently  escape  a sustained  challenge of hypocrisy in your putative concern of protecting American children but insouciant in your support of a war in which so many Iraqi children have perished. Remember sir Haditha and the genocide at Falluja!! 

Additional comment on Washington Post blog:

April 13, 2008 9:20 AM |

Statement from President Judith A. Dwyer, Ph.D.

Saint Xavier University closed

Saint Xavier University, a Catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the Sisters of Mercy, educates men and women to search for truth, to think critically, to communicate effectively, and to serve wisely and compassionately in support of human dignity and the common good.

The University commits itself to practicing eight core values as it engages in a search for truth and knowledge. We commit to the values of Respect, Excellence, Compassion, Service, Hospitality, Integrity, Diversity, and Learning for Life.

Two instances of threatening graffiti found on April 5 and April 10 in Regina Hall, a freshman residence hall, have violated the spirit of these values. On the considered advice of the multiple law enforcement agencies pursuing the case, we have chosen to close Saint Xavier University indefinitely beginning tonight due to the specific nature of the second message found on April 10, which read: “Be prepared to die on 4/14.”     

The closure applies to all University sites, including the Chicago and Orland Park campuses and its Loop location at the Chicago Bar Association. Classes in all university regional locations are also cancelled. Any community events held on campus are still scheduled. The director of auxiliary services will be contacting the event planner to discuss details.

As part of the closure of the campus we ask that students leave campus by noon, Saturday, April 12. Students who may not be able to easily return home or afford transportation should call (773) 341-5060 for assistance. On Saturday and Sunday, Student Affairs personnel will be on hand to assist students and answer questions. The University will take every action possible to ensure that students’ academic careers are disrupted as little as possible. 

Individual vice presidents will decide which of their personnel are essential and must work during the time the University is closed.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and ask that you visit www.sxu.edu regularly for continued updates regarding when the University will re-open. Please call our hotline for additional information at 1-800-462-9288.

During this process we have relied heavily on the advice and direction of our dedicated law enforcement agencies to ensure that actions and communications regarding this matter protect the safety of all involved. We are deeply grateful for their continued guidance and support. Below this message, please find a summary of events leading up to this difficult decision.

Sincerely,

Judith A. Dwyer, Ph.D.,

President

The following is an overview of events regarding Regina Hall:

While the credibility of the first threat was difficult to determine, the university believed it prudent to err on the side of caution and take several preliminary steps. The professional Residence Life staff in Regina Hall was increased, and officers from the Saint Xavier Police Force remained on alert for any unusual behavior or activity. The Chicago Police Department Area 2 Detective Division responded to campus with evidence technicians, several support officers and increased CPD patrols.

A second threatening message was found in Regina on Thursday, April 10, this one specifically citing April 14.

Officers have conducted an aggressive investigation throughout the week. The investigation remains open at this time. Anyone who may have any information that may be helpful in this investigation is asked to call Saint Xavier’s confidential hotline at (773) 298-3838.

This report was written in the wake of the June 2007 tenure and promotion denial cases of Drs. Norman G. Finkelstein, then assistant professor of political science and Mehrene Larudee, assistant professor of international studies. The task force report is notable for its precision, organisation and dedication to academic freedom and shared governance. Issues of unwarranted and systemic dismissal by the University Board on Promotion and Tenure of positive recommendations from department, college level committees and dean, the egregious influence by outside advocates and the behavior of certain faculty in soliciting external allies and submitting minority reports are directly challenged by  the FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance. This is a document that should become the gold standard in higher education in assessing and advocating the reversal of highly politicised and poorly conducted tenure and promotion cases at an institution of higher learning.

October 12, 2007

Dear LAS [Liberal Arts and Sciences] Colleagues:

In June 2007 the LAS Faculty Governance Council created and charged a task force to examine procedure, policy and academic freedom concerns arising from a set of six recent tenure and/or promotion denials. Attached is the resulting report of the FGC [Faculty Governance Council] Task Force for Academic Freedom and Shared Governance. The report builds off of the past year’s record in providing a detailed analysis of tenure and promotion processes and academic freedom protections laid out in the Faculty Handbook and LAS Promotion and Tenure Guidelines.

 Several aspects of the 2006-07 record were of concern to Faculty Governance Council when it created the task force. Four of the six cases, denials of promotion to full professor for LAS associate professors, constituted all cases for promotion to full professor forwarded from LAS to the university board in 2006-07. All four of those applicants had received the support of the college dean, the college personnel committee and their home units. All were rejected for promotion after a negative vote of the university board and acceptance of the board’s decision by the university president.

The two tenure denials followed a similar pattern: strong or unanimous home unit and college personnel committee support followed by negative vote of the university board and acceptance of the board’s recommendation by the president. The college dean gave a positive recommendation in one of the tenure cases, and a negative recommendation in the second. In addition, the Faculty Governance Council had voiced concerns in a  November 2006 letter about interference from outside parties in the case of one of the

LAS applicants for tenure.

I am hopeful the task force report will inform a college-wide discussion regarding ouvision for future promotion and tenure practice and policy in LAS. As Chair of the college governance council, I thank the Task Force for its work, and commend its members for pursuing this project with great integrity and in a spirit of collegial shared governance. I see the report as an important step in protecting a fundamental principle of shared academic governance and academic freedom at DePaul: that departments and programs have primacy over academic personnel evaluation, including decisions on tenure and promotion.

Please read the task force report and post freely your comments or questions on the linked comment page. The next steps in this process should involve an open deliberation of the issues raised in the report, in particular its recommendations for action.

Sincerely yours,

Gil Gott,

Chair, Faculty Governance Council

FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance

Report on Shared Governance

In the summer of 2007, the Faculty Governance Council authorized the creation of the Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance. This task force was charged with investigating potential violations of academic freedom and shared governance practices in the LAS promotion and tenure denials announced in June 2007. This part of the task force’s report, on shared governance, was written by consulting the college’s, university’s, and profession’s governing documents on shared governance, especially those dealing with the various issues, criteria, policies, procedures, and constituencies involved in the promotion and tenure process. While working on this report, the task force also carried on a parallel investigation of the specifics of the two LAS promotion and tenure denials and the generalities of the four LAS promotion denials. Emphasis has been added to the quoted texts by italics.

1) Criteria for tenure and promotion. Collegiality and Vincentianism. Review of criteria (by University Board on Promotion and Tenure [UBPT]).

Background: In at least one instance this year, an LAS faculty member going up for tenure and promotion was labeled insufficiently “Vincentian” or un-”Vincentian” by the dean. This formed the basis of the dean’s unwillingness to endorse the unanimous vote of the College Personnel Committee (CPC) for tenure and promotion. This raises issues regarding what criteria are to be considered in tenure and promotion cases and whether “Vincentianism” or collegiality should factor into any consideration for tenure and/or promotion.

Criteria for tenure and promotion

General criteria for tenure and promotion are stated in the university Faculty Handbook (FH), in accord with AAUP [American Association of University Professors] criteria and guidelines for faculty peer reviews. These are found, generally, in section II, “Academic Rank and Titles” (FH, II, p. 1):

GENERAL CRITERIA

The principal criteria for initial appointment and promotion in academic rank are quality of teaching; scholarship, research or other creative activities; and service. (p.1)

The expectations of each rank regarding all three-”teaching; scholarship, research or other creative activities; and service”-are specifically referred to in the subsequent description of the ranks of “assistant professor,” “associate professor,” and “professor” found on pp. 1-2. These are the only three criteria for evaluation and review mentioned

FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 2 in the FH. These criteria are also restated in section V, “Evaluation of Faculty” (FH, V, p. 2):

Promotion and Tenure Review

General Criteria

DePaul University shall appoint, retain, promote, tenure and reward faculty who best help the university attain its goals and fulfill its mission, as these are articulated in this Faculty Handbook.

The criteria for the decisions are the quality of the candidate’s:

1. teaching and learning

2. scholarship, research, and/or other creative activities, and

3. service to the university (p.3)

This section elaborates on the university definitions, guidelines, criteria, and evaluation processes of candidates for tenure and promotion, based on teaching, scholarship, and service (FH, V, pp. 3-9). Central to the general statements found in this section are three significant prefatory paragraphs that assign the home unit the primary authority to develop guidelines and further explicate these criteria that meet university approval (p.3). Comment 1.1: These three criteria are the hallmarks of peer review established by the AAUP. There is no indication in this section about a fourth, and overriding, criterion: collegiality or “Vincentianism.”

Collegiality and Vincentianism

In addition to the university FH, the College of LAS “College Promotion and Tenure Procedures” (LAS P&T) document offers three additional statements regarding criteria and process in its section 5 “Criteria” (LAS P&T, 5, p. 4).

The first, 5.1, indicates that “The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recruits and retains faculty who combine enthusiasm for teaching with a commitment to scholarship, research, and collegiality.”

Significantly, the section elaborates only on the first three-teaching, scholarship, and research-and emphasizes the first as paramount. For instance, “If tension should arise between teaching and research, the college supports effective teachers who have limited research agendas….”

The second additional statement, section 5.2, offers a gloss on “collegiality” which is rather limited and very vague:

Collegiality is central to the success of the college and carries with it both benefits and responsibilities. Collegiality means participation in the governance and the intellectual life of the university; it means an acceptance of teaching as the primary mission of the college and the University; it means a respect for the unique traditions of DePaul as a Catholic, Vincentian, and urban university; it means a presence on campus for the benefit of other faculty and of students.

FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 3

Comment 1.2.0: In one of these glosses (italicized, above), collegiality seems to be derived from DePaul’s mission as a “Catholic, Vincentian, and urban” institution, but there are problems here. First, nowhere are these terms defined. Second, nowhere is one of these values given preeminence anywhere in the LAS P&T document (that is “Vincentian” over, say, “Catholic“). Third, nowhere in any of the previous procedures, and conspicuously absent from section 2 “Promotion/Tenure Documentation” (pp. 1-2), is there any mention of collegiality as a criterion (indeed, it is only listed in section 2.5.1

“External References for promotion to Full Professor,” requiring departments to comment on a candidate’s collegiality in its recommendation to full professor; given that the LAS faculty member in question was up for tenure and promotion to the rank of associate professor, this should not have been applied at all). Fourth, nowhere does the document ask departments or programs to develop a unit definition of the “collegiality” criterion or a process for evaluating a candidate against the criterion. And, fifth, nowhere does the document provide guidance to candidates for tenure and promotion on how to prepare a dossier that includes a statement on-and supporting evidence for-collegiality.

Comment 1.2.1: Additionally, the AAUP has been very clear on rejecting collegiality as a criterion for evaluating faculty. See its statement on collegiality as an evaluative area:

(http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/collegiality.htm). The organization’s main concern is that “The elevation of collegiality into a separate and discrete standard is not only inconsistent with the long-term vigor and health of academic institutions and dangerous to academic freedom, it is also unnecessary” (AAUP: “On Collegiality as a Criterion for Faculty Evaluation”).

Comment 1.2.2: Finally, the third additional statement, section 5.3, charges departments to develop unit criteria to reflect the “general criteria adopted by the University”; however, these criteria, listed above, only list:

1. teaching and learning

2. scholarship, research, and/or other creative activities, and

3. service to the university (FH, V, p.3)

This is in keeping with section 5.4 of the LAS P&T document, where there is, again, no mention of collegiality.

Review of criteria (by UBPT)

According to the FH (FH, II, p. 1): “Criteria, which are approved by and included in official documents of the academic units, are as binding on the members of those units as are the general university standards for which they provide explication.” The FH, therefore, recognizes explications of university standards, without explicitly recognizing additional or overriding criteria and standards. Indeed, this statement of the FH (above) goes on to state: “Should there be a difference between the two sets of criteria, those of the university shall prevail.”

Comment 1.3: Department or program criteria are ultimately submitted to the University Board on Promotion and Tenure for approval. According to past practice, unless the department or program hears to the contrary, the criteria are considered “approved” and operational. In the absence of any prior notification to the contrary, the home units can only assume that their “explications” of university standards are acceptable. Tenure-track FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 4 faculty within these home units assume that the “explications” are expectations and plan the probationary stages of their careers accordingly. Tenured faculty within these home units assume that the “explications” will guide them in mentoring and evaluating their tenure-track colleagues. All of this is done by home units and their faculty in good faith.

That faith is challenged or even broken when the process fails to live up to its promise or operates by criteria which have been changed without discussion and/or dissemination.

The task force believes that this is the current critical situation in the college.

2) Rights and responsibilities of faculty, generally, on matters of personnel. Rights and responsibilities of faculty, specifically, during the stages of review at all levels: department, college, university.

Background: In the cases of the two tenure denials and four promotion denials (to full professor), the recommendations of the department or program, as well as the recommendations of the CPC were set aside and “overruled” by the UBPT. In five of the six cases, the recommendations of the dean were also set aside and overruled. This raises the question of the rights, responsibilities, and powers of the three separate levels of review.

Rights and responsibilities of faculty, generally, on matters of personnel

The governing documents from units to college to university are framed by the language, sometimes explicit, often implicit, of rights and responsibilities.

For example, in the section on “Faculty Governance and Participation in Governance,” the university FH states:

6. Faculty governance regarding academic programs, curriculum, and faculty status regularly takes place through departments, programs, colleges and schools. Primary governance within these bodies shall continue as in the past to reside within these bodies as well (FH, I, pt. 6, p. 2).

This FH section goes on to assert the “Primary Responsibilities of the Faculty”:

The faculty is vested with primary governance responsibility of academic and scholarly activities and faculty personnel matters within the University, including the following:

2. Academic freedom, including rights and responsibilities.

3. Standards and procedures concerning faculty promotion, tenure, appointments, retention, and performance.

4. Adjudication of grievance and disputes in all matters involving faculty members. (p.2) …

7. Matters pertaining to research, scholarly, and creative activities. (p.3)

FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 5

Rights and responsibilities of faculty, specifically, during the stages of review at all levels: department, college, university

Section V, “Evaluation of Faculty,” sharpens the rights and responsibilities of the faculty in the home unit (i.e., department, program, college) re: developing guidelines and criteria for faculty peer review. Three paragraphs stand out for emphasis and are quoted in full:

The determination that an individual meets these criteria is made primarily on the basis of guidelines promulgated by the candidate’s department or - in the absence of departmental structures - by the college or school, which state what is to be expected of faculty with regard to the above areas.

These guidelines are to be informed by criteria specific to that unit’s professional discipline, field or interdisciplinary area. The academic unit employs these guidelines only after they have been approved as being consistent with the general university criteria stated in this Faculty Handbook (following section). The University Board on Faculty Promotion and Tenure, consisting of representatives from the colleges or schools appointed by the Faculty Council, shall be responsible for making these determinations.

Decisions subsequent to that made at the initial level shall consider the method and care of application of the approved standards by the lower level unit(s), including matters of stringency, consistency, and fairness, in addition to any unusual implications the decision may have at thecollege/school or university level. Only in cases where lower level decisions are judged to be deficient in significant respects shall upper level units make their own application of the substantive criteria of the candidate’s scholarly or artistic area (FH, V, p.3).

Comment 2.1: In the second paragraph (above), the role of the UBPT is to review and approve the guidelines “as being consistent with the general university criteria stated in this Faculty Handbook.” There are two points to reiterate: first, that the university criteria are limited to teaching, scholarship, and service and, second, that the home unit has the responsibility for interpreting these criteria within the standards and expectations of its field (”where one’s peers are assumed to represent the institution’s best expertise in the relevant academic field” FH, V, p.3). In the event that this interpretation is not consistent with-or rigorous enough to meet-university criteria and expectations, the implication is strong that the UBPT will notify the home unit of any such inconsistency or deficiency.

Note that the FH imparts two possibly contradictory powers to upper levels of review in the third paragraph. On the one hand, the UBPT is limited to an assessment of the home unit’s review process and its “stringency, consistency, and fairness.” On the other it may “consider… any unusual implications the decision may have at the college/school or university level.” These “implications” are not, however, articulated in this section (asthey are in the AAUP standards, which include shifting academic priorities and financial exigency). However, the final statement in the passage (italicized above) reiterates that the primary rights and responsibilities reside with the home unit.

FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 6

The FH also indicates, in this same section, under “Guidelines and Criteria,” that in addition to the home unit’s assessment of effective teaching and service,

4. The faculty of a department, college or school will determine which forms of scholarship particularly advance and communicate knowledge within a disciplinary or interdisciplinary field and how the products of scholarship will be weighed. (FH, V, p.5)

Role of the UBPT

The FH develops the role of UBPT further in this section. Specifically, the FH states that The board [UBPT] shall have the following responsibilities:

1. to apply current university-wide standards and criteria for tenure and promotion;

2. to review: a) the candidates['] application and supporting materials, b)recommendations from prior levels, and c) the application of departmental and/or college criteria to the candidate;

3. to recommend action for tenure and/or promotion of the candidate;

4. to review college/school guidelines and criteria to insure consistency with stated university expectations as well as reasonable application of these criteria to the evaluation of faculty members (FH, V, p.14).

The first point is related to the criteria raised in section 1 of this document (see above).

(There are also a few general and preliminary comments on ranks found in the FH, V,

pp.4-10.) The fourth point is likewise related to the UBPT review of department, program, and college “explications” of university criteria (again, see section 1, above).

The third point is important. Here, the nature of the “recommendation” is constrained by the wording of the second point, which limits the UBPT review to “the candidates['] application and supporting materials, b) recommendations from prior levels, and c) the application of departmental and/or college criteria to the candidate.” Again, this assigns substantive reviews primarily to the home unit(s) and procedural reviews primarily to theupper levels of review. The FH does not assign any additional specific authority to the

UBPT beyond these (e.g., to override lower level reviews on substantive grounds), nor does it elaborate on any criteria used by the committee to allow for greater authority or discretion, nor does it provide any procedural guidance to the board (or to the faculty it is to represent) to allow for greater authority or discretion.

The primacy of the home unit in conducting “substantive reviews”

Significantly, the FH closely follows the AAUP policy statement on “Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments” in its main elements.

The AAUP statement allows for “review” (i.e., appeal) of prior decisions based on either violations of academic freedom (or bias) and/or procedure. This section of the task force review will concentrate on the latter point and the AAUP statement will be presented extensively. Here, “review” refers to the appeal process, in the context of what is and is not within the purview of the “review,” or appeal, committee. The point that we wish to emphasize is the language regarding the significance of the home unit review to issues of “professional judgment,” “primary authority,” and the “tradition of departmental autonomy.”

FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 7

Three paragraphs from the AAUP document stand out for emphasis and are quoted in full:

Review Procedures: Allegations of Inadequate Consideration

Complaints of inadequate consideration are likely to relate to matters of professional judgment, where the department or departmental agency should have primary authority. For this reason, the basic functions of the review committee should be to determine whether the appropriate faculty

body gave adequate consideration to the faculty member’s candidacy in reaching its decision and, if the review committee determines otherwise, to request reconsideration by that body.

It is easier to state what the standard “adequate consideration” does not mean than to specify in detail what it does. It does not mean that the review committee should substitute its own judgment for that of members of the department on the merits of whether the candidate should be reappointed or given tenure.3 The conscientious judgment of the candidate’s departmental colleagues must prevail if the invaluable tradition of departmental autonomy in professional judgments is to prevail. The term “adequate consideration” refers essentially to procedural rather than to substantive issues: Was the decision conscientiously arrived at? Was all available evidence bearing on the relevant performance of the candidate sought out and considered? Was there adequate deliberation by the department over the import of the evidence in light of the relevant standards? Were irrelevant and improper standards excluded from consideration? Was the decision a bona fide exercise of professional academic judgment?

These are the kinds of questions suggested by the standard “adequate consideration.” If, in applying this standard, the review committee concludes that adequate consideration was not given, its appropriate response should be to recommend to the department that it assess the merits once again, this time remedying the inadequacies of its prior consideration.

The task force, in presenting this excerpt from the AAUP statement on “Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments,” recognizes that it is using an AAUP statement which is in explicit support of an appeal process and which sets out the specific procedure for such a review. The task force wishes to emphasize the following points: 1) that there is a consistency throughout the various relevant AAUP policy and procedure statements regarding the primacy of the home unit’s expertise and experience in determining the criteria and expectations within its disciplinary or interdisciplinary field and applying them in the evaluation of its probationary faculty;

2) there is great congruity between these AAUP statements and the FH’s “evaluation of faculty” policies and procedures regarding the levels of review and the limits placed on reviews above those of the home unit; and 3) that this specific AAUP statement reasserts the primacy of the initial home unit review, the limited focus of later reviews (in this case, appeal reviews, but it is the task force’s assertion that this also applies both implicitly and explicitly in the FH to the UBPT review), and the right of appeal. In essence, the AAUP statement is clear that procedural violations include the setting aside FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 8 of review recommendations held in home units on non-procedural grounds. The FH is in fundamental agreement with the AAUP on this point.

Comment 2.2: The FH is ambiguous in one part only (V, p. 3), noted above, regarding UBPT review criteria. However, seen in light of its own and the AAUP statements regarding shifting academic priorities and financial exigency, the UBPT may act to “consider… any unusual implications the decision may have at the college/school or university level.” Again, both the FH and the AAUP statement assign primary rights and responsibilities for review criteria and evaluation to the home unit, and the AAUP considers any deviation from this process a possible violation of “inadequate consideration” and subject to “appeal.”

Comment 2.3: The task force is very concerned about the inadequacies of the current College of LAS’s “College Promotion and Tenure Procedures” (LAS P&T) document.

There are serious gaps throughout the document, as well as loosely organized procedures. The document states, with some lack of clarity and organization, that home units are responsible for developing specific review criteria and procedures, but it does not state how their faculty review reports are to be processed and evaluated by the College Personnel Committee. The task force attempted to acquire information regarding the criteria and procedures used by the College Personnel Committee, but the information that is available is based on “previous practices,” not on any agreed upon document.

There are issues that are of concern, among which are: how are meetings conducted? who chairs the committee? who manages the personnel files and dossiers? who is responsible for managing any written records of the committee? does the committee write its own recommendation to the dean and the UBPT? if not, why not? if such a recommendation is to be forwarded, how will it be assessed by the UBPT (of equal value to the dean’s? of lesser? of greater? why?)

One of the most important recommendations that this task force can make is to urge the development-by the FGC-of a clear and workable LAS P&T document that addresses these and other concerns.

Comment 2.4.0: The task force is also very concerned about recent statements by university officials that the faculty peer-review process is a faculty-driven process.

While this is generally true, it requires certain caveats and raises significant concerns about whether this is strictly true. In the first instance, any level of the faculty peerreview process is susceptible to influence and/or pressure from administrative officers, especially those-like a dean or provost-who chair the review committees. While this may, or may not, have happened in recent cases, the system as currently structured allows opportunities for such subtleties or abuses. This becomes even more problematical when the only written statement of the review committee deliberations is drafted by those administrators, or the representatives of those administrators. The task force recommends that, while an administrative presence may be desirable (and the committee maintains that it is), the role of the administrator should be non-voting and relatively passive, except in cases when there is the potential for unfairness and/or injustice towards a candidate up for review.

Comment 2.4.1: The review committees at both the college and university levels should be responsible for documenting their separate recommendations in writing. These recommendations should be part of the review process at all levels. This should be true in all cases, but should be particularly true whenever college and university recommendations differ from those of the home units. Looked at another way, since FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 9

“[t]he determination that an individual meets these criteria is made primarily on the basis of guidelines promulgated by the candidate’s department” and “[t]hese guidelines are to be informed by criteria specific to that unit’s professional discipline, field or interdisciplinary area,” the FH requires that these home units conduct intensive internal peer reviews and report their findings through formal reports. The FH stipulates that “[o]nly in cases where lower level decisions are judged to be deficient in significant respects shall upper level units make their own application of the substantive criteria of the candidate’s scholarly or artistic area” (all three quoted passages from FH, V, p.3).

The task force believes that these upper-level review committees (at the college and university levels) should be required to submit formal reports which indicate the bases for agreement or disagreement with the recommendations of the home unit(s). These reports will also provide the foundation for any rebuttal on the part of the candidate, the home unit, or mid-level review committee (when appropriate).

Comment 2.4.2: In the second instance, the claim that “the faculty peer-review process is a faculty-driven process” while generally true, is not strictly true in recent cases. In the case of Dr. Finkelstein, faculty peer reviews at the home unit and college levels were set aside by the UBPT, without any clear statement outlining the lower-level unit’s “deficiency in significant respects” of the application of agreed-upon criteria and standards. That is, the recommendations of two levels of faculty peer-review were reversed by a third level, without clear and justified cause.

In the cases of Dr. Larudee and four applicants for promotion to the rank of full professor, in addition to the overwhelming support of faculty peer reviews at both the home unit and college levels, the dean of the college also submitted strong letters of support. These faculty (and administrative) recommendations were also set aside by the UBPT. Therefore, the taskforce asserts that the more appropriate claim is that one level (unfortunately, the upper level) of the faculty peer-review process overruled two levels of the faculty peer-review process (in some cases, two levels of unanimous faculty peer-review recommendations), without demonstrating why the lower level reviews were in any way insufficient. Indeed, even more significantly, one or two faculty members on the UBPT overruled two levels of the faculty peer-review process.

3) Role of the administration, generally, in the review process. Roles of the Dean, Provost, and President.

Background: Throughout the tenure and promotion process, administrators are involved in convening personnel committee meetings, making recommendations, and reaching “final” decisions. This raises issues regarding the authority of administrative officers and whether there is any inconsistency between that authority and the principles of shared governance. In the six LAS cases under review here, only one involved a negative recommendation by the dean. All six involved negative recommendations (or reports) at the level of the provost and “decisions” at the level of the president.

Role of the administration, generally, in the review process

DePaul, as with other universities, places those with faculty status into administrative positions throughout the academic hierarchy.

 FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 10 The process of peer review involves these faculty-administrators at every stage. At the college or school level (the “second stage of the review”), the FH recognizes, among others, the responsibility of the dean to submit a recommendation on tenure and promotion to the UBPT. At the university level (the “third stage of the review”), the FH acknowledges the responsibility of the provost or EVP-AA to make “a recommendation to the president based on the university board’s decision.” Finally, the president makes the “final decisions” (FH, V, pp.13-14). These will be considered more fully below, with the complete relevant passages from the handbook.

Role of the Dean

According to the FH, the dean is to monitor the schedule for promotion and tenure and submit a recommendation to the next level of the review. However, the FH also allows for the creation of a college personnel or review committee: The academic dean of the respective college or school conducts the second stage of the review. In this process, a college or school personnel committee may advise the dean. The dean has the responsibility for submitting a comprehensive review of each candidate. When the dean’s decision differs from that of the tenured faculty, college or school personnel committee (where one exists) or departmental recommendation, the dean shall inform all involved parties of his or her decision and the underlying reasons.

The dean’s formal recommendation to the University Board on Faculty Promotion and Tenure shall also explicitly cite the reasons that comprise his or her recommendation. Regardless of whether they are in accord, the dean and the college or school personnel committee may submit separate recommendations, if desired. The dean’s recommendation, the recommendation and numerical vote of the personnel committee, along with the candidate’s supporting material are to be submitted to the executive vice president for academic affairs on or before the appropriate date as specified for a specific college or school…(FH, V, p.13).

The college’s P&T document mentions the existence of the College Personnel Committee (CPC) in the “calendar” (1.2-1.4) and “procedures” (4.1) sections. The document has only one significant procedural comment, that the “College Personnel Committee will meet to consider these requests [for promotion and tenure] and to make recommendations to the dean” (1.3, p.1). There is nothing in the document which explains the nature of the deliberations (e.g., who chairs the meeting, whether minutes will be kept, etc.), whether there is to be a separate CPC report (along with a vote), nor whether the CPC can or should send a rebuttal in the event of a disagreement between the dean and the CPC. The task force requested a copy of any other governing document, but was told that none exists.

Comment 3.1: The task force recognizes the importance of including our administrative colleagues in the faculty review process. But, the task force also recognizes that thecurrent LAS P&T document does not adequately or explicitly state the role of the dean in the LAS CPC review process, nor does it state the relationship and responsibilities of the dean and the CPC when they differ. This creates a significant gap in policy and procedure that threatens the assumptions of shared governance. While the FH and the P&T document allow for faculty input at the second level, the CPC’s recommendation is FGC Task Force on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance 11 communicated, by way of the dean, only as a summary of discussions and the final vote for or against promotion and/or tenure. The task force recommends that the CPC develop procedural guidelines that include a separate written committee report, as well as a rebuttal, if deemed necessary by the CPC.

 Role of the Provost

The role of the provost/EVP-AA is also somewhat vague. The FH states that:

The third stage of the review is by the University Board on Faculty Promotion and Tenure, which meets during the spring quarter. The executive vice president for academic affairs makes a recommendation to the president based on the university board’s decision (FH, V, p.13).

Comment 3.2: Again, there is a serious policy and procedure gap, similar to the one above (3.1). There is no explanation whatsoever of the function of the prov