< HOME  Thursday, April 30, 2009

Deja Vu: The Lobby Takes Aim at Another University Professor



It's another Israel Lobby hit-job, just like the one that resulted in Norman Finkelstein being denied tenure at De Paul University, Chicago. This time it's William I. Robinson of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who like Finkelstein is a Jewish academic, and who, also like Finkelstein, has the overwhelming support of his students against the debate-stifling, free speech-suppressing tactics of the Zionist Lobby.

Leading the campaign against Robinson is the notorious ADL of B'nai B'rith and the Simon Weisenthal Center, who were alerted of Robinson's alleged "anti-Semitism" by two Jewish students attending one of his classes.

Two Jewish students dropped the class, saying they felt intimidated by the professor's message. They contacted the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which advised them to file formal complaints with the university.

In their letters, senior Rebecca Joseph and junior Tova Hausman accused Robinson of violating the campus' faculty code of conduct by disseminating personal, political material unrelated to his course.

"I was shocked," said Joseph, 22. "He overstepped his boundaries as a professor. He has his own freedom of speech, but he doesn't have the freedom to send his students his own opinion that is so strong."


Does that even make sense? Presumably, free speech is ok by Joseph as long as your opinions aren't too 'strong'. The message that poor little Rebecca is referring to is an email that Professor Robinson forwarded to his sociology students containing information, images and commentary regarding the recent Gaza massacre. What the Terror State did to Gaza is definitely "shocking", but check out the content of the original email and see how "intimidated" you feel. Even the slavishly pro-Israel Zionists at The New Republic are sick of all the fuss, exclaiming "Enough With the Campus Inquisitions!"

An Interview with William Robinson
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor

By DOUG HENWOOD

Doug Henwood: We're now joined by William Robinson, who is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California in Santa Barbara, someone I met about six or seven years ago at a conference and, although I've disagreed with him on some issues, I though he's a serious and thoughtful guy. I was very distressed to learn, reading Insider Higher Ed, the website, today that he's being persecuted by the Zionist lobby for an e-mail that he sent around to some of his students. Welcome William Robinson, tell us the story of what you sent and what's been happening.

William Robinson: Yes, good afternoon to everyone. I included some material which was highly critical of the Israeli invasion of Gaza as part of the reading material for a course on globalization and global affairs, and this was in January. And I am now facing charges, here at the university, of anti-semitism and violating the faculty code of conduct because two students in the course - there were eighty students - these two submitted a formal letter of complaint that they found offensive the material condemning the invasion of Gaza. The students immediately withdrew from the course, I don't even know them personally. And what is particularly egregious about this case is not that the students submitted a complaint - any student is allowed to do that - but rather that the university took the complaint seriously and is actually prosecuting me...

DH: You have tenure right?

WR: Yes, I am tenured, I am a full time professor...

DH: So in theory you're protected against persecution for your beliefs.

WR: No, in theory, I have total, I and even if I don't have tenure, have academic freedom, and this is in total violation of my academic freedom and of all of the principles of academic freedom, and of the university's own charter on academic freedom, and the American Association of University Professors principles and procedures on academic freedom, so there is absolutely no basis for any of this. What's going on, and I want to explain, behind the scenes we have been able to find out - students on campus and faculty have formed a Committee to Defend Academic Freedom which is taking up this issue, and by the way, there is a blog that they put up with all of this information, which at some point I would like to give your listeners - but we have found out that the Anti-Defamation League, which, as you know, and your listeners probably know, is an organization which, at one time, did very good and very important work in denouncing anti-Semitism, but since then has become a, basically, a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, a defender of the policies and practices of the Israeli state, and goes after and attacks anyone that criticizes those policies. So these students did not even accuse me of doing anything which we would consider anti-Semitism - discrimination against Jews, against the Jewish religion and so forth - they said openly and outright that the professor introduces material which criticized the state of Israel and that equals anti-semitism.

DH: Now, I think some people found offensive that you had likened Israeli behavior to the Nazis. Is that an issue?

WR: Well I didn't do that. What I did was I forwarded several items from the world media, from the internet media. One item was an article written by a Jewish journalist in a Jewish newspaper here in the United States, and it was criticizing the invasion of Gaza...

DH: So you didn't endorse this position?

WR: I didn't endorse it but I did include, I said, in presenting this material, I said that Gaza is Israel's Warsaw and I explained the context. That's because in Warsaw the Nazi's surrounded Warsaw, concentrated Jews in Warsaw, wouldn't let anyone in, wouldn't let anyone out, wouldn't let supplies in, wouldn't let supplies out; as a result there was famine and disease and so forth...

DH: Which is exactly what's...

WR: ...exactly and precisely what the Israeli's are doing in Gaza. And that's been denounced by the Red Cross, the United Nations, the international human rights organizations, and moreover, academic freedom totally allows me to present such controversial material and that's part of what the university is all about. We academically debate these controversial issues. I want to explain though what happened. We got some inside information in the last week. The president of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Fox-...

DH: Foxman

WR: Foxman, he arrived here in Santa Barbara and he called a meeting with a select group of faculty, and he called the meeting for no other reason than to say that we want Professor Robinson prosecuted, and this is explosive. We have just learned about this; we're going to go public with it. And so there is this outside Israel lobby which has come on to campus, and which is accusing me of anti- Semitism and of doing all of these terrible things in order to create an atmosphere of complete intimidation. You know that anyone who criticizes the policies of the state of Israel is silenced, and is given that label of anti-smitism; that's a way of creating this atmosphere of intimidation, that no one can speak out about what's going on in Israel-Palestine, and so forth. That's the larger context.

DH: Ok, I'm sorry to make this so rushed, but this is a last minute addition and the rest of the show is full, just let me conclude...What can people do?

WR: [Go to] sb4af.wordpress.com. That's the blog that the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom has set up, and a lot of this information is on there, a lot of the documents are on there.

DH: All right, well thank you William Robinson and best of luck in your fight and we'll be back to look at this in the future.

WR: Thank-you, thank-you very much.

DH: I've been speaking with William Robinson, who is a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, under persecution by the intellectual police at the Zionist lobby, the Anti-Defamation League.

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6 Comments:

At Thursday, April 30, 2009, Blogger Greg Bacon said...

At one time, Daniel Pipes "Campus Watch" paid students $100 bucks for each tip they gave about some alleged anti-Semitic professor.

When the Senate passes and 'Bama signs that Hate Crimes legislation, we can all be accused of crimes against the Chosenites.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1913/show

The Hate Crimes act was sponsored by John Conyers, He doesn't have any time to investigate Bush or Obama War crimes, but he does for this liberty smashing piece of shit?

I wonder if torture is considered a hate crime? The rest of the co-sponsors reads like a Bar MItzvah guest list.

Here's the portion they'll use to come after "bumper sticker" terrorists and bloggers:

interferes with commercial or other economic activity in which the victim is engaged at the time of the conduct

 
At Thursday, April 30, 2009, Blogger Greg Bacon said...

One of the charges against the professor is "coercion of conscience." WTF is that?

(It is worth noting in this context that this is not an unfounded fear: the Charges Officer has actually added a charge — regarding the “coercion of conscience” — that does not appear in any of the student complaints and so could not have been defended against had the professor responded to the laundry list initially presented in the letters

http://sb4af.wordpress.com/robinson-case/process-problems/raymond-for-replacement/

Won't be long before they start rounding up others who engage in "coercion of conscience."

The ADL witch hunt has UCSB bypassing the rules to go after the professor.

Wonder why? Afraid the truth might come out?

 
At Thursday, April 30, 2009, Blogger Infensus Mentis said...

Here's another American professor who's taken issue with Robinson's approach. He's a neocon who describes himself as someone who loves his country, but "fully supports current U.S. military operations around the world".

You'll see my comment below his blog, followed by (so far) 2 other comments. One is sane, the other not-so-sane:

[quote]Anonymous said...

America should make a law against the questioning of Israel, since there's already an unwritten taboo against all those who dare question Israel.[end quote]

If you've got a spare couple of minutes, get on over there and hassle the ziocon wanker.

 
At Thursday, April 30, 2009, Blogger Infensus Mentis said...

Greg: notice that the Academic Senate’s Charges Committee Officer is Jewish? See here:

Professor Robinson,

Responding to your memo of 3 April, here is a summary of the allegations:

* You, as professor of an academic course, sent to each student enrolled in that course a highly partisan email accompanied by lurid
photographs.

* The email was unexpected and without educational context.

* You offered no explanation of how the material related to the content of the course.

* You offered no avenue to discuss, nor encouraged any response, to the opinions and photographs included in the email.

* You directly told a student who inquired that the email was not connected to the course.

* As a result, two enrolled students were too distraught to continue with the course.

* The constellation of allegations listed above, if substantially true, may violate the Faculty Code of Conduct.

In the (”not exhaustive”) list of examples included with that Faculty Code of Conduct, the most proximate are part II, A. 1. b and A. 4.

On the other matters you raise, while my conversation with the students was confidential, I can tell you that I did not advise them to seek an “apology” from you. And yes, I did offer you an opportunity “if you wish” to provide a written response to the complaint before I met with the Charges Advisory Committee, which is solely vested with the authority to dismiss a complaint as frivolous and unfounded.

-Martin Scharlemann

 
At Thursday, April 30, 2009, Blogger Nepos Libertas said...

If I were a legitimately elected president of the United States, one of the first things I will do is to order the report on the proven subversive organizations operating within the USA.

ADL and AIPAC will be on the shit list. Both should be dismantled and banished with the executives indicted on treason charge.

Neo-Nazi, KKK and other racist organizations do not have the "power," yet ADL and its ilk hold sway over the ordinary, conscientious and patriotic American people with psychological terrorism and character assassination to spread fear and political correct paranoia.

The plague of Zionism and Jewish extremism should be obliterated to restore peace and order.

 
At Friday, May 01, 2009, Blogger Greg Bacon said...

They're taking cues from their idols, the Bolshevik Commies who mounted "show trials" and executed millions for not kissing their Zionist asses.

 

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