[Peace-discuss] Witch-hunt against critics of Israel has been going for nearly 30 years

[C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss]

> NY Times, February 8, 1987
> Professor in Zionism Affair Is Denied Tenure
> By HOWARD FRENCH
> 
> A professor at the State University at Stony Brook, L.I., embroiled in controversy since he told students in 1983 that Zionism is a form of racism, has been denied tenure by the Chancellor of the State University.
> 
> In a two-page decision issued Jan. 30, two days before he resigned as Chancellor, Clifton R. Wharton Jr. rejected Professor Ernest F. Dube's appeal of an August 1985 decision by Stony Brook's president denying tenure.
> 
> Many students and faculty members have criticized the decision, saying it violates the principle of academic freedom. Four faculty committees had recommended that Professor Dube be granted tenure, a permanent teaching post at the university. Critics of the decision say that he was not forcing his opinions on his students, but was setting out topics for debate.
> 
> The chairman of the school's history department, Professor Joel Rosenthal, headed an executive committee to review charges that Dr. Dube's course ''Politics of Race'' was anti-Semitic. He said of the ruling, ''It seems we gave in to external influences.'' He called the Chancellor ''chicken'' for ''allowing extramural politics to be involved in a tenure decision.''
> 
> According to faculty members who have seen the decision, Professor Dube was informed that he would not be offered tenure at Stony Brook, but would be allowed to remain in the state university system if another campus offered him a ''continuing position.''
> 
> Mr. Wharton has refused to comment on the matter. But the Stony Brook president, Dr. John H. Marburger 3d, issued a statement praising the decision because it ''acknowledged the responsibility the school has to protect its faculty from inappropriate external influences.''
> 
> Mr. Dube, who has often denied his remarks were inappropriate, refused to comment on the decision. Chancellor Wharton's decision not to grant tenure to the South African-born professor, who has taught in the school's Africana Studies department since 1977, overruled the recommendations of four separate committees that have considered the case since 1985.
> 
> The president of the Graduate Student Organization at Stony Brook, Chris Vestudo, called the denial of tenure for Professor Dube ''outrageous,'' and said student leaders are ''prepared to stand behind the professor in whatever he decides to do, including whatever protests might be necessary.''
> 
> The controversy began in mid-1983, when a visiting Israeli professor complained in a letter to the administration that the linking of Zionism to racism in the class was ''sloganeering that is practiced by the anti-Semite.''
> 
> A university senate investigation in August 1983 concluded that Professor Dube's course had not overstepped the bounds of academic freedom, unfurling a wave of criticism from Jewish groups in the area. Governor Cuomo condemned the teachings on Zionism as ''intellectually dishonest.''
> 
> Joseph Topek, president of the Stony Brook chapter of Hillel, a national group of Jewish campus organizations, said he objected to Professor Dube's characterization of Zionism as ''one of the three forms of racism, along with Nazism and apartheid.'' But he said the Jewish community on campus ''did not want to see this matter politicized.''
> 
> The director of the Long Island chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, Carin Katz, said that the organization's role in the decision was ''to expose the anti-Semitism'' and ''whatever action taken by the university was their own.''
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