Sure you've heard of Verso; every political scientist has at least one Vesro book on his or her shelves. It published Imagined Communities.

It's a self-proclaimed "radical publisher." It's a pretty major presence on the intellectual left-- publishes Benedict Anderson, Perry Anderson, a good political theory series under the "Real Utopias" project, Richard Falk, Tarik Ali, Zizek, etc. I think some of its authors are ridiculous scholars/ intellectuals, but many of them are serious folks.

The press publishes a lot of serious scholarship that's slightly public-intellectual in character, and then some public-intellectual books on current events from a far-left perspective. I can't tell from Finkestein's book titles whether they're works of scholarship or pieces of commentary on the contemporary Middle East, but if they're works of scholarship then Verso's an entirely legitmate press for them.

(Not a comment on any other part of the case, just an observation about Verso.)

The man who accuses Mearsheimer and Walt of "piss poor social science" wants to give Norman Finkelstein tenure? Interesting. . .

Maybe it's just because he's been so lucky as to be highly informed about unfair and unreasonable denials of tenure. Maybe it's because he's a remarkably evidence-driven non-ideological-in-the-invidious-sense scholar. But anyway, among the many discussions of the Finkelstein case that obviously start from "I agree with or dissent from Finkelstein's conclusions" and work backwards, Drezner's is notable in starting from the questions "what should determine a proper tenure decision?" and "what determined this one?" and then going to provide answers steeped in a dispassionate reading of the evidence.

Drezner: I've never read any of Finkelstein's work.

Cheered: Drezner's is notable in starting from the questions "what should determine a proper tenure decision?" and "what determined this one?" and then going to provide answers steeped in a dispassionate reading of the evidence.

Shouldn't a "dispassionate reading of the evidence" include, uh, reading the primary piece of evidence--Finkelstein's actual work? How can Drezner conclude that Finkelstein got a "raw deal" without ever having read anything the man's ever written? There are reasons that universities don't entrust tenure decisions to departments alone.

Wow--
I'm puzzled. I take your point that the books on which a tenure decision is based should be read by those who make the decision, and ideally, by those who comment on the decision and comments on the decision.

But that shouldn't stop me from noting that the president, the outside-the-department decision-maker, says his decision was not based on reading Finkelstein's book nor on an assessment of the substance of Finkelstein's scholarly accomplishments. Rather, it was based on a judgment that Finkelstein had written to be "deliberately hurtful" and provocative for inflammatory effect. (Though the finding of deliberate hurtfulness is ascribed to others.)Further, the president feared that Finkelstein's hurting and flaming might adversely affect the reputation of the University.

Leaving aside DePaul's tender reputation, this seems to go to motives, to turn on Finkelstein's intending to hurt and seeking to inflame. Aren't departmental colleagues best situated to ascribe such motives? And more to the point, should tenure decisions at any level be based on such considerations? The statement Drezner quotes from the AAUP gives reasons to think not, reasons not refuted above.

Suppose Finkelstein did intend to hurt and seek to inflame. So what? I daresay that even a Harvard law professor or two may have done likewise--in a good cause, of course.

Just wanted to concur that the collegiality clause is subject to abuse. We can measure teaching (sort of), publications (sort of), so collegiality becomes an out that folks can take to get rid of people who have done what is necessary to earn tenure.
The big red flag on this case (and I don't know the guy or his work) is that the folks most likely to be impacted by his style would be the department, who happened to give a 9-3 vote.

Still, Depaul may be one of those places where a 9-3 vote is a shocking outcome that always leads to rejection at the higher levels. Places do vary in how much consensus is required.

I don't think "deliberately hurtful" is the key phrase. Rather, I'd focus on this sentence: "the [UBPT] expressed several concerns touching upon his scholarship, specifically what they consider the intellectual character of his work and his persona as a public intellectual."

Finkelstein is a polemicist. He has taken positions on the Holocaust that many find difficult to defend on intellectual grounds (reflected in his original intent--subsequently withdrawn--to attend the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran a while back).

One can write all the books in the world, but it doesn't entitle him to tenure if they lack intellectual merit.

On the departmental vote, as the previous poster suggests, a 9-3 vote would actually raise flags at many places. If 25% of my department opposes my tenure in a few years, I will likely not get tenure.

In respect to Drezner's comment that he has never heard of the publishers of Finkelstein's books, in addition to Jacob Levy's first comment, i will just add that Finkelstein's latest book was published by California University Press (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10505.html). Despite how much it sounds like Drezner wants to dislike Finkelstein, this is a peer reviewed press and also one of the better ones for works on the Middle East region. Verso is sometimes questionable, but University of California is not. Also, Drezner is flatly wrong to say that he has never published a peer reviewed article. The most obvious counterexample to this is that he has the lead article in the current issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies (the journal is also published by University of California Press) about how unfair Dennis Ross was to the Palestinians in his work as advocate (oops, i mean negotiator) for the government of Israel (oops, i mean USA. Maybe he should have been fair and then i would not make those mistakes). I don't know whether he has been published in journals other then this article, but it is a respected journal (though, if it is his only peer reviewed article ever, i agree that's not good). Anyway, point being, Drezner is factually wrong on those points. I assume he knows the California University system has a publisher.

Anyway, that aside, being the resident Palestinian who comments on this blog, I am pretty familiar with the controversy around this case. Having been aware of Finkelstein's work for some time now, I do want to say that I find him to be an excellent speaker but a pretty uninteresting writer. having seen him give several lectures in the past, i think that i would very much like to be in his classroom on a daily basis. not only because i agree with his views, but because he is engaging and in those conditions i think a very very large amount would be learned about the Middle East, and especially if there were informed students who oppose his views in the class. Being that DePaul is not exactly a university where the most ground breaking research is being done, it would seem to me that his classroom presentation would probably be strong and a likely reason for the 9 votes in his favor by his department.

That said, as i said, i have never been impressed with his writing. I find it dense and overly concerned with minutia. I could see that as a potential reason for his being denied tenure IF that was cited as a reason. That it was not, and that his academic record was not challenged as much as his attitude to his critics was, his being denied smells pretty bad to me.

It reminds me very much of the witch hunt that was done against Joseph Mossad at Columbia University over his strong objection to Israel's record of violence, destruction and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. It does indeed seem to me that there is a lot less room for those who challenge Israel then there is for those who support it.

having said this, i wonder what Drezner thinks was the reason for DePaul using the "deliberately hurtful" standard to judge Finkelstein rather then a normal academic standard? I personally have never heard of another scholar being denied on this basis, and it also seems to me that there is no other field that causes so much passion to be raised then does debating the Israel/Palestine conflict. In my estimation scientists are often "deliberately hurtful" against theories of "intelligent design" or the like, yet this would never be a reason to deny them tenure, and especially if that didn't cause problems with students. But since there simply are two very strong and divergent narratives in the palestine/israel debate, and since it is ongoing and extremely passionate conflict, and since the Palestine side is at an extreme disadvantage in terms of its political clout, i can't help but think that the likes of Dershowitz and other prominent and powerful people influenced the decision. Had the decision been taken by his department, that would be another story and i would be likely to believe that his immediate peers just didn't consider his work good enough. but considering that there was such a fuss by dershowitz and his like (including the former IDF soldier and current congressman who represents the district that Depaul is in, Rahm Emanuel), I assume the university got scared about its funding and exposure to criticism and denied Finkelstein tenure on unfair grounds.

Joe M. - yes, well put. Two minor points of disagreement:

1) Yes, Verso sometimes does publish things which are not hte best or highest quality. But then again, so do most presses - for instance, Hardt and Negri's 'Empire' (Harvard UP), one of the worst academic books I have ever read, down there with Anne Norton's 'Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire' (Yale UP). I can't say, btw, that I have read anything from U of California Press that approached the depths of those two books.

2) The fact that Finklestein does not write well is really neither here nor there. If that were grounds for tenure, most economics departments would be pretty bare. (Have you read Robert Barro's work? Ugh. I have tried repeatedly to read Joseph Stiglitz 'Globalization and its Discontents' only to flounder every time.) The fact remains that he can conduct original research and string together an original argument, which is why he keeps getting published.

It's a sad commentary on American IPE that Drezner -- whose work is all about conflicts of material interests -- hasn't even heard of Verso. Even if he finds nothing of value in contemporary Marxism, he should at least be familiar with what it's about and who's publishing it. For example, Verso published Benno Teschke's award-winning "Myth of 1648," parts of which appeared in the top-tier peer-reviewed journals "International Organization" and "European Journal of International Relations."

One more thing: Finkelstein's charge that Dershowitz is guilty of plagiarism isn't "deliberately hurtful" if it's true. Which it is.