Year: 2009

If there are persons who will contest a received opinion or who will do so if the law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we had any regard for the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves.

This quote is from John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. Right-wing goons are after Bill Robinson, one of my mentors at the University of Tennessee, now teaching at the University of California-Santa Barbara. His sin? He criticized Israel’s brutality against Palestinians in Gaza. Two students accused him of anti-Semitism, which they said, following the State Department, is defined as the demonization of Israel and the vilification of its leaders. The State Department claims there is a distinction between criticisms of Israeli policies and behavior, on the one hand, and “commentary that assumes an anti-Semitic character,” on the other hand. Then the State Department erases the distinction between them by writing,

The demonization of Israel, or vilification of Israeli leaders, sometimes through comparisons with Nazi leaders, and through the use of Nazi symbols to caricature them, indicates an anti-Semitic bias rather than a valid criticism of policy concerning a controversial issue.

Is the demonization of Iran anti-Muslim? Iran is an Islamic state. Is using Nazi symbols and metaphors to caricature Iran and its leaders anti-Islamic? It is commonplace to compare Iranian leaders to Nazis. Are we to avoid vilifying Ahmadinejad because this is anti-Muslim or anti-Persian? Is the demonization of Iraq and Saddam Hussein anti-Arab? Saddam Hussein was constantly compared to Hitler. Was this anti-Muslim, since Saddam was a Muslim? What sort of anti is it to compare Bush to Hitler?

Obviously, it’s patently absurd to claim that demonization of Israel or vilification of its leaders is antisemitic or anti-Jewish. The State Department’s definition is designed to intimidate defenders of human rights into making an exception when it comes to Israel. But Israel cannot escape criticism by proclaiming its Jewish character anymore than Iran can escape criticism—even demonization and vilification—because of its Islamic character.

Israel, as is the United States, Saudi Arabia, or any other country, is a nation state. As such, criticism of it cannot constitute a form of racism. Just because many of Israel’s representatives characterize the country as a Jewish state does not transform criticism of Israel into anti-Jewish speech. Racism is a policy of systematic discrimination against and/or a system of structural inequality affecting a racially defined group. Antisemitism is prejudice against Jews. It is typically defined as antipathy or hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as an ethnic or racial group. Jews in Israel are not an oppressed ethnic or racial group in Palestine, therefore criticism of them cannot be racist anymore than criticism of the white minority of South African under Apartheid can be racist.

Now, if Bill Robinson had said that Jews are racially inferior (or superior), or inherently evil, or should be exterminated or segregated, then he would be guilty of antisemitism. But Bill, who happens to be Jewish, hasn’t said anything like this. I know Bill. He doesn’t believe such things.

It’s a curious thing when Jews call other Jews antisemites for criticizing Israel. Another term often used to malign Jews critical of Israel is “self-hating Jew,” a classic psychological ad hominem. However, the authority to determine what antisemitism is does not lie with those Jews who accuse other Jews of it.

In this context, the attack against Robinson is for allegedly being anti-Israel. There is nothing ethically problematic about being anti-US, anti-Russia, anti-France, and so forth. So why is this an issue? Because the university that employs Robinson is moving to charge Robinson with misconduct. Here is Robinson’s web site: http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson/. Here is an article about the controversy: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/23/ucsb, Here is the petition to sign to support Robinson against the witchhunt: http://sb4af.wordpress.com/.

I just read Nicholas Goldberg’s Los Angeles Times piece from yesterday. He cites Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, who argues that, “if a person repeatedly singles out Israel for attack without subjecting other countries to similar scrutiny, that’s questionable.” Can you imagine the defense in a murder case arguing, “Yes, well, the crime allegedly committed by my client was indeed heinous, but have you taken a look at all these other heinous crimes my client didn’t perpetrate? Your Honor, the prosecutor is biased against my client because he has failed to even mention these other cases!” What other point can there be to this argument than to distract the jury with irrelevancies?

The argument is furthermore drenched in hypocrisy. For years, Goldhagen was singularly driven to expose an alleged anti-Semitism inherent in German national culture. Every German was a “willing executioner.” Did Goldhagen “balance” this obsession with numerous random atrocities and injustices perpetrated by other state actors? Was there ever any expectation that he should? The thought never occurred to me. Suppose I specialize in the history of apartheid in South Africa. Am I supposed to discuss unjust arrangements in other countries to avoid being accused of bias? (If so, I should probably avoid mentioning the situation of one of South Africa’s closest allies during the height of the apartheid system.)

Goldhagen makes an equally ridiculous argument when he claims that opposition to Zionism suggests anti-Semitism. Am I really now compelled to be a Zionist lest I be an anti-Semite? Am I not free to refuse to consent to or participate in some ethnic group’s nationalist project? What if I am ethically opposed to embracing the assignment of an ethnic or religious character to any state because I subscribe to a secular and pluralistic conception of the nation-state (which I do)? This is a serious matter. If anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism is grounds for investigation of and possible disciplinary action against me, then I could be punished for failing to support what I regard as an injustice—let’s say a movement to establish an ethnically German state. Should I publicly announce my allegiance to Zionism to avoid persecution, or at least suspicion? The absurdity of these arguments exposes their purely ideological character. Goldhagen, Dershowitz, Foxman and their ilk simply do not get what a free and open democratic society is supposed to be. They are authoritarian minds are at work.

Nicholas Goldberg, writing in the Los Angeles Times has decided to tackle the question: “What is anti-semitism?” I want to go through the key parts of the essay and provide commentary.

Goldberg begins by noting that “today, determining what is or is not anti-Semitism is generally a more nuanced business, at least in the West.” Part of this ambiguity stems from the term’s ideological value by those who smear others with the label. For me, the definition of anti-semitism is still clear, namely, anti-semitism is prejudice towards or discrimination of persons on the basis of perceived or real Jewishness.

Goldberg poses several questions to illustrate what he sees as nuanced character of the term. He asks, “Is it anti-Semitic or merely factual to say that Hollywood is controlled largely by Jews?” We might answer this with an analogy: Is it anti-Christian to say that a given institution is controlled by Christians or by white Europeans? Sounds like an empirical question. If Hollywood is indeed controlled by Jews, then observing this fact can’t possibly be anti-semitic anymore than noting Christian or white European control over a given institution is anti-Christian or anti-white European. Goldberg himself notes that “[m]ost of the big studio chiefs are Jewish.” Is this anti-Semitic?

According to Goldberg, some have noted “that many of the neoconservatives who helped devise the war’s intellectual rationale were Jewish—and possibly harbored a dual loyalty to Israel?” It is true that many of the policymakers behind the Iraq war were Jewish. More importantly, it isn’t merely a possibility that they harbored a dual loyalty to Israel. As I have shown in my work on the Iraq War, many of them worked for the right-wing Likud Party of Israel and openly formed policy they perceived to advantage Israel (see Christian Neo-Fundamentalism and US Foreign Policy). Some of them have been found guilty of improperly transmitting classified information to Israel. There’s nothing ambiguous about that.

Goldberg continues wondering along these lines by asking if it is anti-Semitism to “point to the existence of a powerful ‘Israel lobby’ that wields substantial influence on Capitol Hill?” Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer have been accused of anti-semitism for writing about the Israeli lobby. Is there a powerful Israel lobby that wields substantial influence on Capitol Hill? Is there is, saying so is not anti-semitic. This lobby is also wielding substantial influence in higher education. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Goldberg writes that, for some, “comparing Israelis to Nazis is, in the final analysis, anti-Semitic because it is so demonstrably untrue and so patently disingenuous.”

Even Israel’s fiercest critics, they argue, ought to concede that the country’s actions have been taken in its own defense—even if one believes that defense was misguided or disproportionately violent or even criminal. Further, they say that the number of Palestinian deaths during the 60-year conflict can’t begin to compare to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. To suggest a moral equivalency is anti-Semitic because it’s so absurd.

Israel’s fiercest critics should not concede that Israel’s actions against Palestinians are taken, at least no solely, in the defense of Israel. Many of Israel’s claims to be defending itself amount to an Orwellian redefinition of what Israel is actually doing: occupying and annexing land that is not theirs, ghettoizing Arabs, pushing the indigenous residents off the land, confiscating their property, and killing and making refugees of them. Pro-Israeli historian Benny Morris simultaneously admits and rationalizes these actions:

The great American democracy could not have been achieved without the extermination of the Indians. There are cases in which the general and final good justifies difficult and cruel deeds that are carried out in the course of history.

Is this anti-Semitic? Morris even uses the term “exterminate.” What is the character of his analogy? While Goldberg understands Robinson’s argument that deeply held beliefs are there to be challenged in order to develop skills in critical thinking, he feels the need to point out that it’s the way Robinson said it that brought him trouble. “There are acceptable ways to criticize Israel, while others cross the line into anti-Semitism, says Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Oh boy. Here we go.

For instance, if a person repeatedly singles out Israel for attack without subjecting other countries to similar scrutiny, that’s questionable, Goldhagen says. Or if he opposes Zionism – and therefore, Israel’s right to exist as an explicitly Jewish state – altogether.

For years, Goldhagen specialized in the argument that ordinary, everyday Germans made the Holocaust possible because anti-semitism was fundamental to the German national character. Goldhagen was driven. He was on a mission. For years, I defended Goldhagen’s thesis. Does that make Goldhagen anti-German? What about me? No, I’m anti-Nazi. Does that make me anti-German? If a person specializes in studying the injustices perpetrated by a group, why should she make room to arbitrarily denounce another group? Does this not often carry a ulterior motive: to suggest to an audience that what the first group is doing isn’t as bad as you think because other groups do the same or similar things? I can’t count how many times in discussing how bad Hitler and the Nazis were, people respond with, “Yeah, well, Stalin was worse.” I’m forced to make two responses to this: First, “Stalin wasn’t worse.” Sorry, but he wasn’t. He was bad. But he wasn’t worse. Second, “Stalin is irrelevant; we’re talking about Hitler.”

How is opposition to Zionism is anti-semitic? Suppose as a matter of principle that I don’t believe any state should have an ethnic character? Suppose I don’t believe there should be a Jewish state for the same reason that I don’t believe there should be a Christian state or a white racial state. Does this make me anti-Christian or anti-white? Zionism is an ideology shared by some Jews and non-Jews that a Jewish state should exist. I can’t be coerced or shamed into sharing that belief from fear of being labeled an anti-semite. Don’t force me to be a Zionist.

Anarchists believe no states should exist. Is anarchism by definition anti-semitic? 

“Another way to cross the line,” Goldberg writes, “is to compare Israelis to Nazis.” He quotes Dershowitz, who writes, “Any comparison between Israeli efforts to defend its citizens from terrorism on the one hand, and the Nazi Holocaust on the other hand, is obscene and ignorant.” He quotes Foxman who says, “The moment you compare the Jews to those who consciously and systematically determined to wipe them off the face of the Earth—that’s anti-Semitism.”

Note how Dershowitz frames Israel policy for us. It would seem to be problematic to compare efforts to defend one’s citizens from terrorism to fascist atrocities, but then we would need to first accept as true the assumption that Israel is acting to defend its citizens. If Israel is in fact acting to occupy and annex Palestine for the creation of a larger Jewish state, and in the process was ghettoizing, killing and making refugees of Arabs, then the comparison isn’t so problematic anymore, is it? This disposes of Foxman’s point, as well.

Goldberg writes that Robinson “says he tells his students that there can be no double standard when it comes to human rights, and that the targeting of one Iranian or Palestinian or Jew or Rwandan is equally condemnable.” To the ridiculous demand that he mediate his criticism of an injustice by an actor under discussion by identifying other injustices by other actors, he responds: “it’s unreasonable to suggest that each time I critique one state for a human rights violation that I must also, in the name of balance, run off a litany of all the other human rights violations in the world.”

Worse, as I have already noted, it’s often an attempt to diminish the significance of what the state actor in question is doing by diluting it with discussion of other injustices. It’s an attempt to distract the observer with irrelevancies. Can you imagine the defense in a murder case arguing, “Yes, well, the crime allegedly committed by my client was indeed heinous, but have you taken a look at all these other heinous crimes my client didn’t perpetrate?” What other point can there be in this other than to distract the jury with irrelevancy?

The LA Times asks Robinson where he draws the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not.

It’s fine, he says, to criticize Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe for driving his country to the brink of collapse, but it would be unacceptable to say that he has done so because he is a biologically inferior black African. Similarly, it is acceptable to argue that Israel’s offensive in Gaza was wrong—but it would be anti-Semitic to criticize Israel on the grounds that Jews are dirty, greedy or sinister.

“What does Robinson say to the idea that comparing Israelis to Nazis is simply out of bounds?”

First, he defends the comparison of Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto. He says that, like the ghetto, Gaza is sealed off. As in the ghetto, the delivery of food and medical supplies is controlled by the hostile power outside, so that poverty and malnutrition are building. As in the ghetto, he says, rebellions are put down with disproportionate force. According to Robinson, it may not be an exact comparison, but it’s hardly ridiculous. Moreover, Robinson insists that such analogies are essential to understanding history. Would it be wrong, he asked, to compare the apartheid regime in South Africa to the Jim Crow laws in the American South, even if the situations were not identical? As for whether it’s OK to compare contemporary figures to the Nazis, he notes that President George H.W. Bush once likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has compared Iran to Nazi Germany.

The LA Times tries to steal the thunder of these points by noting that “those are not cases where victims are compared to their persecutors.” Robinson gives this response:

comparing victims to their persecutors shouldn’t be off-limits. In fact, that’s the very irony that makes the analogy so important. “I’m saying that the people who suffered the most nightmarish crime of the 20th century are now using tactics and practices that are eerily similar to what was done to them,” he says. But he acknowledges that the analogy has its limits: “Extermination,” he says. “Obviously that’s the key difference.”

Not according to Benny Morris! At any rate, can you imagine a situation where we could not ask black South Africans why they were setting up an apartheid system that oppressed white South Africans merely because the black South Africans were the historic victims of the white South Africans? Isn’t there something called the “Golden Rule”?

The pro-Israel and Orwellian named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), asks, “Was Professor Robinson’s email an attempt at political indoctrination of his students?” Answer: No. Robinson shared information from the world journalistic community with his global sociology class. This is the method of class.

Question: “Did he invite student discussion and critical evaluation of other information and alternative views?” Answer: Yes, he asks students to discuss and critically evaluate everything in his classes. That’s his teaching method. He covers this the first day and emphasizes it throughout.

Question: “Does Professor Robinson have academic expertise regarding the issues in the email, specifically, the conflict in the Middle East and the life and beliefs of Martin Luther King?” Answer: Definitely. He is an expect on conflicts throughout the world, including in the Middle East, and he is, and anybody who studies the history of social justice, qualified to speak on the life and beliefs of Martin Luther King. If Martin Luther King Jr. would have said the same things about Israel, would SPME would have labeled King an anti-Semite, too.

Question: “Did Professor Robinson’s email meet standards of scholarly competence in that the text was factually accurate?” Answer: The e-mail comprised of interpretations of current events within a historical-comparative sociological framework. Academics are allowed to present sociological interpretations of current and historical events. So, yes, the email met standards of scholarly competence.

Question: “Was Professor Robinson’s email anti-Semitic?” Answer: Of course not. He was criticizing the state of Israel. He neither said nor implied anything prejudicial about or discriminatory towards Jews. As if it were relevant, SPME went on to quote the US Department of State in its Report on Global anti-Semitism and the US Commission on Civil Rights in its Public Education Campaign to End Campus Anti-Semitism: 

An important issue is the distinction between legitimate criticism of policies and practices of the State of Israel, and commentary that assumes an anti-Semitic character. The demonization of Israel, or vilification of Israeli leaders, sometimes through comparisons with Nazi leaders, and through the use of Nazi symbols to caricature them, indicates an anti-Semitic bias rather than a valid criticism of policy concerning a controversial issue.

Unfortunately for SPME, neither the State Department nor the US Commission of Civil Rights owns the definition of antisemitism, which is here rationalized specifically to level the charge of antisemitism against critics of Israel.

Writing in Town Hall today, David Limbaugh made an error. He said, “People will produce more when they are allowed to retain more of the fruits of their labor.”

This is obviously wrong. Under capitalism, 9/10s of labor has been denied substantial control over productive property by state and laws permitting minority monopolization of material and intellectual means of production. If it is true that people will produce more when they are allowed to keep more of the fruits of their labor, and, conversely, people will produce less if they are allowed to keep less of the fruits of their labor, then one would expect productivity to have declined sharply with the expansion of capitalism.

This did not happen. It did not happen with slavery either. Slaves were not less productive because they weren’t allowed to keep the fruits of their labor. Nor was it true that serfs were less productive because they weren’t allowed to keep the fruits of the labor. This is because any system that permits a minority to monopolize the means of production and thus compels the majority to either be owned by the minority or by necessity rent themselves to the minority makes productivity a requirement of the relationship.

If it were true that keeping the fruits of one’s labor maximizes productivity, then communism, wherein everybody owns and controls the means of production, and distributes goods and services based on need and self-actualization, would be the most productive system possible.

The problem is that communism distributes the fruits of labor equitably and eliminates all but necessary work and thus people work less because their needs are met more easily and more completely. In others words, all people work less and enjoy life more.

That’s the capitalist’s worst nightmare.

At the forefront of apologetics for Israel is the US-based group StandWithUs, a thoroughly obnoxious lobby that harasses students and professors critical of Israeli policy and US participation in it. StandWithUs is deeply involved in the persecution of William I. Robinson at University of California-Santa Barbara, and, I understand, one of the students who instigated the affair is an operative for StandWithUs.

Those who support the persecution of Robinson have made arguments to which I want to respond. Exploding these exposes the real agenda here. The international president of StandWithUs, Esther Renzer, says, “This case is a litmus test of whether professors can exploit their positions of authority to impose their political prejudices on students or whether the university truly will remain a place where all points of view can be comfortably and responsibly discussed.”

First, all students imposed views on students in the sense that failure to answer a question declared true in relation to a point of view results in negative outcome. These are often political charged truths. Suppose a students decides to skip all questions pertaining to natural selection on a biology test because she is a creationist. Should she be allowed to pass on those questions without consequence because of here theological beliefs? Is she being punished because of her point of view? Or do we say that she suspends her belief in the supernatural in order to answer questions the premise of which she rejects just so she can have a positive outcome? Is this not imposing views on students? Damn straight it is. It’s called education. She agrees to this by remaining enrolled in the class.

In social science class, which is no less scientific than the natural and physical sciences, professors nonetheless take great care not to impose their political prejudices on students because they recognize that they are held to a different standard. In any case, Robinson did not connect his email to any possible negative consequences in terms of evaluating the students. When a student asked the question, Robinson reassured her that the e-mail carried on consequences. This has been twisted into a claim that Robinson admitted that the email was irrelevant to class. No, he said the e-mail was for her interests, therefore she did not have to do anything with it, and therefore there was no consequences for dismissing the claims in the e-mail.

Here’s the real world: Professors present political and other positions in class, germane to the subject at hand, that students can either agree or disagree with, or dismiss altogether. Part of a university education, specially learning how to become an informed and engaged citizen, is learning that one routinely confronts political opinions with which one either agrees or disagrees or is indifferent and that one is free to openly disagree with opinions with which they do not agree or ignore them altogether. It’s called life in an open society.

The e-mail over which Robinson’s opinion was sent was open to all participants in the class to use how they saw fit. It was for their interests in the context of a sociology class on global issues. All students had an equal opportunity to debate the merits of the email. Two students chose not to debate the merits, but instead to participate in a campaign to suppress academic freedom, thus harming the interests of the professor and the other students who enrolled in the course. They did not sign up for a class the content of which was constrained by outside forces. They signed up for a sociology class on global issues.

Israel’s invasion of Gaza is a global issue or great interest to the American college student. The comparison of any current state policy to the policies of past oppressive regimes is the bread and butter of historical social science, which rests on a comparative methodology. Second, it is not possible in a sociology class on global matters to comfortably discuss all points of view on account of the obvious fact that certain points of view will inevitably make some persons uncomfortable. There has never been a requirement that only those points of view with which every participant is comfortable may be discussed. If this were a requirement then the university classroom would have no purpose.

Christians who believe in creationism who attend biology classes have to participate in judgments premised on the truth of natural selection, a point of view diametrically at odds with the biblical account of life on our planet. Those who believe a supernatural being compels objects to fall confront in physics class judgments which operate on the theory of gravitation. The demand that we only discuss things with which we are all comfortable forces off the table any discussion the origins and development life or the reasons why objects fall. Yet, even in times where such matters were taken off the table, those who wanted to know but couldn’t were made to feel uncomfortable. Those who knew from other sources but were not allowed to speak up were made to feel uncomfortable. The curious were silenced, misdirected, punished.

Not discussing the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli military forces makes a lot of students who know what’s going on feel uncomfortable. Why is their discomfort any less important than those who defend such oppressive policies? Life is not about always feeling comfortable, especially in intellectual and political endeavors. Pursuing knowledge and justice often requires afflicting the comfortable. Life is about disagreement over things. If disagreements can’t happen in the context of a college classroom, then can we realistically expect them to happen elsewhere.

Roberta P. Seid, StandWithUs education and research director says that Robinson’s e-mail was anti-Semitic because it “demonized Israel, its founding, and its history. The university should be concerned about the degradation of academic standards when professors present such polemics as reasonable analyses.” Demonizing Israel is not anti-Semitic (and the State Department asserting that it does has no bearing on the truth of the matter).

Anti-Semitism is prejudice or especially discrimination against Jews based on their real or perceived Jewishness. Demonizing a nation-state, whatever its alleged ethnic character, does not inherently involve prejudice or discrimination against one ore more ethnic groups living within those borders. Was opposition to apartheid in South Africa demonstration of prejudice against the white ruling class? No, it was opposition to its oppressive public policies that caused the horrible treatment and conditions of the blacks who suffered under its control. Did people demonize the state of South Africa? Yes, for good reason. Seid said, “But that is not the case against him. [So why bring it up?] The case is that he inappropriately used university resources to impose and promote his personal political prejudices, stifling students’ ability to critically examine controversial issues. I’m sure he would be glad that the Code of Conduct safeguards are in place if a homophobic or racist professor took the liberties he took to influence students.” Note how the language is almost identical to that used by Renzer, so the same points I made above apply.

But let us examine the analogy Seid tries to draw about the homophobic or racist professor. Suppose that a biology professor states that she does not believe that homosexuality is genetic, that after a careful review of the evidence, she concludes that homosexuality is a learned behavior. Some students might find this uncomfortable for political reasons, namely, the desire to construct homosexuality as biological in order to legitimate identity. Some would suggest that even saying this is itself homophobic. But why should any of these statements be homophobic? A person can be strongly pro-gay and lesbian, believe that human beings should be free to be homosexual, even believe that the claim of genetic origin stigmatizes homosexuals as having defective genes from the point of view of heteronormativity, but that nonetheless the question it open to exploration—a person can be and believe all this and still argue the position that homosexuality like heterosexuality is learned behavior. If I were a biology professor making this argument should I be persecuted? If I am a professor who exposes the racist policies of any country, including my own, am I to be persecuted for being a racist? I say a lot of uncomfortable things about whiteness. Am I a racist? Should I be persecuted for discussing the history and consequences of whiteness in the United States?

Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs’ international director, said that StandWithUs launched the petition to provoke UCSB to persecute Robinson “to protect the right of students to register grievances against faculty without fear of hostile faculty reactions.” Speaking about those who are defending Robinson, Rothstein said that “’Robinson’s supporters’ assault on the students’ complaints could disempower other students with grievances and intimidate them into silence.” Talk about twisting oneself into knots. Rothstein said, “The politicization of academia is a serious problem today. We applaud the UCSB administration for trying to uphold standards of academic freedom and responsibility. They are under a lot of pressure, and our petition lets them know that tens of thousand of people support them and their commitment to ensure that the university remains what it should be—a place for the critical examination of ideas, facts, and values.”

What Rothstein wants is the depoliticization of science, a form of political correctness that will stifle critical examination of ideas, facts, and values. Life is political. The classroom, a place where life happens, is political. The academy is political. This is a welcome fact of social reality. The attempt to remove politics from academia is guided by a desire to render the university classroom a sterile environment where “truths” learned outside the classroom cannot be challenged in the classroom. The attempt to remove politics from academia is guided by a desire to reinforce indoctrination via a conspiracy of silence in the one place where critical examination fo ideas, facts, and values can take place.

Is it not ironic in some way that Americans who participate in StandWithUs’ witch hunt trample upon their own Bill of Rights to silence their fellow citizens who would criticize Israel? Why would any American tell another American to shut up about Israel? I have found that those who object most strongly to criticisms of Israel have no problem with criticism of US foreign policy, except where it pertains to US’s participation in Palestine. 

This is the United States of America. Here we allow free and open discussion and debate about ideas, facts, and values. At least we’re supposed to. We could do a lot better job if those who represent StandWithUs engaged the discussion and debated Robinson on the substance rather than organize campaigns to suppress his academic freedom. If ever the defenders of Israel are silenced in the classroom, what will they be able to say about this? If they are consistent, they will have to take their medicine. But, for them, free speech is not the principle in operation here. For them, I am free to say whatever I want, just so long as StandWithUs agrees with me.

Andrei Chikatilo was one of Russia’s more prolific serial killers. Chikatilo confessed to murdering more than fifty children. He tortured his victims first. Then he stabbed out their eyes and removed their genitals to deposit his semen in them.

In his confession, police learned that his first murder had occurred not when the police first started tracking his crimes (the murder of the 13-year-old girl Lyubov Biryuk), but before that, in 1978, with the murder of a 9-year-old girl named Yelena Zakotnova. This discovery alarmed police because a man had already been arrested, tried and executed for the murder of Zakotnova. Chikatilo had moved to Shakhty, the town where Zakotnova lived, to teach.

Before his family arrived to join him there, he purchased a hut. He discovered Zakotnova near it, took her into his hut, and killed her there after failing to achieve an erection. He substituted a knife for his penis. Chikatilo was a suspect in the case. He had been seen by a witness. Blood was found on his doorstep. But because the other man confessed to the crime under torture, Chikatilo was cleared of the crime.

Because the police extracted a false confession through torture, they did not catch Chikatilo on his first murder and Chikatilo went on to murder more than fifty other children. Because of torture, several dozen children are dead.

This post is one of a series of posts publicly defending William I. Robinson, a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) from charges of anti-Semitism. I studied under Robinson when he taught at the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I took his courses on political economy and globalization.

The controversy centered around an email that Robinson sent to his students. In the email, he included photographs and a side-by-side comparison of images from the Holocaust and the Israeli military action in Gaza. The email was sent during the winter 2008 semester as part of a course on global studies. In it, Robinson expressed his criticism of Israeli policies and accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. The email sparked intense controversy, with some students and outside groups accusing Robinson of anti-Semitism and promoting a hostile learning environment.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center were among the organizations that criticized Robinson’s email, alleging that it crossed the line into anti-Semitism. They argued that the comparison between Israeli actions and the Holocaust was inappropriate and offensive. Supporters of Robinson, including faculty members and students, defended his right to free speech and academic freedom, contending that the email was intended to stimulate critical thinking and discussion.

The controversy gained significant media attention, both nationally and internationally. The university administration initiated an investigation into the matter, led by the Office of Judicial Affairs. They examined whether Robinson’s email violated university policies on academic freedom, free speech, and creating a hostile environment. In April 2010, after a review process, the UCSB administration concluded that Robinson’s email did not violate university policies. The administration acknowledged the concerns raised by some students but emphasized the importance of free speech and academic freedom within the academic community.

The controversy surrounding William Robinson’s email at UCSB sparked broader discussions about the boundaries of academic freedom, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the line between criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism.

Here is a good summary of the matter from Not My Tribe. You can read a comment from me towards the bottom.

“You can criticize Israel; you can criticize the war in Gaza,” Abraham Foxman is arguing. “But to compare what the Israelis are doing in defense of their citizens to what the Nazis did to the Jews is clearly anti-Semitism.” It may be a bad comparison, but it’s not anti-Semitic. The adequacy of comparing what Israeli is doing to Palestinians in Gaza to any historical event is an intellectual matter not something that one is forbidden to make at the risk of being branded something akin to racism. It is also a moral matter.

Intellectually, which historical events most closely approximate the invasion of Gaza? If one finds William Robinson’s analogy rationally inadequate, then one can certainly criticize the comparison for that. But it’s alleged inadequacy is not to be found in accusations of racism. Such accusations are an attempt to silence the analogy. Morally, if the analogy is adequate, the question revolves around why groups that have experienced historic oppression would use similar forms of oppression on others, especially when justifying their actions based on slogans such as “never again,” a slogan which one assumes has universal application.

Suppose that blacks forced whites in South Africa into a white ethnic enclave, built walls around it, and routinely launched cross border attacks on the enclave, killing ethnic whites and destroying their property. Would it be racist to accuse the black majority of using apartheid-like tactics against whites? Here’s an even stronger case, since the white ethnics were the ones who practiced apartheid against the black majority. Would it not seem relevant to ask the black majority why they are doing this to the white minority given the experience of blacks with apartheid?

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The course in question concerns global issues. Robinson is an historical sociologist whose forte is researching and teaching global issues. Comparative analysis is the method of historical sociology. Cultivating critical comparative thinking in students is its striving. This is why Robinson was hired and tenured and promoted: he’s a brilliant comparative historical sociologist. Robinson would have been failing his students and acting ideologically had he avoided this topic. After all, it was the major global story of the day. It is a common teaching method to illustrate classroom concepts with contemporary public issues.

The email, whether you agree with the content or not, is appropriate in the context of a sociology class covering global issues. In his comment, Roland Radosh misses the point of a public education, which is troubling given that he has attempted to provide one for so many years. The purpose of a liberal arts education is to promote, along with critical, comparative, and historical thinking, the work of citizenship, an endeavor that demands attention to moral concerns. This isn’t technical or vocational training we’re talking about here, but a liberal arts education. This is the place where these types of discussions are supposed to take place. Why else would the school have a sociology class on global issues if not to enlighten students and encourage them to actively engage the world around them?

For Radosh, it’s as simple as this: he doesn’t like what’s in Robinson’s email. He’s gotten himself all twisted in knots trying to argue for the suppression of speech in a way that allows him to preserve his self-identity as somebody who believes in academic freedom. The effort is an obvious failure. More broadly, this affair is a transparent attempt to intimidate the critics of Israel into silence and discredit them in the eyes of the public. They are making Robinson an example. I don’t think it’s going to work. For liberty’s sake, I hope it doesn’t.

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Note (7/3/2023): Radosh’s comment, as did many others, disappeared from the Internet after Robinson was vindicated.

Maine voters have repealed a law permitting gay marriage. But why does there need to be a law permitting gay marriage in the first place? How can there be a law forbidding gay marriage in a free society? Civil and human rights are not subject to popular vote. They exist as unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Supposing these rights are inalienable, two (or more) individuals may only be denied the status of marriage—if the state recognizes any marriage—only if there is a compelling secular reason for denying them marriage. I have been asking people for years now to give me a compelling secular reason for denying marriage for gays and lesbians. I have to put the word “secular” in there because, if I don’t, people give me religious reasons which they should already know carry no weight in a society based on the separation of church and state.

For most of our history, in states throughout our nation, the white majority denied the right of black and white men and women to marry. Those laws were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1967 because they represented a fundamental violation of civil and human rights. If the state sanctions marriage, then it is not treating individuals equally when it denies marriage to some consenting adults while permitting it for other consenting adults.

The same principle applies to gay marriage. This is not an argument by analogy. It is an argument of principle. By denying gays and lesbians their right to marry—and they have that right whether it is recognized or not—the majority of voters in Maine demonstrate that they do not cherish the fundamental tenets of a free society. What Maine voters have done, in fact, is impose a tyranny of the majority in Maine.

“I was shocked,” Joseph, 22, said. “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.”

It’s Bill Robinson’s class. Ths course is a sociology course on global issues. He couldn’t have overstepped his boundaries with this case. The Israeli attack on Gaza is a global issue. Robinson would have been acting ideologically to avoid it.

Not only does Robinson have the freedom to send information and opinion concerning this matter, he has an obligation to do so. As for not sending out strong opinion, if the student can’t stomach strong opinion, then maybe the university classroom is not the place for this student.

“I just want to bring awareness,” said junior Tova Hausman, who has joined Joseph in accusing Robinson of violating the school’s faculty code of conduct. “I want people to know that educators shouldn’t be sending out something that is so disturbing.”

What’s disturbing is Israel’s attack on Gaza. Why aren’t those who support Israel’s action prepared to be confronted with the grim reality of it? The role of a university professor is to disturb students, to shake them out of their happy complacent lives, to make them see things they don’t want to see.

I have a lecture on lynching. The images are very disturbing. Of course they are. If you sign up for my course, Freedom and Social Control, you will have to confront disturbing issues.

In anatomy class, people cut into cadavers. That’s disturbing. You have to do it if you want the credit.

It should be known that one of the students who dropped the class and filed the complain is Lia Yaiger. Yaiger is a graduate of Stand With Us. This group trains students in campuses in what they call “response techniques” to alleged “anti-Israel” efforts on campus. Right wing groups used similar tactics to go after Marxist professors in the 1960s and 1970s. It’s an orchestated campaign to stifle academic freedom on college campuses.