The University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) held its inaugural National Security Symposium on Thursday without its best-known participant, Dr. Norman Finkelstein, a controversial expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who was scheduled to speak about media coverage of Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza. This is either an outrageous act of academic censorship or a colossal screw-up by the GSPIA faculty.
Dr. Finkelstein is no stranger to controversy. He is the son of Holocaust survivors and has publicly criticized the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. He was denied tenure at DePaul University in 2007 despite an impressive publication record, an action that was criticized as an affront to academic freedom by public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky. This interview from seven months ago will give you an idea of Dr. Finkelstein’s views.
The symposium was planned by an organizing committee of graduate students. Their advisor was a visiting professor, Dr. Luke Peterson of Cambridge University. Dr. Finkelstein agreed to speak at the symposium on April 20 and signed a contract on August 26. However, to be official, the contract had to be signed by a Pitt representative, and that never happened.
According to the official story, the student committee realized last week that there was not enough money to pay for the symposium, and it was decided to cancel Dr. Finkelstein’s appearance. But when Dr. Peterson called him last Wednesday, September 16, to let him know his invitation had been withdrawn, he told Dr. Finkelstein that the Pitt administration refused to sign the contract, and “raised a number of issues regarding your presence–all of which I’m sure you’re familiar with, many of which or all of which are either bogus or trumped.” Not surprisingly, Dr. Finkelstein criticized Pitt on his website for a blatant act of political censorship, saying that the administration had “the moral integrity of a slot machine.”
Dr. Peterson now says “my bad;” he claims that he misunderstood the reason for the cancellation, and that the real reason was a shortage of money. Which of Dr. Peterson’s statements was truthful? Did he fall on his sword for the benefit of the Pitt administration?
It’s not clear from publicly-available information what the budget for the symposium was. Their website lists four “supporters”—the Pitt Global Studies Center, the Pitt Nationality Rooms, the GSPIA’s Ridgeway Center for International Security Studies, and Katz Business School’s International Business Center. Ordinarily, “supporters” are groups that have contributed money for the event, although that isn’t explicitly stated. The organizing committee also made a crowdsourcing appeal for $5000. Their final update states that they only reached 51% of their goal. Dr. Finkelstein’s speaking fee was $4000. Since there were two other speakers plus venue, catering, and other expenses, it’s unlikely that $5000 was the total budget for the event.
If the official story is true, why did representatives of a major university book speakers for a highly-touted symposium without having secured the money to pay them? Did the committee only realize that their crowdsourcing attempt would fall short just a week before the event? Why was Dr. Finkelstein the speaker who was cancelled? (In case you’re wondering, he says they did not ask him if he would accept a smaller honorarium.) I can accept the idea that a group of inexperienced graduate students would be naively optimistic about their likelihood of raising money, but were there no permanent GSPIA faculty members looking over their shoulders to protect the university’s reputation?
Anyone who reads Pittsburgh newspapers knows that local conservatives react angrily to any criticism of Israel. Is it possible that the committee’s financial problems were real, but were caused not only by the crowdfunding shortfall but also by the withdrawal, or threatened withdrawal, or one or more of their primary sponsors?
We should never accept conspiracy theories when incompetence is a plausible alternative explanation. However, having spent almost 40 years as a university professor, this official story does not ring true to me.
The real losers are the Pitt students who lost the opportunity to hear Dr. Finkelstein’s important point of view.