Bard College terminates Joel Kovel

Joel Kovel has been terminated from Bard College. You can read the full statement on the firing on his website. It begins:

In January, 1988, I was appointed to the Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies at Bard College. As this was a Presidential appointment outside the tenure system, I have served under a series of contracts. The last of these was half-time (one semester on, one off, with half salary and full benefits year-round), effective from July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2009. On February 7 I received a letter from Michèle Dominy, Dean of the College, informing me that my contract would not be renewed this July 1 and that I would be moved to emeritus status as of that day. She wrote that this decision was made by President Botstein, Executive Vice-President Papadimitriou and herself, in consultation with members of the Faculty Senate.

This document argues that this termination of service is prejudicial and motivated neither by intellectual nor pedagogic considerations, but by political values, principally stemming from differences between myself and the Bard administration on the issue of Zionism. There is of course much more to my years at Bard than this, including another controversial subject, my work on ecosocialism (/The Enemy of Nature/). However, the evidence shows a pattern of conflict over Zionism only too reminiscent of innumerable instances in this country in which critics of Israel have been made to pay, often with their careers, for speaking out. In this instance the process culminated in a deeply flawed evaluation process which was used to justify my termination from the faculty.

Of particular interest to me was the participation of Bard College’s chaplain Bruce Chilton on Joel’s evaluation committee. Since this body must be based on impartiality, the inclusion of a hardened Zionist activist would in and of itself invalidate its findings. Joel comments:

The evaluation committee included Professor Bruce Chilton, along with Professors Mark Lambert and Kyle Gann. Professor Chilton is a member of the Social Studies division, a distinguished theologian, and the campus’ Protestant chaplain. He is also active in Zionist circles, as chair of the Episcopal-Jewish Relations Committee in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and a member of the Executive Committee of Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East. In this capacity he campaigns vigorously against Protestant efforts to promote divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel… Of course, Professor Chilton has the right to his opinion as an academic and a citizen. Nonetheless, the presence of such a voice on the committee whose conclusion was instrumental in the decision to remove me from the Bard faculty is highly dubious. Most definitely, Professor Chilton should have recused himself from this position. His failure to do so, combined with the fact that the decision as a whole was made in context of adversity between myself and the Bard administration, renders the process of my termination invalid as an instance of what the College’s Faculty Handbook calls a procedure “designed to evaluate each faculty member fairly and in good faith.”

I should add that I listened to the abovementioned “Religion on the Line” radio show and wrote a piece examining Chilton’s defense of Israeli ethnic cleansing and war crimes.

In keeping with Bard College President Leon Botstein’s finely honed ability to speak out of both sides of his mouth, he managed to create the impression this week that he was the best friend that Palestinians ever had:

NY Times, February 15, 2009
Palestinian Campus Looks to East Bank (of Hudson)
By Ethan Bronner

JERUSALEM – It would be hard to find two institutions of higher learning that seem more different than Bard College, an upscale, bucolic college in Dutchess County, N.Y., and Al Quds University, a struggling, sprawling Palestinian institution in and near this disputed capital.

Yet the two schools have decided to join forces in an unusual venture aimed at injecting American educational values and expertise into Palestinian society, in hopes of contributing to a future democratic State of Palestine. Although the effort has been many months in the planning, those involved say the recent war in Gaza and a political turn rightward in Israel make it more important and urgent.

The plan, relying largely on outside financing, includes a liberal arts honors college and a master’s degree program in teaching, both located at Al Quds and granting joint degrees, as well as a model high school to serve as an educational laboratory. The starting date for the first two is September; the high school is to open in 2010.

This is not the first instance of Bard College “adopting” a college in some peripheral country. The Times reports:

Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds and a philosopher trained at Harvard and Oxford, who has been pushing to open his institution to outside influences; and Leon Botstein, president of Bard, a polymath whose college has set up special high schools in New York City, humanities classes for the homeless around the United States, and joint programs in Russia and South Africa.

Do you wonder where Bard gets all the money to fund such initiatives, especially when most colleges are being forced to slash budgets? Surprise, surprise. It comes from a famous benefactor of the underdeveloped world:

The initial financing is coming from the liberal financier George Soros, but Mr. Botstein is looking for more, and the Palestinian Education Ministry is being asked to provide help, since the joint degree program has what its proponents consider to be an important civic side.

There is a certain logic in propping up Nusseibeh in light of the decision by Hampshire College, another “progressive” college like Bard, to divest from Israel (even though there are multiple interpretations over whether this took place or not.) On May 19, 2005 Nusseibeh lent his name to a statement opposing a cultural and educational boycott. The NY Times reported:

Two university presidents, one a Palestinian and the other an Israeli, joined on Thursday to urge an end to an academic boycott of Israeli universities by Britain’s leading higher education union.

Sari Nusseibeh, the president of Al Quds University in East Jerusalem, and Menachem Magidor, president of Hebrew University, made a joint declaration here at an international gathering of scholars debating human rights.

“Our position is based upon the belief that it is through cooperation based on mutual respect, rather than boycotts or discrimination, that our common goals can be achieved,” the declaration said.

“Our disaffection with, and condemnation of, acts of academic boycotts,” it said, “is predicated on the principles of academic freedom, human rights and equality between nations and among individuals.”

The move comes one week before the higher education union, the British Association of University Teachers, plans to meet to reconsider a decision in April to bar Israeli faculty members at Haifa University and Bar-Ilan University from academic conferences and joint research.

The boycott was in response to an appeal by 60 Palestinian organizations complaining about Israeli actions in the conflict with Palestinians.

Is there some connection between Sari Nusseibeh’s opposition to a boycott and Bruce Chilton’s activism against church and university-based divestment campaigns? I will allow you, dear reader, to decide. Being somewhat suspicious of the motives of the George Soros’s of the world, I  believe that he invested wisely when he decided to back Sari Nusseibeh. As one of the capitalist class’s most far-sighted defenders of its long-term interests, Soros has learned to hedge his bets. He has decided in this case to risk alienating Zionist opinion in the U.S. by funding a college run by a nominally anti-Zionist president but made sure to put his money on a safe bet.

Perhaps it was Nusseibeh’s collaboration with the former head of Israeli intelligence that brought him to the attention of George Soros and Leon Botstein:

A modest start for a joint bid to galvanize public support for a permanent peace accord

In the spring of last year, when suicide bombings were at their height and Israeli troops were combing Palestinian cities for terrorists, former Shin Bet security services Chief Ami Ayalon quietly visited East Jerusalem to discuss a peace plan with al-Quds University president Sari Nusseibeh. The two had met a few months before at a London conference and been struck by the similarity of their views. They agreed that violence was leading nowhere and that Israeli and Palestinian leaders should get back to the negotiating table and tackle the tough “final status” issues.

(The Jerusalem Report, July 28, 2003)

It should be mentioned that Nusseibeh and Ayalon settled on a plan that would drop the Palestinian right of return. It seems that Nusseibeh had a much easier job currying Israeli favor than that of his own people, as this item from the July 18^th 1989 Jerusalem Post would indicate:

A leaflet distributed yesterday in Nablus strongly attacks public figures in the West Bank, calling them traitors and collaborators, and targets Bir Zeit University teacher Sari Nusseibeh for the brunt of its attack. In Nablus, a well informed source has claimed that the Unified Leadership of the intifada has lost its power.

A leaflet distributed yesterday in Nablus strongly attacks public figures in the West Bank, calling them traitors and collaborators, and targets Bir Zeit University teacher Sari Nusseibeh for the brunt of its attack. In Nablus, a well informed source has claimed that the Unified Leadership of the intifada has lost its power.

The leaflet, signed by the Popular Army of the State of Palestine, asks sarcastically: “Why has the Lord Doctor secretly left the country?” (Nusseibeh left for England about a month ago with his British wife and three children).

The leaflet accuses Nusseibeh of being a “traitor and collaborator” because of the fact he has not been arrested despite depositions by Palestinians in court that he helped finance the intifada. The leaflet also claims Nusseibeh bought a piece of land in Jabel Mukaber with intifada money.

In other words, the perfect candidate for a collaborative project with Leon Botstein and George Soros.

UPDATE

An atrocious article on Kovel’s termination appeared on Inside Higher Education that could have been written by Bard’s public relations officer. You can read it here to get an idea of how Bard will be defending itself in the court of public opinion, not to speak of the actual legal court in which Joel will be pursuing redress.

Joel and I offer corrections to the crappy report in the comments section but I would be remiss if I did not include this comment from a Bard graduate, class of ’97:

I am very impressed by the way in which many posters cite their “Zionism” along with their academic credentials. It gives me great faith in their impartiality.

As Botstein quite rightly pointed out, Kovel’s views are not terribly radical, but they surely must rankle the passionately pro-Zionist president and chair of the religion department at Bard. This is as clear-cut a case of Bard’s grotesquely pro-Israel stance as anything I have seen (and this is not the first instance). Bard claims to be “a place to think.” Perhaps more apropos would be to describe it as “a place not to think bad things about Israel.”

I’m disgusted. You won’t be getting any alumni dollars from us. Sorry, I learned way too much about critical thinking at Bard to ever let this kind of intellectual bullying stand. Bravo, Mr. Kovel, and to those who live comfortable academic lives in the USA and claim to be “Zionist,” I suggest you go see what’s really happened in Gaza before you let your smug assurance that you’re in the right strangle your sense of decency.

UPDATE 2

Facebook group created to discuss Joel Kovel termination

UPDATE 3

Excellent letter to Botstein by Noel Bush, Bard graduate 1996