Letters to Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., President of DePaul University (and to some administrators) about the denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein

Culled mostly from Letter to Finkelstein

VIA FACSIMILE (312-362-7577)

The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.
President
DePaul University
1 East Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois 60604-2287

Dear President Holtschneider:

We have written to you twice regarding the issue of academic due process attendant upon the DePaul University administration's refusal to recognize Professor Norman Finkelstein's right to appeal the decision to deny him tenure to a faculty committee. We are writing to you again about a new issue of due process in his case in connection with an e-mail message on Friday, August 24, from Provost Helmut Epp to Professor Finkelstein, notifying him of the administration's decision to place him on paid administrative leave, relieving him of further academic duties during his terminal year of service. (We understand that he is also being denied access to the office he had occupied.) According to the provost's message, the action removing Professor Finkelstein from further teaching was taken "based on departmental and college needs and because of [his] behavior at the end of the Spring quarter." Professor Finkelstein informs us that he takes sharp issue with the stated grounds for the action and objects to the lack of any procedural protections afforded to him.

Action to separate a faculty member from ongoing academic responsibilities prior to demonstration of stated cause in an appropriate proceeding is considered to be a suspension, which is justified, according to the enclosed joint 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings, "only if immediate harm to the faculty member or others is threatened by continuance." According to Interpretive Comment Number 9 on the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, "a suspension which is not followed by either reinstatement or the opportunity for a hearing is a summary dismissal in violation of academic due process." We note that the "Separation" section of the DePaul Faculty Handbook (p. 13) provides for suspension to be imposed on a faculty member "only to prevent probable and serious harm to the reputation of the University or to its ability to carry out such important functions as instruction. The faculty member is guaranteed that fair and consistent procedures will be used for making any suspension decision." The policy goes on to describe three ways in which a faculty member may be suspended, the first two of which involve a formal hearing before a faculty body. Paragraph (3) of that section provides that a faculty member may be suspended without a hearing “in the event of an emergency where potentially serious harm must be prevented immediately and there is no opportunity for a previous hearing,” with the right of the affected professor "after the fact to a formal grievance hearing." We are not aware of any "emergency" reason advanced by the administration that would justify acting against Professor Finkelstein without having first afforded him opportunity for a hearing.

We have taken strong issue with the argument, which we encounter from time to time, that an administration discharges its obligation to a faculty member on term appointment by relieving the individual of his or her teaching duties while continuing payment of salary for the duration of the term. In our report on the 1965 cases at St. John's University in New York, where terminal suspensions were imposed on twenty-one professors because of alleged activities variously described as harassment and unprofessional conduct, our investigating committee found that the administration "had excluded from consideration a principle crucial to the profession." The committee went on to explain as follows:

The profession's entire case for academic freedom and its attendant standards is predicated upon the basic right to employ one's professional skills in practice, a right, in the case of the teaching profession, which is exercised not in private practice but through institutions. To deny a faculty member this opportunity without adequate cause, regardless of monetary compensation, is to deny him his basic professional rights. . . . In the case of teachers at St. John's, denial of their classroom was, in itself, a serious injury. To inflict such injury without due process and, therefore, without demonstrated reason, destroys the academic character of the University. (AAUP Bulletin, Spring 1966, pp. 18, 19.) We addressed the issue of suspension of a nonreappointed probationary faculty member and the attendant standards of academic due process in the enclosed 1996 report on our investigation of a case at the University of Southern California. We urge that the administration reinstate Professor Finkelstein to his normal academic duties. If the administration is unwilling to do so, we urge that it initiate a hearing before an elected faculty body and assume the burden of demonstrating, in an adjudicative hearing of record, adequacy of cause for the suspension.

I plan on calling you tomorrow to discuss the contents of this letter, at which point we would welcome your comments on the statements and recommendations we have made.

Sincerely,

B. Robert Kreiser

Associate Secretary

BRK:id

Enclosure (via surface mail)

cc:
Dr. Helmut P. Epp, Provost
Jose D. Padilla, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel
Dr. Charles S. Suchar, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Anne Clark Bartlett, President, Faculty Council
Professor Gil Gott, Chair, Faculty Governance Council, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Michael A. McIntyre, President, AAUP Chapter
Professor Michael L. Budde, Chair, Department of Political Science
Professor Norman G. Finkelstein

Fr. Holtschneider,

I wrote you an e-mail last week about this very thing, and got no response from you about it. It has now become apparent that your silence was because you knew what you planned to do and despite the outcry from students and faculty you went ahead and did it anyways.

I am in my graduating year at DePaul. You have taken my favorite Professor away from me before I could finish my final year. You have taken one of the greatest faculty members at DePaul away from the University. And most importantly, you have taken one of the most important scholars of the Israel-Palestinian debate away from academia. And now you have even deprived the students of DePaul one final academic year with Professor Finkelstein.

I have had nothing bad to say about DePaul until all of this happened. I often told everyone my decision to come to DePaul was the best decision that I ever made. I have always been proud to be a member of the DePaul community. I am extremely involved around campus as the President of the DePaul Student Peace Alliance and Secretary of the DePaul Democrats I have worked as an Honors Program student mentor, an Honors Program peer mentor, a Discover Chicago student leader two years running, and as a research assistant and volunteer for the Adolescent Community Health Research Group. I am also proud to say that I have been doing great in school and have maintained a 3.81 GPA. All of this now means absolutely nothing to me. I have had all of these things that I was once so proud of taken away from me, and it is because of your decisions.

I really believed that DePaul was unlike other schools, that it was not afraid to take a stand for social justice. St. Vincent DePaul was an incredible man that stood up for what was right, regardless of what the powers that be told him to do. I really thought that DePaul University would help prepare me for a life dedicated to social justice and my plans to join the Peace Corps. I now realize that it is nothing but a facade. When you and the other University administrators had a chance to take a stance on social justice and tenure a Professor that has dedicated his life to these values in one of the most dangerous conflicts of our time you turned your backs on social justice and fired him. You have now barred him from coming back to teach his students about Equality and Social Justice and Freedom and Empowerment (the classes I was enrolled in and you cancelled).

I believe that as the President of my University that you owe it to me, personally, to tell me why this was done. Why did you do this? How could you let this happen? And how am I supposed to go next week during Immersion Week and tell my students all these wonderful things about DePaul? How am I supposed to run a Common Hour session about DePaul's Mission and Values when you have proven to me that they do not exist? What am I supposed to do?

Sincerely,
Andrew Riplinger

Begin forwarded message:

From: RHONOLD[at]depaul.edu
Date: August 24, 2007 11:41:30 AM CDT
To: RHONOLD[at]depaul.edu
Subject: course cancellation: PSC 235

Political Science 235, section 101, "Equality and Social Justice," for the autumn quarter 2007-8, has been cancelled. You have been dropped from the course.

I will work with you to make sure that your academic progress is not impeded in any way by this regrettable development. Please contact me directly if you need assistance getting rescheduled for a suitable substitute course.

Sincerely,

Randall Honold, Ph.D.

Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs
Instructor of Philosophy
Institute for Nature & Culture
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
DePaul University
990 West Fullerton Avenue
Suite 4400
Chicago, Illinois 60614
773-325-4928 (phone)
773-325-4781 (fax)
rhonold@depaul.edu

VIA FACSIMILE (312-362-6822)

August 20, 2007

The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.
President
DePaul University
1 East Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois 60604-2287

Dear President Holtschneider:

We have not previously responded to your letter of July 31, because we were awaiting permission, requested in my letter to you of August 6 and also in a telephone call to your office last week, to share your letter with Professors Larudee and Finkelstein and invite their comments. We regret not having heard back from you about our request.

We appreciate that the tenure candidacies of both Professors Finkelstein and Larudee were reviewed by their faculty peers at three different institutional levels under the procedures set forth in DePaul's official regulations, and we have no basis for questioning whether the pro-cess followed in the conduct of those reviews accorded with the university's procedures. We also appreciate that the DePaul handbook, consistent with AAUP-recommended standards, provides that the president may set aside the recommendation of the University Board on Promotion and Tenure (UBPT) only "in rare circumstances and for compelling reasons," and that you accepted that body's recommendations in all cases that came before you this past year. Our Association has no quarrel with your statement that "[t]he fact that some individ-uals would have liked a different result in some of the cases is not a proper basis for an appeal." Nor do we question your further statement that "the fact that the UBPT reached a different result [from] the lower tenure review committee is not in itself a violation of uni-versity procedure nor a basis for an appeal." Our concerns arise when you go on to assert that "there is simply no basis for any claim that the UBPT failed to uphold the standards and processes set forth in the Faculty Handbook." In our view, it is precisely that assertion as well as the question whether the administration similarly failed that bear on the claims by Professors Finkelstein and Larudee that impermissible considerations—involving violations of their academic freedom—contributed significantly to the adverse decisions in their cases.

You state that "the section of the Faculty Handbook detailing the promotion and tenure procedures is clear that the decision of the president is 'final' and that there is no right to appeal that decision." The "Evaluation of Faculty" section of the handbook does indeed provide that the "president shall make final decisions regarding promotion and/or the granting of tenure." That section of the document is silent, however, regarding the right of appeal of an adverse decision in such cases. A final decision by the president about the merits of a candidacy for tenure does not appear to us to shield that decision from the "Appeal Procedure for Nonrenewal of Nontenured and Tenure-Track Faculty" that is set forth in the "Separation" section of the handbook. Its provisions, as I observed in my previous letter, track AAUP-recommended standards, which are intended to afford opportunity for appeals of adverse tenure decisions—a particular category of "Nonrenewal of Tenure-Track Faculty." Again, in the view of the president of DePaul's Faculty Council (and her fellow Council members), "the handbook guarantees certain rights for faculty members who have received adverse decisions in the retention, tenure, and promotion processes. One of these is the right to a review by an independent faculty body. This is clearly described in the handbook's chapter on separation." Affording a faculty member opportunity for appeal of an adverse tenure decision would not appear to preclude the president from making the final decision after the appeal has been heard.

Without affording Professors Finkelstein and Larudee opportunity for faculty review of their allegations, the administration, it seems to us, is allowing their claims of violation of aca-demic freedom to stand unrebutted. We urge again that you offer them such opportunity.

Sincerely,

B. Robert Kreiser
Associate Secretary

BRK:id

cc: Dr. Helmut P. Epp, Provost
Jose D. Padilla, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel
Dr. Charles S. Suchar, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Anne Clark Bartlett, President, Faculty Council
Professor Gil Gott, Chair, Faculty Governance Council, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Michael A. McIntyre, Director, International Studies Program and
President, AAUP Chapter
Professor Michael L. Budde, Chair, Department of Political Science
Professor Norman G. Finkelstein
Professor Mehrene E. Larudee

Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 12:11:34 -0400
From: nmclaugh[at]mcmaster.ca
To: president@depaul.edu
Subject: Tenure Decisions

2007.08.18

Dear President Holtschneider:

I am writing to express my serious concerns about the tenure cases of Dr. Norman Finkelstein (an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at DePaul University), and Dr. Mehrene Larudee (an assistant professor in International Studies). With the AAUP, I believe your university should allow a appeal process to take place as I understand you have done so in the past. Without this appeal process, the reputation of your university most surely will suffer greatly in the eyes of a large number of the academic community in North American and globally.

Concerns about the Finkelstein case and its implications for academic freedom extend far beyond the ranks of intellectuals who agree with Dr. Finkelstein‘s political views. I, for one, have very different politics from Dr. Finkelstein - I tend to take just the kind of left social democratic positions Dr. Finkelstein criticizes. I also have a different view on the appropriate role of polemics in academic life. In fact, I recently published an controversial article in the /Canadian Journal of Sociology/ that argued against the dominance of what I called a kind of Verso press radicalism in Canadian sociology. And I also believe that intellectual life in both Canada and the United States requires, at this moment in history, more scholarly analysis, a deepening of civil political debate across ideological divides and less polemics and polarized personal attacks. There is no doubt in my mind that the letter you wrote denying Dr. Finkelstein tenure raises a range of interesting ideas, particularly with regards to the role of the public intellectual in society today. My view, however, is your ideas on these matters would best be articulated in a public forum, in a series of essays or perhaps in your future hiring decisions, but are most certainly inappropriate when evaluating a scholar going up for tenure, especially one with as strong a publishing and teaching record as Dr. Finkelstein.

I have read three of his books, and while I am not an expert in his academic areas of research or on the Middle East conflict I note that those responsible for denying him tenure are also not experts. My informed lay opinion, however, is that while I think /The Holocaust Industry/ and /Image and Reality of the Israel Palestine Conflict /are good enough for tenure at most reasonable research universities below the very elite institutions, /Beyond Chutzpah /is a first rate scholarly work by any standards. It is far more theoretically sophisticated and much better written than the earlier books and makes a strong case for his viewpoint in ways that raise a range of important intellectual issues that cannot be ignored by scholars and citizens alike, whatever one might think of his ultimate conclusions. That your institution would deny this scholar tenure /after/ he moved his work up to a new higher level of scholarly sophistication, published with the University of California Press, and received positive external reviews from major scholars in the appropriate fields is seriously problematic. That your institution would do so, while claiming not to be influenced by outside interference in the process is simply not credible given Alan Dershowitz‘s inappropriate and unprofessional campaign and the evidence of his influence on your campus process. There are a range of serious questions that have been raised about the fairness of this process; issues that, at the very least, your institution must answer in an appeal process to have any credibility whatsoever as a supporter of basic academic freedom and scholarly engagement. Hopefully your university will reconsider your decision to ignore the serious concerns about the process that have been expressed by many scholars and by the AAUP, thus distancing yourself from the shameful behavior of Professor Dershowitz and those on your campus who have engaged in similar breaches of the scholarly peer review process. In my view, only then can your university take its rightful place among institutions committed to academic freedom and scholarly standards.

Yours Sincerely,

Neil McLaughlin, Associate Professor
Sociology, McMaster University
Canada

Fr. Dennis Holtschneider
Office of the President
DePaul University
55 E. Jackson, 22nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60602

Dear Fr. Holtschneider,

As you are aware, numerous DePaul students consider your recent decision to deny tenure to Dr. Norman Finkelstein in the Political Science Department to be unacceptable. It is disheartening to find that we have further reason for concern. As students of DePaul University, we are deeply distraught to discover that DePaul may not allow Dr. Finkelstein on campus to teach us in his terminal year as stipulated in his employment contract. As university administrators, you have denied him tenure; though as educators, we implore you not to restrict our learning. We attend DePaul to learn. We want to learn from Dr. Finkelstein.

Currently, Campus Connect lists Dr. Finkelstein's classes as enrolled at capacity, despite one being offered at 8:30 AM on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and another being offered on the same days at 9:40 AM. As you know, classes held during these time frames are not the easiest to fill, and their status reflects directly on Dr. Finkelstein as a professor. Students returning in the 2007/2008 Autumn Quarter expect to be taught by the brightest and most truthful of DePaul's professors. We also expect to have a voice in determining and defining the criteria by which our professors are evaluated: we have done so, and Dr. Finkelstein fulfills those criteria.

Dr. Finkelstein has expressed interest in teaching this coming quarter and has already submitted his course texts to the bookstore and his syllabi to the Department. The minimum we expect is that you allow Dr. Finkelstein to return for his contractually granted terminal year.

Please be clear that DePaul is inherently an educational institution and that students form the core of this university. Consider this as a formal notice from the students that denying Dr. Finkelstein his terminal year will be considered complete abandonment of the students and your responsibilities.

Sincerely,

DePaul Academic Freedom Committee
www.academicfreedomchicago.org

From : niallmcnamara[at]eircom.net
Sent : Wednesday, July 18, 2007 10:03 PM
To : president@depaul.edu
CC : normangf[at]hotmail.com
Subject : Denial of Tenure to Norman Finkelstein by the Depaul-Dershowitz cabal

Dear President Holtschneider,

I and many others are scandalized by the harsh policy DePaul University implemented against Professor Finkelsetin et al under your watch, at the behest of a self-serving cabal with an agenda to end professor Finkelstein's academic career, and promote their own political agenda.

In your letter refusing tenure to Professor Finkelstein you allege, amongst several things, that he is not scholarly enough for DePaul; could you please inform me of what other academic within the Department of Political Science has published such brilliant scholarly publications? And who contributes so much time and personal effort to train future generations of scholars in order that they may think for themselves? Do other members of the department fight for social justice in Palestine or elsewhere as Finkelstein does.?

You wrote that Finkelstein engaged in ad hominem attacks against others - though you gave no supporting evidence - but I presume you can only really mean against Professor Dershowitz. As you have cast serious charges against Finkelstein in this matter would it not be fair to state something about the barrage of ad hominem attacks, and worse, that Dershowitz has made against Finkelstein in collusion with members of your own staff? Or do you consider Dershowitz's attacks as acceptable remarks made by someone who had no invitation to involve himself or his cabal with the process of selecting an internal DePaul faculty member for a tenured post? The external pressure you complained about, do you recall that complaint? Dershowitz and his cabal were that external pressure group of whom you complained. And you observed such external attention was not welcome by DePaul. Will you contact Harvard about Dershowitz and the unhealthy interest he took in an internal DePaul appointment?

Do you consider the personal attacks and on-going conspiracy against Finkelsetin by members of your university as acceptable, Christian, ethical and collegiate? If you do not, what action and termination of contracts, if any, are you considering for those who engaged in such activities? It is important that we all are reassured that those who have brought serious discredit to DePaul by their machinations against Finkelstein will be held to account for discrediting your university in the eyes of the worldwide academic community, a situation you must be very embarrassed about; or are you?

Dershowitz has falsely and maliciously accused Finkelstein of being anti-Semitic; do you belief that is the case? Can a man who had both his parents whom he deeply loved imprisoned in a Nazi death camp, where they endured great suffering be anti-Semitic? If so, could you explain how you believe that to be the case?

Tell me Father, do you think a man who served in the Nazi Youth can be an anti-Semitic? Of course he may not be, and neither is Finkelstein. Indeed, such a man can lead the Roman Catholic Church. Let us bring this perspective into the debate in the way Christ would have when he walked on earth. Can you engage in such a concept?

Tell me Father, do you think you are a man of justice and integrity? If so, could you please prove it to me and others by giving us some examples of your sense of justice and integrity and how you used those attributes to resolve a critical situation whereby a mans career and life were destroyed?

I look forward to a reply to me letter.

May God bless and guide you.

Regards,

Niall McNamara

The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.
President
DePaul University
1 East Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois 60604-2287

Dear President Holtschneider:

Dr. Norman C. Finkelstein, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at DePaul University, and Dr. Mehrene E. Larudee, assistant professor in the university’s International Studies Program, have each consulted with the American Association of University Professors in connection with their efforts to appeal your decision to deny them tenure. We understand that they are both alleging that that the evaluations of their academic performance were not in accord with the university’s stated policies and procedures and that considerations that violate their academic freedom contributed significantly to the negative decisions.

The Association’s interest in the cases of Professors Finkelstein and Larudee stems, as you know, from our longstanding commitment to academic freedom and tenure, the basic tenets of which are enunciated in the enclosed 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. That document, issued jointly by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, has received the endorsement of more than 200 educational organizations and disciplinary societies. Derivative principles and procedural standards for faculty members in their years of probationary service are set forth in the AAUP’s enclosed Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments. We have noted the pertinent provisions of DePaul University’s Faculty Handbook, in particular the “Evaluation of Faculty” and “Separation” sections.

The provisions in the Association’s Statement on Procedural Standards apply equally both to non-renewals of an appointment and to denials of tenure. Under those provisions a probationary faculty member who wishes to contest a decision against reappointment—including a decision against granting tenure—is entitled to appeal to a representative committee of faculty members not previously involved in the case. When a violation of academic freedom is alleged, as it has been by Professors Finkelstein and Larudee, Regulation 10 of the Association’s enclosed Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure provides for preliminary review of the allegation by an elected faculty body in order to determine whether, in the committee’s judgment, the faculty member has a sufficiently credible case to warrant a hearing of record where “it is incumbent upon those who made the decision against reappointment to come forward with evidence in support of their decision.”

The appeals procedures set forth in the “Separation” section of DePaul University’s Faculty Hand-book appear to track those recommended by the AAUP in the above-cited document, and the two faculty members, we understand, have sought to appeal the decisions to deny them tenure under those procedures. The administration has rejected their requests, however, on grounds that the Faculty Handbook precludes an appeal against a decision by the president to deny tenure, which is deemed to be “final,” and that the appellate procedures called for in the “Separation” section of the handbook are “not applicable to tenure decisions.” We note that this interpretation of the university’s policies, advanced by the university’s general counsel, was rejected by the Faculty Council in a resolution adopted at a specially called meeting on June 13, in which the Council declared that the applicable provisions of the “Separation” section do call for a review procedure to challenge an adverse tenure decision and further declared itself open to consider all requests for a formal review of an adverse tenure and promotion decision according to the criteria and procedures set forth in the Faculty Handbook.

If a right to appeal is not explicitly provided for in the tenure section of the handbook, neither does that right seem to be explicitly proscribed, and we would think that the president could allow for it at his discretion. The administration’s position in this matter is not only inconsistent with generally accepted practice in the academic community. It is also, we gather, inconsistent with prior practice at DePaul; according to the president of the Faculty Council, this right was last exercised in a case in 2005. As an Association investigating committee observed in its published report on another case involving the nonrenewal of an appointment, unless nontenured faculty members who are candidates for retention are afforded an opportunity to prove that the decision to deny them reappointment violated their academic freedom, “the academic freedom assured to nontenured faculty members in a college’s stated policies and in the 1940 Statement has little meaning.” Especially because of the number and intensity of the concerns raised by the cases of Professors Finkelstein and Larudee, we urge that the DePaul administration offer them such an opportunity.

Our information about the cases of Professors Finkelstein and Larudee on which this letter is based has come to us from them and from other faculty sources at DePaul as well as from the extensive public record. We realize, however, that you may have additional information that would contribute to our understanding of what has occurred. We would therefore welcome your comments.

Sincerely,

B. Robert Kreiser
Associate Secretary

BRK:id
Enclosures
cc:
Dr. Helmut P. Epp, Provost
Jose D. Padilla, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel
Dr. Charles S. Suchar, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Anne Clark Bartlett, President, Faculty Council
Professor Gil Gott, Chair, Faculty Governance Council, College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Michael A. McIntyre, Director, International Studies
Program and President, AAUP Chapter
Professor Michael L. Budde, Chair, Department of Political Science
Professor Norman G. Finkelstein
Professor Mehrene E. Larudee

Subject: Vincentian Values and letter of recommendation offer
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:55:58 -0700
To: president@depaul.edu, hepp@depaul.edu
CC: DePaulPresidentsOffice@depaul.edu, eudovic@depaul.edu, cshchar@depaul.edu

Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.
President
DePaul University
June 26, 2007

Dear President Holtschneider;

DePaul University's web page includes the following statement:

DePaul, a Catholic, Vincentian, and urban university, takes its name from Saint Vincent de Paul. The religious community founded by Saint Vincent, commonly known as "Vincentians," established the university and endowed it with a distinctive spirit: to foster in higher education a deep respect for the God-given dignity of all persons, especially the materially, culturally, and spiritually deprived, and to instill in educated persons a dedication to the service of others.

Among the most downtrodden and materially deprived on earth are the Palestinian people. To the great credit of DePaul University, its most distinguished, best known faculty member, Professor Norman Finkelstein, has courageously presented facts surrounding the plight of the Palestinian people, and he has done so with scholarly precision. Ironically, you have chosen to punish Dr. Finkelstein for that reason, through denial of tenure. Equally egregious and indefensible is your denial of tenure to Professor Larudee for daring to speak favorably of Professor Finkelstein's work.

In carrying out these anti-Vincentian misdeeds, you have not only undermined the reputation of DePaul University, you have solidified your place in history alongside other enemies of intellectual inquiry, such as Pope Urban VIII, the persecutor of Galileo.

I strongly urge you to resign your position as president of DePaul University. Consider an alternative career. As warden of Guantanimo Bay Detention Center you could follow your inclinations to exercise ironclad control over speech and inquiry. I would be happy to write a letter of recommendation on your behalf for such a position.

Sincerely,
David Klein
Professor of Mathematics
California State University, Northridge