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Charges against pro-Palestine professsor in doubt as defence campaign gains ground


Supporters of sociology professor William Robinson at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), facing the charge of anti-semitism for circulating an email juxtaposing images of Nazis atrocities against Jewish people and Israel's oppression of Palestinians, are campaigning hard.

Latest developments have seen the UCSB Academic Senate vote to investigate the mishandling of the Robinson case following the circulation of a petition in support of him among faculty members.

Now the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has demanded that UCSB cease investigation of Robinson:
FIRE – a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that works to protect student and faculty rights at college campuses nationwide – has demanded that the University of California at Santa Barbara cease its investigation of sociology professor William I. Robinson.


Letter from FIRE to Chancellor Yang here

More info: Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB

Background:
Toward the end of February 2009, Sociology and Global Studies Professor William Robinson received notice from the Academic Senate’s Charges Committee that two of his students had filed charges against him. The students alleged that course material Prof. Robinson had circulated to his class via the course listserv, criticizing Israel’s then-ongoing siege on Gaza, comprised anti-Semitism. Professor Robinson also received a letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to this effect. The student complaints (Complaint 1 & Complaint 2) included claims and rationales that exactly mirrored those included in the ADL letter. The course material at issue in the complaints included an editorial written by a Jewish journalist condemning Israel’s invasion of Gaza and images of the bloody consequences of the siege on Gaza juxtaposed with congruent images from Nazi concentration camps in the 1930s (a not uncommon understanding of Israel-Palestine relations, as this 2003 Haaretz article and recent ADBUSTERS piece demonstrates). Alleging that the circulation of this course material caused them to drop his class, the students in their complaints claimed the subject of the email was not relevant to the course. The course title was “Sociology of Globalization” and the course curriculum covered contemporary, global conflicts and struggles. more

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