DB: We're just down the block from the University of California, Berkeley, and there they have honored a professor named John Yoo with a special chair. And he wrote, essentially, the torture justifications for the Bush administration. And he's promoted. He's got his own life chair now. At first they had to hide where his classes were because there were so many protests. There really does seem to be a dual standard in this country ... and on the university campus.
SS: Oh, absolutely. And this certainly didn't start with me. ... Just even in the case of Palestine and Israel. There have been so many people who have been fired or who haven't been tenured or who faced public scrutiny. Or in many cases, who have never been hired in the first place....
But even before that, the suppression of African-Americans, of indigenous peoples, of queers -- of any sort of deviant body or deviant idea -- has a longstanding history. And what I think the distinction comes down to, more than anything, is whether your speech is critical of the exercise of state power or whether it reinforces or supplements the practices of state power. And if you fall into the latter category, like John Yoo, then you get rewarded.
DB: You know somebody who teaches at the University of Illinois, Urbana Law School is Francis Boyle.
SS: Yes.
DB: Who was, among other things, a representative for the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] at various peace talks. And has represented them in various potential cases of crimes against humanity, human rights. Any of the other professors there, at the university, speaking out? Or maybe they haven't even heard about it.
SS: Tons of professors at that university are speaking out. There's been a huge group of faculty and graduate students and community members who have spoken out as Jews, specifically as Jews, saying that the university is totalizing this as Proto-Zionists and invoking a particular ethnic heritage for nefarious purposes that [they] don't want to be implicated in or involved with.
A lot of faculty, especially those in ethnic studies units have spoken out. But really across the humanities and social sciences there's been uniform condemnation. It seems to be at the center of campus life this semester.
DB: It's not exactly a precedent as you say, this happens all the time. I can tell you that ... every time we get a new manager [here at KPFA] the Israeli Consulate shows up at the station and they start talking about "If you can just get rid of that Bernstein guy..." In fact, I always have to regularly check my Wikipedia. And it just so happens on the Flashpoints Wikipedia this weekend one of our key contributors, an editor with the Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman is ... all of a sudden there's a write up there that "Flashpoints is a radical program with a radical anti-semite." And this is on and on. My Wikipedia looks like a slash and burn because of the level and intensity of the attacks.
And sometimes you have to threaten to sue these folks to bring down what is an obvious conjecture and obvious lie. It's hard to imagine how they can make a case after such a vetting and a hire with tenure a professor. It would seem to me that there would need to be some kind of civil rights action. Any grounds for that, any exploration on that front?
SS: Yeah. I'm being represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which is a terrific organization with really smart attorneys. And they are definitely exploring all of these options. And what you say has happened to you and continues to happen to you is, I think, common for a lot of folks who speak ... in even hushed support of the Palestinians ... or even mild criticism of the Israeli government.
I think that with my case, people are seeing this as an opportunity to say "Enough! Enough of going to such extraordinary lengths to shut down democratic institutions, and democratic participation, in the service of shielding a colonial nation state from criticism that it so richly deserves."
DB: But the attackers are fully defended, they're allowed to say just about anything you can ... the e-mails that I get sound something like "Bernstein, if you're lucky, maybe one day one of your Palestinian friends will slit your throat, Daniel Pearl style, and then you'll learn something about why it's important to not be a self-hating Jew." They can almost say anything, anywhere and this includes major journalists....
SS: Exactly.That comes out of the dynamics of a particular American racism. Those who speak in support of Palestine constantly have to avow their humanity. So in order to even be heard, to even raise our voices, we have to proclaim that we're not anti-semitic, we have to disavow violence, we have to condemn Hamas. There's a whole list of things that we have to do, in order to be able to speak in the first place. But those who support Israel never, ever have to disavow themselves of anti-Arab racism. So they occupy the normative position.
DB: If you had a moment to address the writer who wrote that vague letter that unhired you, what would you want to tell them?
SS: I would say that universities are not actually corporate marketplaces and that we cannot conduct hiring and firing based on the desires of donors. If we are going to walk down that road then the university as we know it in the United States will cease to exist and by caving into the outside donor pressure you have set a horrible precedent and you have abdicated your responsibilities to look out for the best interest of the campus, the faculty and the students.
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