Defend Professor Robinson

April 22, 2009

Dear Chancellor Yang, Administrators, Deans and Faculty at University of California- Santa Barbara

Like other faculty in the United States and overseas, I learnt of the charges filed against Prof. William Robinson by two students at UCSB with great dismay. I understand also that the Anti-Defamation League has been at the forefront of supporting the students in their endeavor to have Prof. Robinson investigated and sanctioned for circulating articles that were critical of Israel’s horrific attacks on the people of Gaza recently.

I am part of the Middle East Studies Group and Peace Studies at my university (Central Connecticut State University). Our faculty teach courses on issues related to the Middle East as it pertains to the conflicts in the region and efforts to resolve them with justice. We have invited many speakers to our campus who have informed us of the realities on the ground and also expressed their opinions that have ranged across the gamut.

But as soon as a speaker expressed sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people or criticized Israel’s oppression of them over the decades, the local chapter of the ADL and pro-Israeli groups would swing into action. As you must know from your own experience, these groups are very well funded and organized at all levels. It was significantly their efforts that led to the withdrawal of Mr. Charles Freeman as advisor to Adm. Dennis Blair in the administration of President Obama. They have asked universities to deny tenure to faculty who have otherwise met all the standards for that honor, simply because such individuals are labeled as critics of Israel’s harsh occupation of Palestinian land. Such was the persecution of the respected Holocaust and Middle East scholar, Dr. Norman Finkelstein when he was at DePaul University.

In the view of the ADL and its allies, Israel is pristine and can do no wrong. Its image must not only remain unsullied by documented instances of criminal behavior, but it must also get all the economic, military and diplomatic support it demands from the US public. Anyone who dare challenges the myth of its immaculate birth and existence is attacked relentlessly and called “anti-Semitic”, “Holocaust-denier” or “self-hating Jew” (if one happens to be Jewish, as are many critics of Israel here, abroad, in Israel itself). They hope to ostracize and silence critics this way. It is eerily reminiscent of the tactics used in the red-scare when Sen. Joseph McCarthy held sway. The supporters of Israel also attempt to put pressure on administrations and media by suggesting that fund-raising efforts, donations or advertisement revenue might not be forthcoming otherwise.

We have withstood the worst of such unwarranted attacks and have been supported in exercising our academic freedom by our administration and many faculty colleagues.

I urge you and the UCSB community to drop all investigations of Prof. Robinson post-haste. I ask that the attack on Professor Robinson’s academic freedom be publicly condemned. Any further consideration of these attacks will have a chilling effect on the work of the scholars at UCSB and the reverberations will be felt nation-wide.

Sincerely

Dr. Sadanand Nanjundiah

Professor, Physics

Central Connecticut State University

New Britain, CT.