Ashamed by the UC Press's approach to scholarship

Two things came together this weekend:

• Saw the beginning of the debate between Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky on BookTV on CSPAN2. I don't often find myself agreeing with Dershowitz, but I think he's exactly right on his views of Israel. Chomsky was just rambling on incoherently and the captioning wasn't working right on CSPAN, so I got bored and flipped back to football highlights.

• Watched Paper Clips, a phenomenal story about a group of middle-school students in Tennessee trying to visualize just how large six million is. I didn't know much about this project going into it, but about 15 minutes in, I went, "woah", and put away the laptop.

These two items reminded me of a link I saw a few months ago about how an "academic" (I use that term very loosely), Norman G. Finkelstein, who claims that the Holocaust is merely being exploited by American Jews for their own personal benefit. And, more recently, he published a new book called "Beyond Chutzpah: On The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History", from the UC Press.

A sizable portion of his new book published under the UC Press imprint are scurrilous attacks on Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz is more than capable of defending himself, so I won't go into it here.

Yet, what does this have to do with UC Press? It's this - and one of the points that I feel often gets lost in discussions of academic freedom: there is no obligation for a well-respected university to promote heresy or unfounded rantings under the cloak of so-called scholarship.

UC Press tries to shield themselves from criticism under the guise of academic freedom, and yet promotes the controversy in order to increase book sales. The University does indeed have an obligation to the public to present legitimate research. Yet, how is providing a platform for personal attacks research? Do personal feuds now override any requirement of legitimate scholarship? They are selling all of our souls for a hack who isn't worth the time of day.

The imprimatur of the University of California should have exceedingly high standards - one in which, this instance, a prima facie case for excellence can not be made. Let the tabloids or commercial publishing houses print it if they desire, but please don't force legitimate, honest scholarship to share any relationship with this drivel.

Campus Watch has it exactly right when they say:

But all this indicates a far more serious problem, the inability (or
unwillingness) to recognize bad or non-existent scholarship, and worse, to
defend it as merely "controversial." No one in this country is restricting
Norman Finkelstein's free speech, but many people exercise their own free
speech to criticize him, and to criticize the poor judgment shown by
institutions like Georgetown (and University of California Press) which give
him a podium. No one...has a right to speak at a university just because they
have a bunch of degrees. And in fact, no one has a right not to be disinvited.
Universities are supposed to be about judgment, not simply about controversy,
especially cheap controversy.

With their disregard towards what can be considered worthwhile academic research and scholarship, UC Press demonstrates little to merit a continued association with the people of California or the University of California.

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