CUNY -- which I and other New Yorkers support with our tax dollars -- won't give Tony Kushner an honorary degree because of his unpopular views on Israel. Unpopular, at least, with one trustee, conservative activist Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, who spearheaded the reversal.
In a rare move, the trustees of the City University of New York have voted to shelve an honorary degree that one of its campuses, John Jay College, planned to award to Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “Angels in America.” The vote on Monday evening came after a CUNY trustee said that Mr. Kushner had disparaged the State of Israel in past comments, a characterization that the writer attacked on Wednesday.
What did Kushner do? Well, his main offense is telling the truth: he pointed out the historical fact that the forced removal of Palestian's during Israel's founding amounted to ethnic cleansing. His other main "transgression" is sitting on the advisory board of Jewish Voices for Peace, which Kushner says, ""defends activists' right to use the full range of BDS tactics." BDS stands for Boycott-Divest-Sanction, a tactic that Kushner himself does not support.
Tony Kushner has responded with a letter published in Jewish Week. Here are the key graphs.
* My questions and reservations regarding the founding of the state of Israel are connected to my conviction, drawn from my reading of American history, that democratic government must be free of ethnic or religious affiliation, and that the solution to the problems of oppressed minorities are to be found in pluralist democracy and in legal instruments like the 14th Amendment; these solutions are, like all solutions, imperfect, but they seem to me more rational, and have had a far better record of success in terms of minorities being protected from majoritarian tyranny, than have national or tribal solutions. I am very proud of being Jewish, and discussing this issue publicly has been hard; but I believe in the absolute good of public debate, and I feel that silence on the part of Jews who have questions is injurious to the life of the Jewish people. My opinion about the wisdom of the creation of a Jewish state has never been expressed in any form without a strong statement of support for Israel's right to exist, and my ardent wish that it continue to do so, something Mr. Weisenfeld conveniently left out of his remarks.
* I believe that the historical record shows, incontrovertibly, that the forced removal of Palestinians from their homes as part of the creation of the state of Israel was ethnic cleansing, a conclusion I reached mainly by reading the work of Benny Morris, an acclaimed and conservative Israeli historian whose political opinions are much more in accord with Mr. Weisenfeld's than with mine; Mr. Morris differs from Mr. Weisenfeld in bringing to his examination of history a scholar's rigor, integrity, seriousness of purpose and commitment to telling the truth.
* I won't enter into arguments about Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people since 1948, about the security fence or the conduct of the IDF, except to say that my feelings and opinions - my outrage, my grief, my terror, my moments of despair - regarding the ongoing horror in the middle east, the brunt of which has been born by the Palestinian people, but which has also cost Israelis dearly and which endangers their existence, are shared by many Jews, in Israel, in the US and around the world.
This Jew, me, shares them. And I find it sickening that the CUNY Trustees buckled under the pressure from Weisenfeld, a former Pataki and D'Amato aid and ally of anti-Muslim bigot Daniel Pipes. According to the New Times, he was the sole Trustee who objected to Kusher, but they voted to deny Kusher the honor.
Weisenfeld is known for dishonest attacks on people who have views that differ from his right-wing "pro-Israel" orthodoxy.
Wiesenfeld has been in the forefront of the attack on academic freedom in 2007. As New York Board Chair of the Stop the Madrassa Coalition, he has joined a group that has repeated baseless charges that a new dual language Arabic English public school, the Kahlil Gibran International Academy, would inevitably become a haven for terrorists and was already a radical “Madrassa” religious school. None of the coalition’s allegations against the school or against the Principal were or are grounded in fact. Nor were the numerous articles in the New York Post or the New York Sun, which linked them to its main web page.
After months of media harassment, the Principal of the Gibran school Debbie Almontaser was hounded out of her position when she was required to be interviewed by the New York Post, with minimal to no protection from the Department of Education. The New York Post demanded to know Ms Almontaser’s views about T-Shirts that a female youth group was selling, which displayed the slogan “Intifada NYC” to indicate Arab empowerment. Despite no direct involvement with the girls group, and despite denouncing any violence, Debbie Almontaser’s efforts to explain the significance of the slogan to the Arab community was distorted in the right wing media and she was forced out by risk averse city officials. She was successfully scapegoated– despite a long career of almost unmatched interfaith dialogue and community-based peace work.
Weisenfeld -- who Pataki named as Trustee in he waning minutes of his tenure -- also teamed up with Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind to block the hiring of a professor whose views, they felt, weren't sufficient right-wing on Israel.
Wiesenfeld, a prominent activist in Jewish and right-wing circles, raised his concerns with CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, he told The Jewish Week...
Wiesenfeld hopes it generates a national dialogue over academic freedom and its abuse by left-wing professors who desire it for themselves and no one else, he told The Jewish Week. “They run a cabal that suppresses the very academic freedom they claim to represent, and the public is wise to it,” as illustrated by the low regard in which academia is held, he said.
Ah yes, Wiesenfeld is a defender of academic freedom.
No one is entitled to a honorary degree, of course. But no one should be denied one for telling the truth or for affiliating with a pro-peace group.
A couple of years ago SUNY-Purchase gave Kushner, the brilliant playwright and committed activist, an honorary degree that it didn't not revoke. Here's Kushner's address to the graduating class. If you've got the time, check it out. You won't be disappointed.
Updated by david mizner at Thu May 05, 2011 at 10:29 AM PDT
Several people have pointed out, quite correctly, that Kushner can do without another honor. But this is important because it's related to the widespread effort to marginalize people with views that depart from conventional opinion on the I/P conflict. (Conventional American opinion, that is; worldwide, Kushner's view are thoroughly conventional.)