"I intend to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if need be," says University of Pennsylvania Professor Francisco Gil-White. "College officials must not be allowed to silence those who defend Israel!"
After two months of suspense, the University of Pennsylvania Dean of Arts and Sciences Samuel H. Preston has informed Prof. Francisco Gil-White that his three year contract will not be renewed. In effect, Prof. Gil-White was fired from his job teaching about culture, ethnicity, ethnic conflict and racism. As reported previously by IsraelNN (http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=58314), Gil-White feared he was to be fired for espousing pro-Israel and pro-Serbia views.
Gil-White says his case involves an obvious effort to suppress constitutionally protected speech and he will sue: "Even if we get one dollar. I rebuked U of Penn for paying professional anti-Semite Bill Baker to speak for the Muslim Student Association, and I defended Serbia and then Israel." (See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=2943)
Gil-White says the firing culminates two years of harassment: "When the Directors of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict recruited me to teach at Penn, I was OK because I blamed the Serbs and Israeli Jews for these conflicts. Prof. Douglas Massey described the attempt to silence me when I made public my finding that we were sold misinformation about Kosovo." (See http://www.psych.upenn.edu/%7Efjgil/massey.htm)
"And when I about-faced on Israel," Prof. Gil-White explains, "I was told in writing by Asch Center Director Paul Rozin that I would be 'committing academic suicide' unless I met with him and Prof. Ian Lustick, a top US Intelligence strategist and apologist for the PLO, and changed my views." (See http://www.psych.upenn.edu/%7Efjgil/threat1.htm)
Gil-White says that his website, www.tenc.net, will shortly publish a confidential letter of evaluation instrumental to his firing. According to Gil White, this letter, from Prof. Ian Lustick, "makes it clear as day: I must be suppressed because I have unacceptable positions on Israel, Serbia and Sri Lanka. Please understand, I have published negative research findings about the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army, the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization and the terrorist Tamil Tigers!" (See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=2322)
Gil-White says he has received strong support from many Jews and some Jewish organizations and media, but he also notes that the key players in this firing - Ian Lustick, Paul Rozin and Dean Preston - are Jewish. Preston, and especially Lustick, have publicly attacked Israel: "Lustick boasts of having helped force Israel to accept a Palestinian terrorist state. U of Penn is backing his attack on me. This illustrates my charge that the current wave of anti-Semitism is condoned in high places." (See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=58314)