Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Old August 15th, 2008 #1
Mike Parker
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 3,311
Default Norman Davies (U.S.)

SCHOLAR SAYS HIS VIEWS ON JEWS COST HIM A POST AT STANFORD

By ROBERT LINDSEY, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: March 13, 1987

LEAD: A lawsuit by a British scholar who contends he was denied a professorship because Jewish faculty members considered his work ''insensitive'' toward Jews and ''unacceptably defensive'' of Polish gentiles in World War II has raised unusual issues of academic freedom at Stanford University.

A lawsuit by a British scholar who contends he was denied a professorship because Jewish faculty members considered his work ''insensitive'' toward Jews and ''unacceptably defensive'' of Polish gentiles in World War II has raised unusual issues of academic freedom at Stanford University.

In the suit Norman Davies, a 47-year-old historian at the University of London, is seeking up to $9 million in damages from the university, four professors, three administrators and a graduate student for what he calls fraud, misrepresentation, breach of contract, discrimination and defamation.

According to court records, Mr. Davies, whose books on Polish history have been widely praised in the United States and abroad, was chosen unanimously by a faculty search committee early last year for a $70,000-a-year professorship at Stanford. But the appointment was rejected by a 12-to-11 vote of the history faculty.

Mr. Davies's lawsuit contends that the vote was based not on bona fide academic criteria but on a ''conspiracy'' to deny him the position ''because of political views plaintiff had expressed in his written publications with respect to Poland, the Soviet Union and the teaching of Polish and Soviet history which such defendants believed, among other things, to be insensitive to people of the Jewish faith and unacceptably defensive of the behavior of the Polish people, particularly during the German occupation of Poland in World War II.''

One of the defendants in the suit, James N. Rosse, the Stanford provost, has advised Mr. Davies that his purported ''insensitivity'' toward Jews was raised at the time his appointment was rejected, but Mr. Rosse said additional factors had also been considered and that no ''inappropriate criteria'' played a part in the rejection.

Other defendants in the case have declined to comment on the lawsuit. Several history faculty members said they had agreed not to discuss the matter publicly. The case has divided the Stanford community.

''People are frightened to speak up about this,'' asserted Ronald Hilton, emeritus professor of humanities. ''Davies is not anti-Semitic; his reputation for fairness is recognized internationally.''

One history professor, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said: ''It's hard for the public to understand how faculty selections are made. All sorts of things can be properly taken into consideration when you decide how to vote. The people who voted against Davies had every right to, whatever their reason.''

Besides raising issues of academic freedom, the lawsuit has had the indirect effect of reopening a debate over the attitudes and behavior of Polish gentiles in World War II.

Mr. Davies, the author of ''God's Playground: A History of Poland,'' ''Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland,'' and other works, has often been called the leading historian on Poland in the West. Writing in The New York Times Book Review in December 1984, Zygmunt Nagorski, the Polish-born director of the Center for International Leadership, which trains corporate executives, called ''Heart of Europe'' a ''masterpiece.''

But some Jewish writers and historians contend that many of Mr. Davies's characterizations of events in Poland in World War II are wrong.

In ''God's Playground,'' published in 1981, Mr. Davies wrote that while Jews experienced considerable discrimination in Poland before the war, other ethnic groups and social classes also suffered from the effects of discrimination and that conditions facing Jews were ''nothing exceptional.''

Most controversial has been Mr. Davies's characterization of the behavior of Polish gentiles in the war. Mr. Davies said some Jewish scholars and writers ''have spread the view that the Poles actually rejoiced at the fate of the Jews or at best were indifferent 'bystanders' '' to the Holocaust.

Disputing this view, Mr. Davies asserts that the Nazi occupation force terrorized all Poles.

Some Jewish writers have accused Mr. Davies of being an ''apologist'' for Polish collaborators with the Nazis.

Writing in the March issue of Commentary, a journal published by the American Jewish Committee, the writer Lucy S. Dawidowicz says Mr. Davies ''is noted for his virtuosity in erasing Polish anti-Semitism from the history books he writes,'' and has ''peppered'' some of his writing ''with anti-Semitic tidbits.''

Reached by telephone in London, where he said he was recuperating from pneumonia, Mr. Davies declined to discuss the case beyond saying that he ''absolutely'' denied being anti-Semitic.

Correction: March 22, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...50C0A961948260
 
Old August 15th, 2008 #2
Bassanio
Hath not a Goy eyes?
 
Bassanio's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Venice
Posts: 4,287
Blog Entries: 6
Default

Quote:
In ''God's Playground,'' published in 1981, Mr. Davies wrote that while Jews experienced considerable discrimination in Poland before the war, other ethnic groups and social classes also suffered from the effects of discrimination and that conditions facing Jews were ''nothing exceptional.''

Most controversial has been Mr. Davies's characterization of the behavior of Polish gentiles in the war. Mr. Davies said some Jewish scholars and writers ''have spread the view that the Poles actually rejoiced at the fate of the Jews or at best were indifferent 'bystanders' '' to the Holocaust.

Disputing this view, Mr. Davies asserts that the Nazi occupation force terrorized all Poles.

Good God! How dare he! Lock him up! Off with his head!


(Soon breathing will be considered anti-Semitic.)
__________________
The Goy cries out in ecstasy as the Jew strikes him.
 
Reply

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:42 PM.
Page generated in 0.29715 seconds.