A Letter from the Religion Department Faculty
Last week, Arthur Butz, a professor at our university, once again asserted the odious lie that the murder of six million Jews in Europe did not happen. His action brings disgrace to Northwestern.
Our university president, Henry Bienen, has issued a powerful denunciation of Butz’s words and deeds while rightly making it clear that the administration must support the legal processes of academic tenure and free speech. It is unfortunate that Butz abuses the institution of tenure so crucial to the pursuit of knowledge. His words damage scholars throughout this country.
While this is not the first time Butz has spread his lies, we think that today’s context is significantly altered. He offers his remarks to support recent comments made by the President of Iran, whose regime displays increasing extremism even as he publicly advocates “wiping cut” the State of Israel. Our academic disciplines remind us of the violent forces people like Butz can unleash, for we know the power that hateful speech can have.
As scholars we must denounce faked data in every context where it surfaces, whether in a lab making false claims about cloning or in a website making counterfeit pronouncements about history.This is not a matter of a professor with unpopular opinions; this is a matter of a professor who has promoted fraud and allied himself with forces of hate.
As members of Northwestern’s faculty, we rise to say clearly: Arthur Butz is a moral and intellectual failure. He is not a scholar, and we do not regard him as a colleague. We look forward to the day when he leaves our university and stops debasing its name.
Sincerely,
The Religion Faculty
George Bond
Rochelle Elstein
Jacob Lessner
Barbara Newman
Rüdiger Seesemann
Sarah McFarland Taylor
Sara Anson Vaux
Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Richard Kieckhefer
Beverly Mortensen
Stuart Sarbacker
Benjamin Sommer
Cristina Traina
Laurie Zoloth
Source: Daily Northwestern, February 13, 2006
Webmaster note: Apparently, the history department has nothing to say to contradict Dr. Butz’ thesis, so the faculty turned the matter over to the appropriate persons in the religious studies department, where so much of traditional Holocaust scholarship belongs.
You gotta love the imagery of Art Butz unleashing violent forces. One hopes, though, that even the signatories of this execrable advertisement realize this is hyperbole.