And in academic news, Professor Norman Finkelstein has resigned from DePaul University after the two sides agreed on a private settlement. The deal was announced Wednesday just before a scheduled protest against the school’s decision to deny Finkelstein tenure and to cancel his classes this semester. Finkelstein spoke before a crowd of about 125 supporters wearing T-shirts that read “We are all Professor Finkelstein.”

Norman Finkelstein: “I have been recognized as a public intellectual at many of the leading universities in the United States and Europe and have become an internationally recognized scholar in my academic specialties. Based on this record, I should have received tenure. It is now time for me to move on and hopefully find new ways to fulfill my own mission in life of making the world a slightly better place on leaving it than when I entered it.”

As part of the settlement, DePaul issued a statement that described Finkelstein as a “prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher.” Finkelstein has said DePaul’s decision to deny him tenure was a result of political opposition to his speaking out about the Israel-Palestine conflict. For years, Finkelstein has been one of the most prominent critics of the Israeli government in American academia. On Wednesday, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky said: “The whole affair was an utter outrage, a cowardly attack on academic freedom.”