A conference last week at the University of Chicago brought the latest volley in the controversy over academic freedom and protest involving the much-publicized denial of tenure to Norman G. Finkelstein at DePaul University. Finkelstein’s writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what he has termed the “Holocaust industry” have become a lightning rod for debate about American support of Israel.

The Chicago Maroon, an independent student newspaper at the university, reports that Rockefeller Chapel was packed with some 1,500 people to hear such speakers as Noam Chomsky, emeritus MIT professor, Tariq Ali, editor of The New Left Review, John Mearsheimer, the Chicago professor who has stirred controversy with his attack on “the Israel Lobby,” and Tony Judt, the New York University scholar who has come in for his own share of tumult over his criticism of Israel.

The conference was held by a student group, the DePaul Academic Freedom Committee; several Chicago and DePaul programs, centers, and journals; Verso Books, in London; and groups including the American Friends Service Committee and the Jewish Voice for Peace.

According to the Maroon, while academic freedom in America was the broad topic of the meeting (see John K. Wilson at College Freedom for a blogged summary of some of the presentations), nearly all of the speakers also addressed the Finkelstein case. You can listen to the conference at the Academic Freedom Committee’s Web site.