That is the title of our latest paper, still an ugly work-in-progress, about the revocation of Kurt Gödel’s lectureship by the University of Vienna in 1939. Here is our abstract:

Before Kurt Gödel joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he was an unpaid “private lecturer” at the School of Philosophy of the University of Vienna. He held this position from March 1933 until the spring of 1939, when his lectureship was revoked. By all accounts, Gödel was outraged at this violation of his vested rights, but what deeper lessons might he have learned from this shabby academic affair? This paper is organized as follows: Part 1 surveys Gödel’s brief career at the University of Vienna, explaining how Gödel obtained his lectureship in 1933 and why it was revoked in 1939. Part 2 examines some possible lessons Gödel may have learned from the arbitrary and unjust revocation of his lectureship, while Part 3 considers the possible relation between the revocation of his lectureship and Gödel’s reported discovery of a contradiction in the U.S. Constitution some years later.