Tag: Steven Salaita

2700 Scholars Boycott UI; Philosopher Cancels Prestigious Lecture; Salaita Deemed Excellent Teacher; and UI Trustees Meet Again (Updated) (Updated again)

I’m still on vacation and mostly staying offline but I wanted to do a quick update on the Salaita affair. 1. Tomorrow, August 22, the Executive Committee of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet again. The Executive Committee met on Monday, August 18. In an email, Phan Nguyen wrote to me, “According to the listing of BOT Executive Committee meetings on the website, there haven’t been two such meetings held within four days of each other” in quite some time, if ever. But where the Monday meeting agenda explicitly stated that employment and litigation matters would be discussed, the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting specifies no specific topics for discussion. And where Monday’s meeting was listed […]

Breaking: UI Trustees meeting, as we tweet

Away all weekend and offline, but came home to this breaking news: the Executive Committee of the University of Illinois Trustees is meeting, right now (Monday, 2:30 pm), to discuss the following: In closed session, the Executive Committee will consider University employment or appointment-related matters, and pending, probable or imminent litigation against, affecting, or on behalf of the University. I have no idea if this meeting had been previously scheduled or not. And I have no idea if this is in reference to Steven Salaita’s case. You’ll recall that Wise or some other administrator had said that the Trustees weren’t scheduled to meet until September, when they would have been expected to vote on Salaita’s appointment. This would suggest this […]

What is an Employee?

One of the sillier claims defenders of the University of Illinois are making is that the University never hired Salaita because the Board of Trustees never approved of his hire. Yet, as one astute commenter points out here, when the University was first confronted with Salaita’s tweets in the local News-Gazette, on July 22, before Inside Higher Ed made the story national, the university had this to say in defense of Salaita (if you can’t read the quote from the News-Gazette, you can read it in the Inside Higher Ed piece): “Faculty have a wide range of scholarly and political views, and we recognize the freedom-of-speech rights of all of our employees,” Kaler said in response to the tweets. The rights of […]

Top Legal Scholars Decry “Chilling” Effect of Salaita Dehiring

Scholars from law schools at Columbia, Cornell, Berkeley, Georgetown, and other universities have come out with a very strong letter condemning the decision of the University of Illinois to dehire Steven Salaita. Here are some excerpts: As scholars of free speech and constitutional law, we write to express alarm at your decision to revoke a tenured offer of appointment to Professor Steven Salaita to join the American Indian Studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on account of his statements on social media criticizing Israel’s conduct of military operations in Gaza. In our view, the decision to withdraw an appointment to a prospective faculty member because of his statements on a matter of public concern raises serious concerns […]

Over 1500 Scholars to University of Illinois: We Will Not Engage With You!

1. As of 5 pm, 1518 academics have declared that they will not engage with the University of Illinois until it reinstates Steven Salaita. I have the specific details below. But first I wanted to highlight a report that came out yesterday. 2. The indefatigable Phan Nguyen has posted a monumental analysis of Salaita’s tweets and Cary Nelson’s treatment of those tweets. If I didn’t hate the phrase “game-changer” so much, I’d say this is a game-changer. Nguyen shows that Salaita actually has a long history of not only denouncing anti-Semitism in general but also confronting specific instances of it on Twitter. Such as when the rapper Macklemore wore a disguise that was anti-Semitic. Among other statements, Salaita tweeted these […]

New Revelations in the Salaita Affair; Two New Statements of Refusal

The Chicago Tribune filed a public records request with the University of Illinois and has obtained the following revelations: First, Salaita’s offer letter was dated October 3, 2013; he signed it six days later, on October 9. Second, the offer letter, which was signed by the Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, states: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers a wonderfully supportive community, and it has always taken a high interest in its newcomers. I feel sure that your career can flourish here, and I hope earnestly that you will accept our invitation. Third, the job was originally slated to begin in January 2014, but the start date was postponed to August so that Salaita could […]

More Than 275 Scholars Declare They Will Not Engage With University of Illinois

In the last 24 hours, sociologists and scholars of composition and rhetoric have organized two new statements of refusal regarding the Steven Salaita affair. 1. The sociology statement reads as follows: Dear Chancellor Wise: We are members of Sociology departments from around the world who write, regretfully, to inform you that we will not engage with the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as speakers, or as participants in conferences or other events at Illinois, until you rescind the decision to block Professor Steven Salaita’s appointment to the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Many prominent academics have written eloquently about the chilling effect your decision will have on the free expression of […]

Calling all English Professors

Elaine Freedgood, a professor of English at NYU, is organizing a statement of English professors on the Steven Salaita affair. The statement reads as follows: Dear Chancellor Wise: We are members of English Departments from around the world who write, regretfully, to inform you that we will not engage with the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as speakers, as participants in conferences or other events, or as reviewers for the tenure and promotion of your faculty until you rescind the decision to block Professor Steven Salaita’s appointment to the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Many prominent academics have written eloquently about the chilling effect your decision will have on the free […]

Calling All Political Scientists (and Philosophers)

Joe Lowndes, who’s an associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon, is organizing a statement on the Steven Salaita affair. The statement reads as follows: Dear Chancellor Wise: we the undersigned will not visit the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus until Professor Salaita is reinstated to the position offered him by the faculty and which he had accepted in good faith. If you are a political scientist, and you wish to sign the statement, please email Joe at jelowndes@gmail.com. John Protevi, a professor of philosophy at Louisiana State University, is organizing an identical statement for philosophers. If you are a philosopher and you wish to sign the statement, email John at protevi@lsu.edu.

The Cary Nelson Standard of HireFire (Updated) (Updated again)

In his latest interview on the Salaita Affair with Huffington Post, Cary Nelson returns repeatedly to the claim that Salaita is “obsessive” and “obsessive-compulsive” on the topic of Israel and Palestine. Given, as Nelson acknowledges in the interview (indeed, insists on it), that Israel/Palestine is one of Salaita’s areas of academic research, it’s a strange charge to level at a scholar. Imagine any of the following statements: That Einstein fellow: He’s obsessive on this relativity question. Firehire him! That Arendt gal: She’s obsessive-compulsive about the problem of evil. Keeps coming back to it. Dehire her! That Nelson fellow: He’s obsessive about the Salaita fellow. He even says he’s been following Salaita’s tweets for months. Firehire him! Anyone worth her salt […]

A Next Step in the Fight for Steven Salaita?

I don’t have the time to organize this, but it occurs to me that if in every discipline—English, sociology, history, political science, mathematics, and so on—a statement of refusal were organized, stating that its signatories would refuse any invitation to come and speak on any campus of the University of Illinois, that this might be a powerful next step in the campaign to reinstate Steven Salaita. We’ve had a week of letters, emails, phone calls, and a petition, which at last count has more than 11,000 signatures. But the way a campaign works is if pressure grows, if opposition doesn’t remain static but  expands: not just in its numbers but in its modes of expression. So what if in the […]

What Exactly Did Steven Salaita Mean By That Tweet?

Though I don’t think this changes whether or not Steven Salaita should have been dehired, here is my interpretation of that tweet of his that has people, understandably, most upset: “Zionists: transforming ‘anti-Semitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948.” One of the great achievements of the human rights movement of the 20th century is that it made anti-Semitism into a term of universal opprobrium. Anti-Semitism was associated with a terrible animus toward Jews, discrimination, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Kind of like racism after the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Nobody wants to be called a racist, nobody wants to be called an anti-Semite. But today we see three developments: first, Israel and many of its defenders claim […]

Shit and Curses, and Other Updates on the Steven Salaita Affair (Updated)

1. Yesterday, University of Nevada professor Gautam Premnath called the University of Illinois to protest the hirefire of Steven Salaita. A giggly employee in the Chancellor’s office told Premnath that Salaita was “dehired.” 2.Within 24 hours, nearly 8000 people have signed a petition calling on the University of Illinois to reinstate Salata. You should too. While you’re at it, please make sure to email the chancellor, Phyllis Wise, at at pmwise@illinois.edu. Please cc Robert Warrior of the American Indian Studies department (rwarrior@illinois.edu) and the department itself: ais@illinois.edu. 3. This morning, the Chronicle of Higher Ed has a fuller report on the Salaita affair. Among the new facts revealed: First, it was a tenured position that Salaita was offered. Second, the […]

University of Illinois Chancellor Comes out in Favor of Academic Freedom! Oh, wait a minute…

University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise, on December 27, 2013: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign opposes the boycott of Israeli academic institutions and endorses the statement made by the AAU. At Illinois, we value academic freedom as one of our core principles and cherish the critical importance of the ability of faculty to pursue learning, discovery and engagement without regard to political considerations. University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise, on August 6, 2014. Make sure to email Wise, urging her to rescind her rescission of the hiring of Steven Salaita. You can email Wise at pmwise@illinois.edu. Please cc Robert Warrior of the American Indian Studies department at the University of Illinois. His email is rwarrior@illinois.edu. Also cc the department: […]

Another Professor Punished for Anti-Israel Views

Until two weeks ago, Steven Salaita was heading to a job at the University of Illinois as a professor of American Indian Studies. He had already resigned from his position at Virginia Tech; everything seemed sewn up. Now the chancellor of the University of Illinois has overturned Salaita’s appointment and rescinded the offer. Because of Israel. The sources familiar with the university’s decision say that concern grew over the tone of his comments on Twitter about Israel’s policies in Gaza…. For instance, there is this tweet: “At this point, if Netanyahu appeared on TV with a necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children, would anybody be surprised? #Gaza.” Or this one: “By eagerly conflating Jewishness and Israel, Zionists are […]