Steven Salaita, an academic whose contract for tenured professorship was abruptly terminated by the University of Illinois board of trustees last September for tweets critical of Israel, has filed a lawsuit against the university’s administrators and unnamed donors. Salaita’s attorneys and the Center for Constitutional Rights commenced the lawsuit this morning in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The lawsuit seeks his reinstatement as well as compensatory and punitive damages. Salaita’s complaint invokes both the U.S. Constitution and the university’s bylaws to allege violations of his free speech and due process rights along with claims for breach of contract, conspiracy, and destruction of evidence.
The lawsuit included as defendants “John Doe Unknown Donors to the University of Illinois,” because the suit alleges that threats from influential donors to withhold future contributions were central to Salaita’s dismissal.
Salaita, author of six books, was teaching on the faculty of Virginia Tech in 2013. He then accepted a position as a tenured professor of Native American studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign campus on October 3, 2013 and was scheduled to begin teaching the following fall. He and his wife both resigned from their positions and prepared to move to Illinois.
On August 2, 2014, he received a letter from University Chancellor Phyllis Wise and Vice President Christophe Pierre stating that his appointment would “not be recommended by for submission to the Board of Trustees in September,” a process that is typically done en masse and was widely understood as a formality.
The sudden and unexpected reversal was a response to tweets Salaita had written that were critical of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, a bloody, 50-day military campaign in the Gaza Strip in which, according to the UN, 2,131 Palestinians were killed, along with 71 Israelis (all but five of whom were soldiers).
Salaita’s multiple tweets were highlighted in an article in the conservative outlet, The Daily Caller. The University board of trustees then convened an unusual session on July 24 to discuss the tenor of Salaita’s tweets and his position at the university and, on September 11, voted 8-to-1 to reject his appointment.
In a public statement, Chancellor Wise said:
The decision regarding Prof. Salaita was not influenced in any way by his positions on the conflict in the Middle East nor his criticism of Israel. Our university is home to a wide diversity of opinions on issues of politics and foreign policy. […] What we cannot and will not tolerate at the University of Illinois are personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them.
Critics of the decision allege that Salaita was not fired to maintain “civility,” but due to outside pressure in response to his criticism of Israel. Students and faculty at UIUC and many prominent scholars have risen to his defense in protests, formal complaints, and boycotts of the university.
In an August 7 statement, the American Association of University Professors wrote:
Whether one finds these views attractive or repulsive is irrelevant to the right of a faculty member to express them. Moreover, the AAUP has long objected to using criteria of civility and collegiality in faculty evaluation because we view this as a threat to academic freedom. It stands to reason that this objection should extend as well to decisions about hiring, especially about hiring to a tenured position.
Last November, Salaita filed a Freedom of Information Request to uncover internal communications related to his dismissal. Those documents revealed that pressure from students, alumni, and influential pro-Israel donors are at the root of his dismissal.
Salaita’s dismissal, the lawsuit alleges, directly contravenes the university’s own Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and “General Terms of Employment for Academic Staff Members.”
Since the board’s decision, Professor Salaita has remained unemployed, but his cause has been taken up in activist, free speech, and certain academic circles, where his termination is seen as the latest in a long line of cases where Israel critics are punished or even fired.
Photo: Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/MCT/Getty
My instinct tells me that this whole grotesque event is the direct consequence of the Big Money stranglehold on public universities. My experience as professor in a large and prestigious state university for over 25 years is that indeed what used to be the university of the people of the state has become the university for the merchants of the nation. These merchants do not accept criticism nor they care about human rights, speech rights, academic freedom. They care about having a chancellor/board of regents subservient to their power so that their investment in intelligence, which they buy cheap and gives back great dividends. Of course, the intelligence here is assumed to be concerned only with increasing the dividends and not with such mundane things as the wars in the middle east. I have seen my university progressively transform from a decent public to an indecent private institution. I haven’t left because other public universities have fared no much better, and I have no other skills than to be a professor. State university administrators have become minions of the big money types, who come around occasionally to give commencement speeches filled of canned platitudes and lachrymose prose, and to make sure that the chancellor et al. are all in good standing as their minions. It used to be that the chancellor of our university was an intellectual leader. No more…today all they know is fund raising and obedience to their masters. These university leaders are chosen by the big money among those who have proven to be great salesperson, are system-docile, tame, and can lie to their faculty’s faces without blinking. Experts all in deception. Case in point, look how they are lying through their teeth in the scandal over student-athletes and how, following the orders of the NFL and other such corrupt organizations, they have ignominiously punished the few honest, brave whistleblowers that still remain among us.
Is a total disgrace that the merchants are the owners of the temple, but this is what they have fought so hard and for so long to do, namely control the future pillars of the system, so that the system as they like it is preserved and survives the attacks of those free individuals who are the only hope for our students.
The Issue Americans cannot understand and refuse to understand is that AMERICA WAS BUILT ON STOLEN LAND!!!! CHICAGO is a native word you ignoramuses do not know!!!!! You morons or educated Americans do not know the history of your own country. You IDIOTS cannot even spell ILLINOIS properly!!!! Do you know that it has a French pronunciation???? Are you so ignorant of history?? Do you know of the ILLINIWECK YOUR WASP ANCESTORS EXTERMINATED so you can now be so lefty and pompous???? You descend from murderers, rapists and land thieves!!! Furthermore on June 05 1967 Jordan attacked Israel. Jordan lost. It took Israel two hours to take over the land. The rule of war is that the winner takes all they want. Even if the winner is a Jew!!!
Blah blah: “What we cannot and will not tolerate at the University of Illinois are personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them.” And that’s why we FIRE THOSE WHO EXPRESS THEM. Makes sense. Firing someone for expressing their viewpoint is an excellent means of demeaning and abusing both the person and the viewpoint. Bureaucrats can only breathe the air of hypocrisy. It’ all they’re fit for.
Thirty-four department heads at the University of Illinois-Champagne-Urbana sent the following open letter last December to the incoming, new chancellor. My emphasis. The fall-out from the Salaita debacle has been extensive and severe.
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December 2, 2014
Dear Dr. Killeen,
As executive officers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, we would like to congratulate you on your new position. We look forward to working with you to keep the University of Illinois at the forefront of public research institutions of higher learning. We also recognize, however, that you will be taking the helm of the university at an especially difficult and crucial point in its history. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to address the particular challenges presented by recent events on our own campus and steps that you might take to help in healing divisions and moving both UIUC and the entire university system forward.
The recent words and actions of senior officials in connection with the decision to revoke an offer of a tenured position in American Indian Studies to Dr. Steven Salaita have done genuine damage to the university, and especially to the Urbana-Champaign campus, that remains largely unrecognized outside of the affected units. The program in American Indian Studies has itself obviously suffered the most as the result of the administration’s actions, but the harm to other units is also significant and ongoing. Representatives of the American Anthropological Association, the American Comparative Literature Association, the American Historical Association, the American Philosophical Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Studies Association, and the Modern Languages Association, among others, have issued strongly worded statements or letters critical of the university. More than 5,000 academics from across the country and around the world have expressed their disapproval by boycotting UIUC. More than three-dozen scheduled talks and multiple conferences across a variety of disciplines – including, for example, this year’s entire colloquium series in the Department of Philosophy – have already been canceled, and more continue to be canceled, as outside speakers have withdrawn in response to the university’s handling of Dr. Salaita’s case. The Department of English decided to postpone a program review originally scheduled for spring 2015 in anticipation of being unable to find qualified external examiners willing to come to campus. Tenure and promotion cases may be affected as faculty at peer institutions consider extending the boycott to recommendation letters.
Most troubling of all, the ability of many departments to successfully conduct faculty searches, especially at the senior level, has been seriously jeopardized. While the possible negative effects on even junior searches remain to be seen, the Department of History has already abandoned a previously authorized senior search in U.S. history this year in recognition of the bleak prospects of attracting suitable applicants in the current climate. An open rank search in Philosophy attracted 80% fewer applicants at the rank of associate or full professor than a senior search in the same area of specialization just last year. We have long been proud of the University of Illinois’ ability to maintain and extend its excellence through the recruitment of the very best scholars in the world. In many disciplines, however, we cannot hope to recruit excellent senior faculty to this campus, or to retain many of those already here, when they can no longer trust that this university will honor the principles of faculty decision-making, free speech, and freedom to conduct research.
To date, the fallout from the Salaita decision has been felt most acutely in programs throughout the humanities and social sciences, but even more widespread consequences for UIUC may also be on the horizon. In advance of the final decision by the Board of Trustees not to approve Dr. Salaita’s appointment, the Associate Secretary of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Dr. Anita Levy, sent a letter on behalf of that organization to Chancellor Wise. The letter warned that “[a]borting an appointment in this manner without having demonstrated cause has consistently been seen by the AAUP as tantamount to summary dismissal, an action categorically inimical to academic freedom and due process.” An independent investigation of the Salaita case by the AAUP and a recommendation by its Committee A on Academic Freedom to place UIUC on the “Censure List” of institutions where “unsatisfactory conditions of academic freedom and tenure have been found to prevail” seems increasingly likely. The harmful effects of a formal censure by the AAUP, a rebuke with very few precedents for an institution of our size and stature, would be felt far more widely across the entire campus than any of the current boycotts or the criticisms already registered by other professional associations and individuals. As the next president of the University of Illinois, it is imperative that you do everything possible to ensure UIUC’s reputation and good standing among major research universities.
The concerns raised by the university’s handling of Dr. Salaita’s case fall into two broad categories: (1) concerns about academic freedom and free speech generally, and (2) concerns about shared governance and well-established protocols for hiring, promotion, and tenure.
The first set of concerns extends well beyond possible infringements on Dr. Salaita’s own freedom of expression or academic freedom. In attempting to provide justification for the decision to revoke the job offer to Dr. Salaita, Chancellor Wise and the Board of Trustees, joined by President Easter, among other university officials, issued statements on academic freedom that were both expansive and troubling. Chancellor Wise’s statement, originally sent as a massmail to the university community, included the following paragraph:
What we cannot and will not tolerate at the University of Illinois are personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them. We have a particular duty to our students to ensure that they live in a community of scholarship that challenges their assumptions about the world but that also respects their rights as individuals.
The Board of Trustees and President Easter went even further in their own massmail, which followed immediately upon that of Chancellor Wise. In it, they wrote:
The University of Illinois must shape men and women who will contribute as citizens in a diverse and multicultural democracy. To succeed in this mission, we must constantly reinforce our expectation of a university community that values civility as much as scholarship. Disrespectful and demeaning speech that promotes malice is not an acceptable form of civil argument . . . There can be no place for that in our democracy, and therefore, there will be no place for it in our university.
On their face, such sweeping claims are directly at odds with the AAUP’s own declarations on academic freedom, to which the University of Illinois professes to subscribe. The statements in these massmails from senior university leaders make no distinction between the context of Dr. Salaita’s termination and university policy toward prospective hires or current employees. Nor do these statements distinguish between extramural and professional contexts. Unqualified proclamations to the effect that “we will not tolerate … disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves [sic] or those who express them” or that “there will be no place … in our university” for allegedly objectionable speech raise the chilling prospect of new restrictions on the free expression of all university employees in the name of “civility.”
We certainly agree that university employees should, to paraphrase the AAUP’s “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” remember their special obligations to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, to show respect for others’ opinions, and to make it clear that they speak as individuals and not for either their institution or their profession at large. When members of the university community fail to fulfill these obligations, it is entirely appropriate for administrators to attempt to distance the institution from any offending statements and to reemphasize the values of tolerance, inclusion, and civility. But university employees must ultimately remain free from the threat of either institutional censorship or discipline for the exercise of free speech.
Beyond raising serious concerns about academic freedom and free speech, the decision to revoke Dr. Salaita’s offer of employment clearly violated fundamental principles of shared governance and long-established protocols at UIUC related to hiring, promotion, and tenure. An offer of a tenured appointment at the university comes only at the end of a long and thorough process. It involves soliciting external letters of evaluation from recognized experts in the relevant field and reviews at multiple levels by committees constituted for precisely this purpose. After being identified as the best candidate in a national search, Dr. Salaita’s tenure file was reviewed and approved first by a committee from his proposed home unit, American Indian Studies, and subsequently by separate committees at the level of both the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) and the entire UIUC campus. The latter committee in Dr. Salaita’s own case notably included the chair of the campus committee on promotion and tenure, the dean of the graduate college, the provost, the vice chancellor for research, and even Chancellor Wise herself. At every level of review, the appointment met with approval.
In stark contrast to this rigorous process of academic review, the initial decision not to forward Dr. Salaita’s appointment to the Board of Trustees was taken without consulting relevant faculty and academic officials in the university regarding the merits of the case. Respect for the expertise and judgment of academic officials, and especially of relevant disciplinary faculty, in assessing the qualifications of candidates for academic positions or promotions is a pillar of shared governance. And yet not a single faculty member in American Indian Studies or official in the LAS Dean’s Office was made aware of the decision to revoke the offer to Dr. Salaita, or even that such an option was under consideration, until after Chancellor Wise had sent him a letter on August 1 announcing it. Despite repeated expressions of regret at her acknowledged lack of proper consultation, Chancellor Wise also made no effort to correct this serious failure at any time prior to the September 11 meeting of the Board of Trustees, at which both she and President Easter urged the Board to formally reject Dr. Salaita’s appointment.
We the undersigned executive officers believe deeply in the mission of the University of Illinois and in the integrity of its faculty. As scholars and as leaders, we also believe in the principles of free academic speech, and in a shared process of academic decision-making. We ask you as the next president of this university to demonstrate your own belief in these same ideals by explicitly and emphatically reaffirming the university’s commitment to an understanding of academic freedom and free speech that accords with AAUP policy statements on the subject, and to fundamental principles of shared governance, including the need for academic appointments to be made in consultation with relevant academic officials and on the basis of academic qualifications. Such actions on your part would help send a strong message to our concerned colleagues across the nation and around the world that the University of Illinois remains committed to the values that help define a distinguished institution of higher learning.
Sincerely,
Signatories:
Matthew Ando, Chair, Department of Mathematics
Ronald Bailey, Head, Department of African American Studies
Thomas Bassett, Director, LAS Global Studies
Merle Bowen, Director, Center for African Studies
Matti Bunzl, Director, Program in Jewish Culture and Society
Antoinette Burton, Interim Head, Department of Sociology
David Cooper, Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
Jane Desmond, Director, International Forum for US Studies
Stephanie Foote, Chair, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies
Gregory Girolami, Head, Department of Chemistry
Dara Goldman, Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Dianne Harris Director, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
Valerie Hoffman, Director, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Jonathan Inda, Chair, Department of Latina/Latino Studies
Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, Head, Department of Theatre
Lilya Kaganovsky, Director, Program in Comparative and World Literature
Marcus Keller, Head, Department of French and Italian
Diane Koenker, Chair, Department of History
Edward Kolodziej, Director, Center for Global Studies and Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security
Susan Koshy, Director, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Sara McLafferty, Head, Geography & Geographic Information Science
Jean-Philippe Mathy, Director, School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics
Andrew Orta, Head, Department of Anthropology
David Price, Head, Department of Religion
Junaid Rana, Acting Head, Department of Asian American Studies
Jesse Ribot, Director, Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy Initiative
Michael Rothberg, Head, Department of English
D. Fairchild Ruggles, Interim Head, Department of Landscape Architecture
Kirk Sanders, Chair, Department of Philosophy
Douglas Simpson, Chair, Department of Statistics
Anna Westerstahl Stenport, Director, European Union Center
Robert Warrior, Director, American Indian Studies Program
Charles Wright, Director, Program in Medieval Studies
Gary Xu, Head, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
The letter raises some important and valid points about fair process at academic institutions. However, I also notice that it details what could be called a worldwide organized campaign of pressure to derail a decision of the university, which sounds rather similar to the complaint being made against the opponents of Prof. Salaita’s hiring, except that it’s actually larger in scope. I do, though, appreciate the distinction apparently being made about what truly constitutes a university – its stakeholders engaging in fair, deliberative processes, or the highest administrative levels overruling the results of those processes.
Yes but the reasons are not venal and narrowly partisan. Some of these individuals disagree with Steven Salaita, some of them strongly. But as academics they have a stake in upholding free speech and academic freedom.
Moreover, they are very public in their opposition. The donors who threatened to withhold support have not been. (The litigation, however, will likely expose them.)
Barry
By comparing the corrupt behavior with the letter that tries to “derail” a decision that harms the university and that violated the deliberative process you are showing the same mentality as those who are being sued.
altophone,
As I think you can see, I’m both comparing and contrasting. I hope you’re not suggesting that people not try to see both sides of this debate, or of any debate, for that matter. A position is stronger (and more just) when it’s reached after considering both sides. And pointing out a potential weakness in one side’s position is not the same as advocating for the other side.
Barry
The “contrasting” doesn’t absolve you of the bogus “comparison”.
You aren’t presenting “both sides”, you are equating the unjust with the just.
Nor are you “pointing out a weakness” to improve the debate, but rather trying to advocate for one side by making this false “comparison”, and then denying what you are clearly doing.
As I think you can see, I’m not suggesting here.
altohone (sorry for the earlier misspelling)
What you’re clearly saying, then, is that I should censor myself, which, since we’re being frank here, is a stupid thing to say in a discussion on free speech. You think that one side is just and the other side is unjust, so the unjust side should just shut up. And it’s all black and white to you, so if I say anything in favor of the unjust side, then I must be on the unjust side.
I read The Intercept in the hope that the people behind it are smarter than that, because your one-sided way of looking at things doesn’t capture the world as it really is, and it therefore doesn’t prepare me to deal with it. Moreover, I think that the people directly involved in this controversy would do well to listen to nuanced debate of the issues, because as best as I can see, people on both sides have been making mistakes, if not in principle, then certainly in tactics. (Not necessarily in fighting pressure with pressure, but in other ways, like jeopardizing a lifetime platform at a respected university by being needlessly provocative before one’s tenure is formally approved.) But I guess that to some people like you, I’m just being disingenuous, so you’ll go back to your world where things are clear cut and people who make arguments are just trying to confuse you.
To clarify, I’m not suggesting that Salaita should have remained silent in the face of mass murder. I’m just saying that he could have gotten his message across just fine for his purposes without crossing certain lines. Zionists still wouldn’t have liked him, but they would have had a tougher time stopping his appointment. And his appointment was the big prize here, because it would have given him more influence as a Palestinian advocate than he had had at his last job. This type of reasoning may not sit well with free-speech absolutists, but I think it does more to help the Palestinian cause.
Barry
Actually, that is not what I was clearly saying.
The response to the incident isn’t one of the “sides” of the debate about the incident. thus your “comparison” that conflates the two is bogus… and only someone defending the unjust firing would make it… which coincidentally happens to be the obvious trend in your “impartial” comments… nothing “nuanced” about it. Your belief that your comments are “in favor” of the pro-firing side, doesn’t mean they actually are.
Similarly, you may falsely believe that pointing out the atrocious actions of the Israelis is a “needlessly provocative tactic”, when it is necessary but not provocative.
In any case, you can argue with your strawman all you like, if you think it serves your position.
Personally, I think putting words into my mouth instead of responding to what I actually wrote doesn’t serve you well at all… much like the insults.
You are free to believe differently.
But, yes, I do think the firing was unjust, like those who sent the letter. the professor, his lawyers, and many others.
You are of course free to try to defend the firing, and free to deny that you are trying to do so..
But I’m not buying your denial.
I hope my opinion helps to prepare you for the world as it actually is.
Barry
As to your clarification which wasn’t posted until after I responded, I agree it was necessary, as my previous comment says.
I don’t agree that Salaita “crossed certain lines” though.
Those lines you imagine exist have been preventing honest debate for years.
Most of the American media has failed us by not only operating as if they exist, but by refusing to even come close to them.
Had Salaita watered down his tweets to the point where they would be considered “acceptable” by the current media standards that actually encourage the anti-Palestinian status quo, it would have been a disservice to the interests of Palestinians, Israelis and Americans.
I also don’t think his new position would have improved his ability to advocate for Palestinians, and I doubt he took the job for that reason, but I haven’t seen any comments from him on the matter so it’s not impossible.
altohone
I agree that the mainstream media is way too uncritical of the Israeli position, and I’m not advocating accepting the media’s limits on what can and can’t be said about Israel and Palestine. However, even Salaita says in one of the tweets in question, “You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not:…” That’s the line the leaders of UIUC claim to be concerned with, not the media’s limits. By toeing that line until he had gotten formal approval of tenure, he would have deprived his critics of their main argument against him, at least the argument being used in public. From what the lawyers here are saying, I gather there’s no legal validity to that line, and on reflection I can see all sorts of problems with trying to enforce such a line consistently and fairly. But politically, that line is real, and rightly or wrongly, academic hiring and tenure have a lot to do with politics. So I imagine that even among the people who are trying to get him rehired, who completely agree with his position on Palestine, and who are absolutists on free speech, some may be wishing in private that he had chosen his words differently during that particular time period, so that they could have avoided this fight.
As for whether Salaita saw the job at UIUC as a better bully pulpit than his former job at Virginia Tech, I don’t know, but I suspect that it would be. He’d be a professor in a field of indigenous studies, rather than an English professor, and he’d be at a school where I’m guessing the humanities have a lot more influence.
Finally, it’s not normally my style to attack or insult people, but I did get the distinct impression that I was being attacked myself.
Blaming the victim.
He didn’t cross any lines that are not allowed to be crossed. The last thing anyone should want is milquetoast professors. A bunch of Zionists, acting behind the scenes, led a campaign to destroy his career on the disingenuous basis that Salaita lacks “civility.” That is infinitely more offensive than anything Steven Salaita tweeted.
I don’t know that I want a professor who remains cool and civil in the face of what we saw in picture and film coming out of Gaza last summer. But regardless, academics have the right to state their politics as they please without fear of it serving as the basis for losing a job at a state university.
More like self-defense training than blaming the victim. Yes, people have the legal and moral right to do all sorts of things that might get them in trouble, and the people who commit crimes against them are no less to blame and the victims are no more to blame if the crimes could have been prevented by the victims. But many people still prefer to choose their battles, rather than having unwanted battles thrust upon them by preventable circumstances.
Barry
We seem to agree on some things and disagree on others, which is to be expected.
I happen to disagree that Salaita’s “critics” have any business interfering with his employment. So when you say he could have deprived them of their “main argument”, you seem to be saying their interference was justified. Again, I disagree. There’s a reason why the hiring process doesn’t have a procedure that gives donors a veto.
“Rightly or wrongly” also seems to suggest that those who believe that there is an open season to deny jobs to anyone critical of Israel may possibly be right is just sad. In my opinion, it’s all “wrongly”. If that’s really how far we have fallen, then the last thing the supporters of Salaita and anyone else facing pressure from these “critics” should want is “avoiding this fight”. Taking it to court and hitting them in the pocketbook may be the best way to put an end to this corruption.
It’s a shame that the jobs of the chancellor and trustees aren’t on the line in the legal case too. You would think that caving to the “pressure” as you put it or allowing themselves to be corrupted by the bribery as I would put it would be sufficient evidence that they are unfit for their positions.
Not sure what you perceived as an “attack” that justifies insults, but it really only bothers me in how it reduces the effectiveness of your arguments. I am thankful the moderation here tolerates it though, because misperceptions or inaccurate interpretations of what is written all too often spell the end of otherwise interesting conversations on other sites.
altohone,
You’re right that my use of the phrase “rightly or wrongly” was inappropriate. I don’t support weighing someone’s political opinions in hiring and tenure decisions.
After listening to the arguments here, I oppose Salaita’s dehiring (if that’s a word), although I think he opened himself up to legitimate criticism with some of his tweets. What form that criticism should have taken is another matter. Using financial pressure to get people to do your bidding is nasty business. However, it does happen, as does pressure from people who aren’t donors. I don’t think it’s a good idea to ignore it just because it shouldn’t happen, anymore than it’s a good idea to ignore one’s safety when walking alone at night, just because people shouldn’t be mugged or raped. So, to me the question is how to stick to one’s principles while still staying in the fight. Just as I refuse to be scared into staying off the streets at night, I wouldn’t want to be scared into remaining silent in the face of mass murder. But I do take precautions when walking alone at night, and similarly, I would take precautions when tweeting without formal confirmation of tenure. I’d say enough to be persuasive, but until my tenure was confirmed, I would stay “refined”, as Salaita puts it. (I’d try to be “refined” even with tenure, but that’s me.) When taking self-defense classes, I ran into at least one fellow student who thought it was more important for him to stand up to people who accosted him than to care about his safety, because he didn’t want to give in to bigots. Personally, I thought I could do more to stick up for myself and others like me if I didn’t have my jaw wired shut and my fingers broken. Maybe Salaita would rather get figuratively beaten up by his critics than surrender an inch on his principles, even if that denied him future opportunities to make an impact. Different people choose differently. I agree that there’s a strong case to be made for sticking to one’s principles in order to set a legal precedent, but I don’t think Salaita was trying to do that, at least not when he tweeted his remarks.
As for what I perceived as an attack, I’d have you look again at the first comment at this level of indentation. You seemed to be saying very strongly that I was being disingenuous, even emphasizing that you weren’t just “suggesting” it. If there was a lighthearted tone behind your remarks, it didn’t come through, which can happen with written communication. But I’m glad that we’re having a civil discussion now.
Barry
I guess I would have to ask you to reread your own comment in response to the letter Mona posted, and your response to my comment about it, and ask yourself how others might perceive them… y’know… lightheartedly.
As for Salaita, sorry for this, but welcome to the black and white world where his firing is unjust.
He went out on the streets after dark and got mugged.
The first round is on me when he wins his case against the good-for-nuthins who done it to him.
Je suis who this time? Can we invite Netanyahoo and the trustees to the parade?
I am amazed at how reserved, polite, restrained and civil the tweets are in comparison to the disproportionate, criminal, excessive and barbarous actions and policies of the Jewish state.
In the context of truth and reality that Americans are generously sheltered from by our media, the actions by the university are even worse than they first appear.
In addition to being corrupted by outside pressure and violating his contract, the chancellor and trustees appear to be ignorant.
On October 6, Chancellor Phyllis Wise said she would have “taken the same action if it was someone who was for Israel as someone who was for Palestine.” She also said donors played no role in her decision. It’s not the first time I’ve seen academics blatantly lie directly in my face. During the past 2 generations intellectual sincerity has been expunged from academia in the US, by money. I remember DePaul University from the 80s, when it was physically much smaller without the high ceilings and grand architecture of the expensive new buildings that have gone up since. Like Washington University in St. Louis it’s no longer a bastion of liberal thought, thanks to “generous” donors with business interests and political baggage. Steve was contemplating a lawsuit at the time, he now has the very best legal team bar none. They know the territory and they also have a tremendous record in the court of appeals should their initial attempt fall short. I wish you the best of luck, Dr. Salaita. Thank you for bringing this issue to the national stage. https://indyradio.info/content/ui-chancellor-defends-firing-professor-pro-palestine-tweets
We’re looking at $3 million for salary to 70 — profs tend to go emeritus for a few years plus benefits plus publishing and research opportunities.
The University and donors will be lucky to come out under $10 million.
Discovery will be producing the names of and communications from the donors who will end up on the hook for a big piece of the damages.
Salaita is in a tight financial spot which will pressure him to settle cheap. The Association of University Professors should stump up funds to sustain him and his family while this suit is under way.
Asking for a Jury trial I consider a tactical mistake as there’s a big chunk of the US public who blindly excuse whatever Israel does, no matter how brutal or illegal.
Academics are boycotting the University of Illinois, canceling speeches and conferences, in large and growing numbers over the Salaita debacle. This isn’t surprising, as they have skin in the game; it is in their interest to uphold free speech and academic freedom rights when any of their colleagues is sanctioned for his protected statements.
Corey Robin, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, has a round-up of the boycotters here: http://coreyrobin.com/2014/08/21/2700-scholars-boycott-ui-philosopher-cancels-prestigious-lecture-salaita-deemed-excellent-teacher-and-ui-trustees-meet-again/
It’s speak now or forever hold your peace.
This guy hasn’t got a chance in any ‘court of law’ in America, unless of course, he is jewish, doesn’t have a jewish judge presiding over the case, or, is just a token chosen to prove some point or the other. America is rotten all the way through, don’t think taking anything to court will grant justice, jews own the legal system in America just like jews owned the slave trade and instigate all the wars, etc., etc..
Good luck…
I highly recommend this Mondweiss article detailing the history of the rightwing Zionist machine that went after Steven Salaita: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/reading-salaita-illinois-2
There is also a much wider agenda to destroy this country, and along with it, the civilized world and Mankind itself.
What can we, including Professor Salaita do about it? A very important article here:
http://pledge.onehumanityonelove.org/OpenLettertoNRA.htm
Maybe it’s because I was raised as Zionist, but I found the Mondoweiss article frankly boring. It seems to be revealing the unsurprising news that there are Zionists who don’t like it when people say things that go against the Zionist narrative. Did you link to the right page, Mona?
The derp, it is strong in you my son.
Ouch! That hurt. Now, do you actually have anything relevant to add?
The derp, it continues?
Does the derp hurt?
@Barry – perhaps it was “unsurprising” and “frankly” boring because you (unlike many of us) were “raised as a Zionist.” Not being of that political persuasion myself, I was frankly dismayed to see such a “by any means necessary” mindset among the pro-Zionist camp members. Up until now, I had mistakenly considered them to have been unfairly characterized by their opponents. Well, “unsurprisingly, “I don’t any more. And I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that.
It’s actually worse than what the article describes, which is why I thought the article was unremarkable. I thought the level of pressure described in the article was sadly normal for special interests. Somewhere, though I don’t recall where, there’s a better description of the conflicts of interests of some of the people who either pressured the university or gave in to the pressure.
The Jewish community does a good job of organizing and looking out for its interests. That comes from its history of living as outsiders. When the goals are noble, such as looking after the less fortunate, the results are terrific. But when the goal is to settle a land that’s already occupied, the results aren’t so terrific for the people who are in the way. Add in a persecution complex, and you end up with many people who can’t see that today’s hostility against them has anything to do with their own actions.
That’s probably why I see Salaita’s tweets differently than some other people here, even though I’m pro-Palestinian now. I can see why people might think that since what the Zionists are doing is wrong, they only have themselves to blame when people say nasty things about them. And if the goal is to influence non-Jews, then I guess putting things bluntly and unsympathetically might be effective. But if you’re trying to influence Jews about Israel, or to avoid being fired for antisemitism, then it helps to keep in mind that you’re dealing with people with a persecution complex.
For far more details about Steven Salaita’s crazed hateful comments which have gone on for years, including in his deranged hateful book, you should read http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183813/steven-salaita-academic-work
Try criticizing the politically correct garbage on campuses and then we’ll see who’s in favor of free speech.
I criticize political correctness on campus — have done so formally in an academic journal. I am in favor of free speech.
Duuhhhh…politically correct…duhhhh…you lernt thet term from Fox Noos…duhhh…
Israels inability to defend itself from what was written here and on other sites is the real reason this has happened. If they were able to refute truthfully what he had posted it would not be a problem. But Israel cannot. Nearly everything that has been said in criticism of Israel has been true, and the only way they can put an end to it is to moan like child who wants their ball back. Here is some advice for Israel. Stop stealing more and more land, and leave the land you are illegally occupying. This would be a move in the right direction.
Let’s look at some Supreme Court case law on the issue of professors at public universities.
And, my emphasis:
The University of Illinois is aware it has no ground to stand on in rescinding it’s offer of employment to Prof Salaita based on tweets it didn’t like. That is why it has said it is prepared to settle for $1 million — it calculates that the price of paying this is worth it to retain the larger amount they would lose from donors unhappy with Salaita’s views.
He is seeking equitable relief — reinstatement to a tenured position — not just damages. He gave up a tenured position at VT, so he’s out on his own, and needs something more than monetary relief, and $1m doesn’t compensate him. And, frankly, UI is in deep egregious territory and owes far more, esp. once punitive damage multipliers kick in.
Agreed. Haven’t recently revisited the case law on where specific performance is merited, but the equities favor it here.
If the contract’s terms were violated, then this guy is entitled to compensation.
With that said, glancing over his Tweets, I have zero sympathy for the guy, but wish him good luck finding a new job, it seems he will need it. His sustained and bitter comments on Twitter are not ones you’d want to see from a professor and as a Dean or a President, I would never want to hire such an emotionally unhinged person to teach my university’s students. Surely there are people out there that can focus on a pro-Palestinian narrative that don’t act like a raving lunatic on social media. And I have no horse in the whole Israel v. Palestine argument like so many around here clearly do. If you replaced his attacks on Israel with Palestinians, the incident would still be embarrassing for this dolt. I’d feel bad for a student who dared challenge him on such topics.
Oh? Pick three of them that you think are best examples of the type you don’t wish to see from a professor. I saw none, and I’ve read them all.
I find it telling that none of those wringing their hands over the substance of Prof Salaita’s tweets actually quote them. Leaving it to the reader’s imagination to assume they constitute Mein Kampf redux. Not.
U of I is making mistake after mistake, all the way from their initial rescinding of the tenured professorship, up until now with the response to Salaita’s lawsuit at link. They are using the tried and failed Double-Down method of ass covering; and they’re doing a really shitty job of it, partly because they have painted themselves into a corner, but also because they don’t seem to have a legal team worth a damn.
Hasabra poster alert: Israel-firster please stay out of American affairs. Your country’s manipulation of our government will be coming to an end sooner or later – preferably sooner, of course – as fewer and fewer of the 95+% of non-Jews or evangelical wing-nuts close their eyes to what has been an intolerable situation for decades. Prepare for life without your sponsor and life-line, dude.
As for feeling sorry for anyone, those who incur the wrath of the Israeli lobby deserve the sympathy and support, not the traitors harassing them.
One person’s freedom of speech should neither stifle nor prevent another person’s right to be offended. Being offended shouldn’t mean open season on breaking contracts and maligning others. That said, I have never had a problem with being offended by opinions as long as the opinions are not accompanied by sticks and stones. As a society we’ve been over-sensitized, divided and the waters of free speech muddied by biased PC police equipped with a media megaphone, and who wield it as a club and a muzzle so as to implement selective opinion.
I am confused – how can he sue for being fired when he was never hired and never an employee
He had a contract, that’s why. Read the complaint, also my discussion earlier in this thread. His views aside, a promise is a promise, or at least legally enforceable at times.
Approval by the board has in every instance until Steven Salaita has been pro forma, except Phyllis Wise intervened. He left his house and job on the basis of a good faith offer. Yes he was hired. Phyllis Wise is the poster child for a new regime that must be drummed out of academia before they do any more damage. She already has a dismal history – here’s one incident of many – December 12, 2009
“University of Washington Provost Phyllis Wise is facing growing criticism from students, faculty and lawmakers for taking a seat on the corporate board of Nike, which has a contract with the UW worth at least $35 million. By Nick Perry Seattle Times higher education reporter
University of Washington Provost Phyllis Wise is facing growing criticism from students, faculty and lawmakers for taking a seat on the corporate board of Nike, which last year signed a contract with the UW worth a minimum $35 million to the university.
Some say Wise, the UW’s No. 2 administrator, now faces a conflict of interest and should step down from her new role as a director on the board of the clothing and footwear company. Wise defends her appointment, saying it will benefit the university and allow her to push for positive change at Nike….”
http://seattletimes.com/html/education/2010487430_wise12m.html
Historically, she is the tool of big donors. In this instance the donors were also Zionists.
Note – I previously posted as “IndyRadio” – that’s what I do.
I don’t believe this has anything at all to do with speech. If you look him up on Wikipedia, Salaita is the child of Palestinian grandparents who were forced out of Israel. I don’t believe any white is really highlighted in a cyberbullying e-zine, then fired from his job over some anti-Israel tweets, because there are lots of whites who make them every day. I think the donor’s bias, and therefore the university’s, is against the relatively newly defined but unarguably oppressed Palestinian race. A standard against “personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them” could be invoked against anyone, but it is useful when university trustees realize a candidate just won’t do. The irony is that the cloak of political correctness wraps the sort of action that would be taken in the same way and for the same reasons by the same character of chancellor and trustees against a Jewish professor a hundred years ago or a Negro professor fifty years ago – literally nothing has changed but the appearance of the players.
I assume Salaita was not the nation’s only Palestinian-American university professor at the time of his dismissal. What made him different from the others, if not his speech?
I assume — the chancellor and trustees. Believe me, to say that neither academic freedom nor common sense protect any professor who ever, even in a very informal medium, on his own time, as a representation of his own belief, said something “disrespectful” … that is a new thing under the sun. I believe that whenever the University of Illinois next has a chancellor who is fit to hold office, that he or she will spare no effort to repudiate the position taken here – truly, that is a tautology.
Salaita is a sociopath with a degree. He is a disgrace to academia, a poor role model for students, and a virulent Jew-hater.
Perhaps Barack-Hussein Obama will offer him a job as a consultant.
Anyone who criticize Israel is helping the few real Jews left in the world.
Anyone agreeing with Israel’s policies is antisemitic.
I read the emails including in the FOIA-requested documents that led to the revocation of the offer.
It really upsets me that so many of the writers of these emails speak for “most” Jews about how Israel is a cornerstone to their religion.
Israel’s policies represent the opposite of what my Judaism and my values mean to me.
It is an obstacle to my relationship with my own Jewish religion and tradition.
Wow, your a real winner…just come off a marathon viewing of Fox News, or maybe just loathsome hasbara…
“It’s a beautiful thing to see our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world deploring #Israel’s brutality in #Gaza.” –Steven Salaita
How many virulent Jew-haters perceive themselves as having Jewish brothers and sisters?
The Israeli Zionist Jews are murdering Palestinians . They are guilty of crimes against humanity and if you don’t believe that you are a psychopath.
To Doc Reality: You’re strong on being vituperative and stereotyping, weak on any kind of evidence. This spells “bigotry”.
Barry
This is what the discovery process is for. Salaita is entitled to every email, and every written communication or note (except for those protected by the attorney-client privilege) held by any agent of the University of Illinois pertaining to Professor Salaita.
If it is the case that all of these communications evince a great concern that a Palestinian-American tweeting about Israel’s slaughter of his people demonstrates an unfitness to teach in the University of Illinois system, we’ll find out! If, however, it is Salaita’s position on Israel per se, we’ll find that out as well.
If it is the former, we’ll still have a huge battle over freedom of speech and academic freedom, but I suspect it is some of both. I’ve read all of the tweets at issue, and all of them are protected speech. None constitute an incitement to violence.
Agents of the university have already signalled they know they are on losing ground, and are prepared to settle for $1 million. I don’t think Salaita will settle, and certainly not until the discovery process is over and all the interesting written evidence has been obtained.
And some of this may have to do with the allegation of “spoliation,” what papers vanished, as well as the whole chain of communications by these John Doe donors. Evidentiary discovery is a bitch.
Yup, they can get away with those games with mere FOIA requests. Let them try when a motion to compel production has been granted. One suspects that on the university server one can “find” these things.
Mona, I’m more impressed with the reliance argument you cite further down the comments than with the protected speech argument, but I’m not a lawyer. Could you say more about the boundaries of protected speech that would apply here, especially with regard to whether there’s any legal difference between the position one takes (here, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel) and how virulently that position is expressed? My personal reaction to the tweets is that I agree far more with Salaita’s position than with the Zionist narrative, but that the tweets, at least taken by themselves, appear to advocate hatred and violence. I realize that the people calling for Salaita’s ouster may have cared more that Jews were being targeted by the tweets than about the limits of polite discourse, and that Chancellor Wise may have cared more about appeasing donors than about academic freedom. However, I still think that Salaita’s tweets themselves raise interesting questions about the boundaries of protected speech.
Mona probably has more to say on this, but let me say that it starts with the fact that UI is a public university, which makes its activity “state action,” and one thing state entities cannot do is censor on the basis of content (as opposed, say, to content-neutral guidance on time, place and manner of speech). The complaint has a number of different aspects on First Amendment law and academic freedom, but this is one starting point.
There’s also the question of what his personal tweets have to do with his work in teaching American Indian studies, any more than a professor ca. 1950, say, should lose his chair over the fact that he had attended a Communist meeting 15 years ago, or was seen in a gay bar.
Beyond that, we have a question of whether we’re well-served by a range of acceptable discourse on a scale between bland and tepid. Time was when the advocacy of heliocentrism, or abolition, or birth control, or pacifism, or draft resistance were unacceptable, even illegal. Time has a way of vindicating viewpoints or making them obsolete, if examined, and it’s worth examining the academic-freedom sections of the complaint in that light.
Aside from the fact that the tweets were really rather mild, they are protected speech — in response to a very hateful and violent oppressor of Professor Salaita’s people.The “interesting questions” you see are answered by well-settled law.
Mona, I hardly find this tweet mild, made at a time when there was a good chance that 3 missing settlers were dead:
You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the fucking West Bank settlers would go missing.
6:59 PM – 19 Jun 2014
Nor do I find this retweet mild:
djkilllist, af @djkilllist – Jul 7
Jeffrey goldberg’s story should have ended at the pointy end of a shiv
Then there’s this beauty:
Zionism: transforming “antisemitism” from something horrible into something honorable since 1948.
#Gaza
#FreePalestine
7:15 PM – 19 Jul 2014
When taken in the context of other tweets, the previous tweet does seem to mean that he’s taking issue with what Zionists are applying the term “antisemitism” to, but his way of expressing the idea is rather twisted.
As for your remark, “The ‘interesting questions’ you see are answered by well-settled law,” I assume you’re referring to the case law you quote earlier, mixed together from various cases without citation or context.
You are being absurd. The tweet about West Bank settlers is perfectly fine. Those settlers are illegally STEALING other people’s land, and doing so with violence. Wishing for thieves to disappear is hardly unreasonable.
As for the tweet about Goldberg, it isn’t Salaita’s. It is commonly accepted on Twitter that RTs do not equal endorsement. But even if you think Salaita meant to adopt the statement as his own, as mondweiss put it:
Saying that Goldberg’s tenure as an Israeli prison guard should have ended at the point of a shiv (what happens in prison) is not horrible, nor is it a threat. I imagine many Palestinian prisoners feel that way, and with justice.
The tweet about antisemitism is true. That is an almost banal observation, made by many: The promiscuous hurling of the antisemitism epithet at those who are not deferential to the State of Israel has diluted it to the point of impotence. To make this point is to commit the commonplace.
Nothing in any of Salaita’s tweets constitutes unprotected speech. Nothing.
Mona. I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to see all pretense of legal objectivity disappear here. Perhaps there’s a lawyer who doesn’t support murder who’d like to comment on the legal issues here.
Coram is also a lawyer, as is Greenwald. All 3 of us have made the observation that all of Salaita’s speech is protected. Law is so well-settled here there’s nothing to argue about. In fact, I know of no lawyer claiming otherwise. Do you?
Mona, do you care to cite the remarks by Greenwald that you’re referring to?
Glenn has tweeted about it. Can’t find the specific tweet I had in mind, but his concurrence with me is implicit in his tweets in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/560873334658064384
Btw, I asked whether you know of any lawyers who find an argument to be made that Salaita’s tweets are not protected. Do you?
Mona, I don’t find Glenn Greenwald’s legal opinion on this particular angle of the case implicit in the Twitter thread you cite. And as you probably know, Glenn’s not exactly shy about saying what he thinks, so if he has an opinion on the free speech angle, it’s probably out there somewhere. Personally, I wouldn’t claim that I knew his opinion on this, or anything else, without having seen it spelled out. As for my knowing of any lawyers with different opinions, I can’t say that this case has come up elsewhere, either in my reading, or in my conversations with lawyers I know. That’s why I read The Intercept.
To clarify, while Glenn does call this “language policing” and is clearly against it, I’d prefer not to go the extra step and say that he therefore finds it unconstitutional, not when he’s not shy about spelling out exactly what he thinks on political and legal matters. If I had to, I would guess that he finds it unconstitutional, but I’d like to see his actual opinion.
On free speech issues, I would. I’m his former law partner and we took multiple free speech cases pro bono — white supremacists in civil matters in which the government (or private litigants) was trying various sanctions to punish them for their (heinous) speech. Glenn is a free speech absolutist — always has been, as am I.
Anyway, I am satisfied the Twitter thread demonstrates Glenn’s views of the Salaita matter for reasonable people, especially those who are familiar with his absolutism on free speech.
Finally, that you cannot find even one lawyer who makes a serious argument that Steven Salaita’s tweets are unprotected is not surprising. I told you so. The law is well-settled on these matters.
See search results when glenn’s Twitter handle is joined with “Illinois.”
https://twitter.com/search?q=%40ggreenwald%20illinois&src=typd&lang=en
One of his many tweets:
I’ve seen no lawyers disagree with him on Twitter that the speech is protected. Rather, the Zionists argue that no contract had yet been entered into.
This Glenn tweet is great:
Pithy:
Mona, I didn’t say that I couldn’t find even one lawyer who disagrees with you. I said that I wasn’t involved in or reading other discussions where the topic came up, so therefore I wasn’t seeing legal opinions one way or the other.
But you can’t, not a significant legal voice anyway. The law is settled.
Mona, perhaps you’d like to comment on whether the people referenced here are “significant” legal voices: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/08/15/more-on-tweeting-without-tenure/
Reasonably significant, yes. And not one argues that Salaita’s speech is not protected. That’s because the law is well-settled.
Actually, following the article’s link to Northwestern University law Professor Steven Lubet’s article in the Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-speech-steven-lubet-salaita-university-illinois-20140814-story.html, I see that Lubet writes, “There are actually three distinct principles involved, and they do not necessarily lead to a single neat conclusion.” Lubet seems to accept the academic freedom argument, but writes, “Wise has great discretion when it comes to hiring professors — as opposed to firing them — and there is no rule that prevents her from considering Salaita’s history of vulgar and intemperate outbursts. That may seem like a technicality, but law is technical by its very nature. Whatever he might have been told during the hiring process, it is virtually certain that Salaita was informed in writing that no appointment was final without the approval of the chancellor and trustees…. Whatever his appeals to scholarly high ground, Salaita’s legal position is shaky. So don’t be surprised if he accepts the money and cuts his losses.”
And Jonathan Adler, the author of the original article I cited (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/08/15/more-on-tweeting-without-tenure/) writes, “I largely share Lubet’s views…. I agree with Lubet that an academic should not be fired or denied a job offer, because of his or her political views, but I also question whether someone with Salaita’s record of hateful and offensive rhetoric is capable of being an effective academic and educator.”
A previous comment of mine didn’t appear here, so excuse me if my comment now appears twice. My read of the Washington Post article is that there is some legal disagreement about the case, particularly if you follow the link to Lubet’s article in the Chicago Tribune. Some aspects of the case appear stronger to some people than to others. There may not be disagreement about whether this would be protected speech for a private citizen in other contexts, but there is disagreement about how this particular case would play out in court.
No, there is no disagreement that this is protected speech for anyone, private citizen or not. It is well-settled law that the Salaita tweets are protected. (As a professor at a public (government) institution, if anything, he has a heightened, not lesser, entitlement to free speech.)
Such disagreement as there is revolves around the contract claim. With no contract, or no equitable substitute for one, the issue of Prof Salaita’s speech is all but legally irrelevant. The courts don’t need to reach the constitutional issue if the contract one settles the case.
Btw, you cite Lubet, which is somewhat amusing. He whines a great deal about how “disingenuous” he feels Salaita defenders are in characterizing Salaita’s tweets, which is not a legal argument. The man isn’t going to publicly embarrass himself by claiming the tweets are not protected, however, and he does not:
As I said, no significant legal voice can be found saying Salaita’s tweets are unprotected because the law is simply too well-settled.
So, is a university entitled not to hire someone whose public remarks they find offensive, but once they hire the person, they’re stuck with that person’s remarks? And if so, does the legal case revolve around whether Salaita was already legally hired, despite not having been formally approved by the board, and if not legally hired, then in a sufficiently legally binding arrangement that he’s due compensation for his troubles?
Which is not to say that it would be fair for professors or other employees to be in legal limbo between the time they’re offered jobs and the time the jobs are officially approved.
I refer you to the letter from 34 UICU department heads I posted above.
Actually, no. So I may have erred when I said that if the contract argument is settled there would be no need to visit the constitutional one. To quote from an on-point 8th Cir. case, my emphasis:
It may come as a surprise, but the law isn’t about how someone feels about the law. Or what they think the law says. Or what they think the law should be. The law is about what the law actually says. That is a never ending source of frustration for both sides whenever an attorney or a judge attempts to discuss legal topics with non-professionals. But at the end of the day, it’s the professionals whose interpretations and understanding of legal issues coincides with actual law, and therefore prevails in a court. As it ultimately will in this particular case, no matter how many right-thinking and well-intentioned individuals ‘feel’ it should be otherwise.
So please stop making silly arguments and going ’round in circles with Mona. She, unlike you, understands the relevant law.
Ah, the irony of being told to keep quiet in a discussion about free speech.
Good for Salatia for fighting back.
I hope he succeeds in getting his job back and damages, AND exposes the jerks who think their radical political agenda justifies corrupting American academic institutions.
Please keep us updated TI.
Ladies and gentlemen, the First Amendment, and the Marketplace of Ideas.
Only a neoliberal would fetishize a “marketplace” of ideas. All this bourgeois horseshit needs to be considered, like all of our precious Exceptionalist beliefs, in the context that the rich will have you die if you have no money to give them and that most of the nation thinks this is a healthy state of affairs.
To hell with sales culture.
Hah. That’s the trouble with metaphors, they’re never exact, simply analogies that are common enough for general understanding. I suppose I could have compared Prof. Salaita’s controversy to the Diet of Worms, but no one would have gotten it, or, at best, wondered why I was talking about edible fishbait.
So, condemning war crimes, Apartheid, and wishing war criminals would disappear in the language of Twitter is ‘uncivil’ and/or ‘uncollegial’ If the university in question were one of the Creationism is science type, or a military academy where the truth is whatever your commanders order you to believe, then this behavior is understandable. Unfortunately, American universities that aren’t Church U’s are being transformed into Corporation U’s. BTW, April 1 is fast approaching, wonder if the culture of denial will hold out as long about Israel as it did about the ‘Afrikaaner state’?
At least, he won’t be receiving this kind of hate mail : http://normanfinkelstein.com/2015/01/26/a-thoughtful-jew-remembers-auschwitz/
Notably missing from this article are the tweets that caused the controversy. For one collection, see http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/08/anti-israel-prof-loses-job-offer-at-u-illinois-over-hateful-tweets/. They belie this article’s misleading statement: “… pressure from students, alumni, and influential pro-Israel donors are at the root of his dismissal.” When someone does something inappropriate, people may well have ulterior motives for pointing it out. But that doesn’t mean that the deed wasn’t inappropriate. This is a more complex story than is being reported in this article.
The article is informing us of the fact that there has been a lawsuit filed. Salaita’s opinions are no secret – anyone can find his tweets. As for the episode being more complex, I suppose, Barry, the lawsuit will deal with the “more complex” issues.
Legal Insurrection?
“Legal Insurrection now is one of the most widely cited and influential conservative websites, with hundreds of thousands of visitors per month. Our work has been highlighted by top conservative radio personalities, such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, and Professor Jacobson regularly appears as a guest on radio shows across the nation.”
One would think a blog of this name would be championing free speech. But apparently, Barry, that’s not a “conservative” value.
When I did a Google search for the tweets, Legal Insurrection is where I found them. Since “anyone can find his tweets”, Captain America, what is your preferred source for his most outrageous ones? And if “Salaita’s opinions are no secret”, then the lawsuit is no secret either. In fact, it’s no secret that people have your reaction, or my reaction, for that matter. I guess reporting or commenting on the story is just a waste of time, according to your attitude.
I’m not even conservative, and I’ve strayed far from my Zionist roots. Normally, I appreciate hearing from someone with Salaita’s opinions, and I’ve said or thought much the same myself. But I manage to form and express my thoughts without the hatred and incitement to violence that characterize Salaita’s tweets.
Did you come the conclusion yourself that Salaita’s tweets were an “incitement to violence,” or were you led to believe that by something you read from a pundit or whomever.
Salaita speaking for himself about the tweets:
“A partisan political blog cherry-picked a few of those tweets from hundreds to create the false impression that I am anti-Semitic.”
_______________
“In fact, as my Twitter followers know, I vocally condemn anti-Semitism, as when I tweeted, “My stand is fundamentally one of acknowledging and countering the horror of anti-Semitism,” or when I criticized the rapper Macklemore for wearing a costume that evoked age-old Jewish stereotypes. As I noted during the Gaza bombing, “I believe that Jewish and Arab children are equal in the eyes of God.””
_______________
“The point that Jewish people and the behavior of the Israeli state should not be conflated is one I have made consistently both in my academic writing and on my personal Twitter account, I have tweeted, “I refuse to implicate all Jewish people in the practices of the Israeli state.” I have also tweeted, “I refuse to conceptualize #Israel/#Palestine as Jewish-Arab acrimony. I am in solidarity with many Jews and in disagreement with many Arabs.”
“And so when I wrote in one of the controversial tweets, “Israel: transforming ‘antisemitism’ from something horrible to something honorable since 1948,” my point was not that there is any honor in anti-Semitism, but that calling legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies an act of anti-Semitism drains the word of meaning and undermines the very real experiences of those who suffer its horrors. Likewise, the intent of my tweet that settlers should “go missing” was a call for an end to the settlements, which the international community largely agrees are counterproductive to peace, not a call to violence.”
Kitt, I don’t follow Salaita on Twitter, so I became aware of his tweets only through other people’s reporting of them. If you’re familiar with Twitter, than you realize that it’s a 140-character medium. A tweet is meant to stand on its own, with no implication of, “And see the rest of my tweets and writings before you try to figure out the meaning of this or judge me as a professional.” At best, it sounds as though Salaita has been more thoughtful in his writings at some times than at others, which may not be a characteristic that a university would want in a teacher and scholar in his field.
Could you please not pretend that you are speaking to a kindergarten class?
No, a tweet is not meant to stand on its own. While that might be the case for some tweets and maybe a general expectation from some authors of tweets, to make that your Hard-Fast rule shows that you are easily led wherever you choose to be led or where others choose to lead you. Tweeting, same as most any form of writing, demands attention from the reader. Also, as Salaita wrote in the article I quoted from, the cherry picked tweets were taken from hundreds of tweets. So, frankly, your “stand on its own” phrase is not at all convincing and shows a total lack of critical thinking on your part.
Kitt, in your indignation at allegedly being talked down to by someone who can’t think critically, you really do seem to be missing out on how Twitter works. If someone wants to say something that requires a lot of context, then Twitter is a poor medium for expressing it. The way around it is to write a sufficiently long piece to explain one’s thoughts, and to post a link to the piece in a tweet.
You’re not even trying, are you?. Twitter also has “Storify.” It also is the format fro many ongoing conversations. It also provides tweeter with an option of replying to oneself several times in sequence; all of that on top of posting links. But you apparently took advantage of none of that in order to conclude your opinion based on what was written on a blog telling you how to think about Salaita. I know how the fuck twitter works. You obviously either do not, or do not know how to make the best use of it.
Barry,
Thanks for your reply.
You’re one hell of an American and I salute you!
Love,
CA
PS. http://twitter.com/stevesalaita
The tweets aren’t what caused the controversy. The JOHN DOE donors to the University of Illinois who are unknown contributors to the University who threatened future donations to pressure the University to terminate Professor Salaita are who and what caused the controversy.
So Kitt, if the donors had not mentioned that they were donors and had said nothing about future contributions, but had simply said that they found Salaita to be an inappropriate choice as a university professor, and if the university had still agreed with them, what would be the cause of the controversy? That someone did something arguably inappropriate, or that people had reported him?
There is no point in attempting to reply to your absurd “what if.” It doesn’t make any sense, and is not what in fact did happen. The University had already agreed to hire him based on his history and experience. So to pretend that a few anonymous people objected, based on nothing. is just a really stupid “what if.”
Kitt, a “what if” is part of critical thinking ;-)
What if instead of sending out for ice cream to be delivered, you sent out for a fresh bag of dog shit to be delivered to your porch? Ah gee, so many critical thinking choices to critically think about.
Well put. I think UI is in trouble on this. It appears that UI is responding to absurd criticism, such as the claim in the DC that it hired him because he hates Israel and Jews.
Yes, but it is UI who would probably have to pay. Are these unknown donors, the ones who allegedly put the University up to it, going to compensate the University for this fiasco? It’ll be interesting to see if the “John Doe” donors mentioned in the complaint ever surface, though evidentiary discovery and pretrial depositions might bring them into it.
As to the mechanics of the lawsuit, see Prof. Salaita’s complaint (hyperlink “filed a lawsuit”). His central complaint — the gravamen, it seems — is paragraph 6, which includes not only the expected claim of a civil-rights violation but what essentially is breach-of-employment-contract. They made an offer and he accepted. The fact that he left a previous job at Virginia Tech and moved to Illinois meant that he had changed position, both professionally, personally and financially — moving expenses and such — which meant the contract was effectively starting, and that’s the “promissory estoppel” part of the complaint. I mention all this because, the civil rights complaint aside, he probably has a real case just on the contract breach, along with quantifiable damages.
As for the venue, paragraphs 16 and 17 explain why it’s in this court. It’s a Federal case in that (1) it arises under civil rights sections of Federal law (42 USC §§ 1983 & 1985) and (2) the defendants are in Illinois and the plaintiff is/was a resident of Virginia, so it’s an interstate (diversity) lawsuit as well. The Federal court is in Illinois because, well, it is the University of Illinois. So it’s not a case of forum-shopping.
Isn’t civil procedure fun? BTW, as to the other claims, “intentional infliction of emotional distress” is something torts professors often say to tack on to any torts complaint. Sounds serious, can be intimidating in the opening round, but it’ll be interesting to see if his lawyers can prove that count.
Anyway, the civil rights claim aside, it appears that Prof. Salaita may have a very real claim on the breach-of-contract allegations. The fact that they want equitable relief (reinstatement) suggests that simply settling on the monetary claim might not be likely, esp. if they want a jury trial. The University could have saved a lot of trouble simply by letting it go through; the difference between the defendants, say, and the Titanic is that the latter wasn’t trying to hit the iceberg.
The story has since been edited. Prof. Salaita’s complaint is now at the “complaint” hyperlink, top of the story, and in a window at the bottom.
I aced a contracts exam because I was enamored of (and so recalled) “the” relevant case concerning a Wisconsin Red Owl store in which a guy had moved his family to that state to be the new manager of the store, but before the final contract had been signed. When Red Owl tried to get out their agreement, the fellow successfully argued “reliance.” Altho, in the Salaita case, a contract may already have been fully formed for legal purposes.
This is gonna be fun.
Indeed, and the fact pattern in the Salaita case seems to show that he did have a contract, although he’s alleging promissory estoppel as well, probably to establish damages incurred by his move, lost wages, moving expenses, and such. It’s an interesting Contracts case with crossover questions in Torts and Civil Procedure, and maybe Remedies. It’s more interesting than old law-school chestnuts like Hadley v. Baxendale and that crankshaft.