Speech, Civility, and Guns

A few days ago Marty Kich posted an item on this blog that reported an effort by gun-rights advocates in Oklahoma to pass legislation that will allow guns to be brought onto the state’s 25 public college and university campuses.  An officer of the state’s Second Amendment Association promotes the legislation in these terms: “’Anywhere…

Salaita Speaks!

It’s 6:50 in the evening on Wednesday, October 8, 2014. The 7:00 event start time at Columbia College Chicago draws near. The lecture hall is filling up rapidly. The star attraction has not arrived. Professor Iymen Chehade, indeed a star in his own right, and I are waiting for Steven Salaita. A skilled, poised and charismatic student…

It's Not All About Salaita…

…certainly not about the content of his tweets or of his character. Among other things, it’s about whether or not being scheduled to teach with students actually enrolled constitutes “hiring.” And that’s not a question any of us should have any disagreement on. Questions we on the faculty need to ask certainly include concern over the impact…

Fallout From Salaita: Taner Akcam Cancels Visit

This comes from Days and Memories: A blog of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Earlier this year, I invited Professor Taner Akçam to speak to students and faculty at the University of Illinois about the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish state’s denial of that genocide. Professor Akçam, the…

Questioning the AAUP’s Objectivity on Salaita

By Sharon Ann Musher In the aftermath of the board of trustees’ vote at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to terminate Steven Salaita’s conditional job offer, the scholar of Arab-American literature is pursuing two options. He has engaged the Center for Constitution Rights to sue the university. And he has requested that the American…

Latest: Salaita Chicago Speaking Tour

The Chicago Tribune has updated the Steven Salaita whirlwind speaking tour in Chicago. Kindly see here. I noticed that a scheduled appearance at the University of Illinois at Chicago was canceled according to the paper. This is a link to another article in the Chicago Tribune that announces the tour and discusses the Salaita tenure travesty…

Keynote Address at the University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association Academic Freedom Event: Part 1

Rudy Fichtenbaum, President American Association of University Professors   First I want to thank the University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association for inviting me to attend your Academic Freedom Event. I do not consider myself to be an expert on academic freedom. Thus, I am all the more so truly honored that you have asked me…

Keynote Address at the University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association Academic Freedom Event: Part 2

Rudy Fichtenbaum, President American Association of University Professors   While cases such as the ones I have been discussing receive lots of public attention, they pale in comparison a number of other threats to academic freedom, mainly the attacks on public sector unions and growing use of faculty who are hired on contingent contracts. In the…

Salaita: Campus Faculty Association on Investigation and Censure 

The Campus Faculty Association of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was an early advocate of an American Association of University Professors investigation of the university’s administration. Throughout the Steven Salaita viewpoint-cleansing assault on academic freedom, CFA has sustained an impressive advocacy in support of academic freedom and shared governance. One of the benefits in being engaged in AAUP matters, is the…