The AAUP today wrote to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chancellor Phyllis Wise to express deep concern about actions taken against professor Steven Salaita. “Aborting 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…
Most of the debate about why the firing of Steven Salaita by the University of Illinois was wrong has centered on three areas: contract law (he already had an effective contract), Constitutional law (he was punished for his political views by a government entity), and the principles of academic freedom (he was punished for his…
Inside Higher Ed has a lengthy story about the University of Illinois administration’s justifications for firing Steven Salaita. What’s really important about today’s story is this revelation that the top fundraising official at the University of Illinois Foundation had emailed Chancellor Phyllis Wise and other top U of I fundraisers, telling her “Dan, Molly, and…
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign chancellor Phyllis Wise has written an open letter to the campus (copied below) explaining her decision not to allow the hiring of Steven Salaita. The letter is an appalling attack on academic freedom and a rejection of the basic values that a university must stand for. Wise argues, “What we…
In coordination with Chancellor Phyllis Wise’s letter defending the Steven Salaita firing, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees today issued a letter of support (pdf here, and copied below) endorsing her decision. Disturbing, the Board of Trustees declares “our collective and unwavering support of Chancellor Wise and her philosophy of academic freedom and free…
The following letter by Michael Rothberg originally appeared on his website. Rothberg is the Head of the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies. He is the author of Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation (2000) and Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in…
By Nicholas Burbules, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I want to thank Mr. Wilson for sending us his posting on “Shared Governance and the Salaita Case” and inviting us to respond. Joyce Tolliver and I do call for an honest debate in our editorial. We fully accept that there are serious, principled positions on different…
I spoke on a podcast, This Week at InsideHigherEd, about the Salaita case, along with former Barnard president Judith Shapiro, who argued that the Salaita case indicated the need for more shared governance. I would argue that the Salaita case is a good reason to understand what shared governance really means. Shared governance doesn’t mean that…
Readers of this blog who have been following developments in the case of Professor Steven Salaita, whose appointment to a tenured position at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana was revoked, apparently in response to his controversial Twitter postings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, may find a recent analysis of the case by Michael C. Dorf, Robert…
Today’s InsideHigherEd includes dueling essays on the Salaita firing by me and by Cary Nelson. You can read my comment on Nelson’s essay here. Nelson’s assertion that “I believe this was an academic, not a political, decision” strains all credulity. No one can seriously believe that the political consequences of hiring a controversial professor had no…