And UIUC has 100% the right to withdraw a job offer before it was accepted. Since he was not hired, claiming that academic freedom of speech applies is a strech.
He had an official job offer, had accepted it and left his previous position, and was told very soon before the start of term that his job offer was rescinded. That's very different from merely not hiring him.
Oh, it is definitely right for UIUC not to hire somebody that would endanger the state/public support for the university. It might not be pretty, but thats a different issue.
Unless this guy is also writing strongly phrased tweets against Assad for killing 150K of his own people, or ISIS for genocide against the Yazidi, then I think we have a real antisemite here, not just someone expressing an unpopular opinion.
David Eppstein - 2014-08-07 23:12:53-0700 - Updated: 2014-08-07 23:16:03-0700
+David Eppstein I respectfully think it is you missing the point. It's OK to hold one opinion or another on the Israel vs. Palestine issue. What is not OK is to hate Jews (or any other group). If this guy is singling out Israel in what appears to be some very intemperate language, and he does not also address the horrible things that Moslems are doing to each other and to non-Moslems, then there is a reason to believe that the guy is motivated by antisemitism, rather than by some misguided notion of "social justice."
David Eppstein - 2014-08-08 09:40:47-0700 - Updated: 2014-08-08 09:41:04-0700
+Jeffrey Ullman you are deliberately blurring the lines between three things, and calling them all "antisemitism": antipathy towards Jews, antipathy towards Israel, and antipathy towards Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. This blurring is exactly what Salaita was calling out in one of his more inflammatory tweets, “Zionists: transforming ‘anti-Semitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948″ — if you define opposition to the oppression of Palestinians to be something that is automatically anti-semitic, then you are the one making anti-semitism respectable. Blurring the lines like this is harmful to Jews because it causes people who don't like what they see in Gaza to think that all Jews are somehow responsible for it.
But again, I say that this misses the point of my post, which was primarily one of academic freedom. If an academic says things that a powerful lobby doesn't want to hear, is that a sufficient reason for that lobby to cause the university administration to de-hire him? I think that is the antithesis of academic freedom.and I think it's inappropriate administrative meddling with the academic mission.
Tweets like the following use antisemite imagery: "At this point, if Netanyahu appeared on TV with a necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children, would anybody be surprised? #Gaza."
To make it clear, there is much to criticize about the behavior of Israel, Netanyahu, and death of so many innocent children and poeple in the Gaza strip (and the US, and the Arab world, the extended list is literally endless). But the above has nothing to do with criticism of Israel or freedom of speech, but just plain old bigotry.
I dislike the auto-antisemite-defense, but a more careful person would have avoided triggering it by using such imagery, and the liberal usage of the word Zionists in his tweets (which feels to me like a codeword for Jews). There are ways to say the same things without crossing the line.
+David Eppstein I'm blurring nothing. Let me go over my argument in a bit more detail. It's sort of a Bayesian analysis. First, this guy might be motivated by antisemitism, or on the other hand, he might be motivated by concern for unfortunates having nothing at all to do with Jews or Israel. In the latter case, it is reasonable to expect that he would also be expressing similar concerns over similar events. I'm thinking about Assad killing 150K innocent civilians, or ISIS murdering shites in cold blood, or what they are doing right now to the Yazidi. Or Ukrainian rebels shooting down that jetliner. On the other hand, if he is motivated by antisemitism, then we would not expect to see him addressing issues like the ones I just mentioned. So -- do you know whether he has made any comments about any issue other than Israel? If not, I'm going to conclude that the most likely prior is antisemitism.
+Sariel Har-Peled Really? How could something like the creation of the state of Israel shed light on something that happened at least a century before -- the replacement of American Indians by Europeans? I think that is a smokescreen for his antisemitism. Remember, his field is American Indian studies, not Middle-Eastern studies.
But I suppose we should remember that faculty are allowed to hold opinions outside their field of expertise; I certainly do. The true test is whether or not they treat students differently depending on their origin. I have no idea whether or not this guy treats Jewish students equitably, so the original issue raised by +David Eppstein may or may not be right.
Let this be a warning for us all to use online tools like twitter with care.
BTW, the board of trustees in UIUC has a track record of making unpredictable decisions on "pro forma" issues (for example, denying Bill Ayers emeritus status). And recent public outcry about James Kilgore had made UIUC administrators afraid to make controversial decisions. Salaita is going to have a hard hard time claiming UIUC had done something improper in not hiring him.
Ok. Sorry for my long comments, and hopefully this is it - I would try to avoid spending any more time/space on this.
Jean Perdue - 2014-08-18 21:08:55-0700 - Updated: 2014-08-18 21:10:56-0700
+Jeffrey Ullman Unless this guy is also writing strongly phrased tweets against Assad for killing 150K of his own people, or ISIS for genocide against the Yazidi, then I think we have a real antisemite here, not just someone expressing an unpopular opinion. I guess this is the same reasoning that, if applied on what you selectively post about, makes you a racist (anti-moslem to be precise).
+Jeffrey Ullman It's sort of a Bayesian analysis ... This is by far the most appalling, disgusting, and unskillful misuse of Bayesian analysis ever encountered :-)
Anyway, if you think this should be argued on the basis of whether his position on Zionism is sound or unsound then you're totally missing the point.
But again, I say that this misses the point of my post, which was primarily one of academic freedom. If an academic says things that a powerful lobby doesn't want to hear, is that a sufficient reason for that lobby to cause the university administration to de-hire him? I think that is the antithesis of academic freedom.and I think it's inappropriate administrative meddling with the academic mission.
To make it clear, there is much to criticize about the behavior of Israel, Netanyahu, and death of so many innocent children and poeple in the Gaza strip (and the US, and the Arab world, the extended list is literally endless). But the above has nothing to do with criticism of Israel or freedom of speech, but just plain old bigotry.
I dislike the auto-antisemite-defense, but a more careful person would have avoided triggering it by using such imagery, and the liberal usage of the word Zionists in his tweets (which feels to me like a codeword for Jews). There are ways to say the same things without crossing the line.
In any case... http://xkcd.com/1357/
But I suppose we should remember that faculty are allowed to hold opinions outside their field of expertise; I certainly do. The true test is whether or not they treat students differently depending on their origin. I have no idea whether or not this guy treats Jewish students equitably, so the original issue raised by +David Eppstein may or may not be right.
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/08/08/essay-defends-university-illinois-decision-not-hire-steven-salaita
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/17/we_must_give_the_land_back_americas_brutality_toward_native_americans_continues_today/
Let this be a warning for us all to use online tools like twitter with care.
BTW, the board of trustees in UIUC has a track record of making unpredictable decisions on "pro forma" issues (for example, denying Bill Ayers emeritus status). And recent public outcry about James Kilgore had made UIUC administrators afraid to make controversial decisions. Salaita is going to have a hard hard time claiming UIUC had done something improper in not hiring him.
Ok. Sorry for my long comments, and hopefully this is it - I would try to avoid spending any more time/space on this.
Unless this guy is also writing strongly phrased tweets against Assad for killing 150K of his own people, or ISIS for genocide against the Yazidi, then I think we have a real antisemite here, not just someone expressing an unpopular opinion.
I guess this is the same reasoning that, if applied on what you selectively post about, makes you a racist (anti-moslem to be precise).
It's sort of a Bayesian analysis ...
This is by far the most appalling, disgusting, and unskillful misuse of Bayesian analysis ever encountered :-)