[Peace-discuss] On Salaita case, Dave Blacker is in the house

[Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss]

Some of you may remember Dave Blacker from his time here as a graduate
student in Philosophy and later Education Policy Studies, or from his
involvement with the organization that some of us fondly remember as the
"Committee Against Certain Wars in Certain Gulfs."

I didn't even know he had been invited to speak here by MillerComm.

I'm sad that he's not coming, because it would have been fun to see him.
But I'm delighted that our friend is taking a principled stand.

https://www.change.org/p/phyllis-m-wise-we-demand-corrective-action-on-the-scandalous-firing-of-palestinian-american-professor-dr-steven-salaita/u/7912795

[...]
David Blacker of the University of Delaware, who had been invited to speak
on September 29 to kick off the 2014-15 CAS / MillerComm annual series,
sent a letter to the organizers at UIUC declining the invitation and
explaining his reasons for doing so. He says,

"I have decided I must honor the growing worldwide pledge of academics not
to appear at U. of I. unless the Salaita matter is acceptably resolved. I
refer of course to the University's recent punishment of Professor Salaita
for engaging in political speech in a public forum. I neither endorse nor
reject any of SaIaita's remarks and their substance is not relevant to my
decision to cancel. Neither do I base my decision on a n assessment of the
affair 's constitutional-legal aspects, which are uncertain. My decision is
not about Israel/Palestine and it is not about legal nuance .... My concern
has to do with the academic freedom needed by scholars in order to do our
job properly. Academic freedom does not exist when it is withheld from
scholars with unpopular or even 'offensive' views. As an educator and
citizen, I agree strongly with Justice Brandeis that 'If there be time to
expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by
the processes of education,the remedy to be applied is more speech, not
enforced silence (1927)." Instead of choosing education and more speech as
the remedy for disagreeable speech,the U. of I. has apparently chosen
"enforced silence.' It thus violates what a university must stand for --
whatever else it stands for -- and therefore I join those who will not
participate in the violation. In my judgment, this is a core and
non-negotiable issue of academic freedom."

[...]

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20140820/05c3fd6d/attachment.html>