[Peace-discuss] Salaita aftermath

[David Green via Peace-discuss]

I've pasted below a message that Phyllis Wise has distributed to the university community, as well as a letter that I have submitted to the News-Gazette:
 
Dear
members of the campus community:
As
chancellor, it is my responsibility to annually reaffirm our campus commitment
to equal opportunity, affirmative action, and equal access.  This
commitment is consistent with my unwavering belief that diversity, as part of a
living, learning, and working community, is a cornerstone of excellence and a
strategic imperative for us all in our effort to be a pre-eminent public
research university with a land-grant mission and global impact.
The
campus, as reflected by Inclusive Illinois, is committed to creating and
maintaining a community that recognizes and values the inherent worth and
dignity of every person, while fostering an environment of mutual respect among
its members.  The campus takes seriously our responsibility to provide
leadership in ensuring that equal employment opportunity, affirmative action,
and equal access is our standard practice rather than an aspiration.  As
such, university policy prohibits discrimination or harassment of any member of
the campus community during any stage of the employment process.  This
includes recruitment, selection, promotion, transfer, merit increases, salary,
training and development, demotion, and separation on the basis of race, color,
religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, order of protection status,
genetic information, marital status, disability, sexual orientation including
gender identity and unfavorable discharge from the military or status as a
protected veteran.  In addition, our affirmative action plan requires the
campus to undertake good faith efforts to achieve the university’s affirmative
action goals for women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and protected
veterans.
In
compliance with Title IX, the campus prohibits discrimination on the
basis of sex in employment as well as in admissions, enrollment, and in the
provision of all services, programs and activities. The campus’s Title IX
Office monitors compliance with this law and oversees the campus’s response to
complaints of discrimination based on sex, including reported incidents of
sexual assault.
The
Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access (http://www.diversity.illinois.edu/) is a
resource for the campus and is available to address any campus concerns
involving these matters.  Realizing our shared vision of an Inclusive
Illinois requires that we all annually reaffirm our individual commitment to
building a truly diverse, welcoming, and inclusive community of students,
scholars and staff.
Sincerely,
Phyllis M. Wise
Chancellor
 Editor,
It’s fitting that James Heins has bought a full-page ad in support of Phyllis Wise. Heins’ reputation goes back decades; the website sciencecorruption.com states that in the early 1980s Heins was part of “the original cabal of economists who became the nation-wide network for the Tobacco Institute … to provide the industry with academics willing to write propaganda material ... provided their names were not linked to the industry.”
Heins’ famous libertarian mentor Julian Simon also taught here. Simon’s work foreshadowed that of climate change deniers and those claiming that only “free market” solutions can address environmental problems. The University has also for decades provided a collegial environment for “law and economics” free market/property rights perspectives favored by the far right.
The move towards a corporate/entrepreneurial university promoted by Herman-Easter-Wise with the assistance of the right-wing Kauffman Foundation fits perfectly with “libertarian” doctrines and interests of the state/local 1%. Zionism is a salient aspect of this ideological package, but more central is support for the military-technological complex. This brand of libertarianism has no qualms about state-sponsored violence and its attendant corporate profits.
A Kauffman Foundation report in 2012 on the university’s “transformation” makes for both banal and chilling reading. Regarding faculty governance it concludes in language befitting Mad Menthat “the transformation of a university's internal culture and external reputation has to be one of persuasion, not compulsion.” It would seem, however, that Wise and the BOT have given compulsion a vote of confidence in the name of “civility.”
David Green
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