[Peace-discuss] Salaita aftermath

Fri Oct 10 10:25:43 EDT 2014

Great letter. Where's the local Democratic Party academic corruption fighter on this matter? Surely he's condemned the Chancellor's egregious violation of academic freedom.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 10, 2014, at 7:26 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> 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 Men that “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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