[Peace-discuss] Obama, Israel, and the neoliberal university win

[Brussel, Morton K]

The resignation of Phyllis Wise is an implicit admission of wrongdoing, and that is all for the good. Many will understand the reasons behind that wrongdoing—the power of the lobby, etc. Of course, we would like those reasons to be explicitly admitted, but we can be somewhat gratified with what has happened.

As for new prospective faculty members, they probably know that explicitly criticizing Israeli behavior can have malign repercussions. I don’t think that has changed from before to after the Salaita experience. Perhaps they might take courage that at least a perpetrator of Salaita’s unhiring has been ?punished. But i admit that the situation (wrt speaking out about Israeli and U.S  policies) remains regrettable, and the fight must continue to expose the Zionist pressure and U.S. aid thereto.

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On Aug 6, 2015, at 11:12 PM, C. G. Estabrook <carl at newsfromneptune.com<mailto:carl at newsfromneptune.com>> wrote:

http://coreyrobin.com/2015/08/06/on-the-one-year-anniversary-of-the-salaita-story-some-good-news/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__coreyrobin.com_2015_08_06_on-2Dthe-2Done-2Dyear-2Danniversary-2Dof-2Dthe-2Dsalaita-2Dstory-2Dsome-2Dgood-2Dnews_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=RbDT1tYJGukRYhPt5oNtCeRe3p2Bp2sx7Qk4TWFvItM&m=OXY4KJvzk352xpOIxfAZMSr3cd7OBR4Yid_tABMZHew&s=vvC4iiXya7sEc2l1EcXjxU_AEvgLMWsDnOGM5uMj78k&e=>

What this account of events at UIUC does not note is that on the important point, Israel (backed by the USG) and the neoliberal university have won, regardless of the personnel changes at UIUC or any legal damages for which the university will be held liable. (UIUC recently let a half-million dollar contract to a PR firm for "branding": will it even notice anything that it has to pay Steven Salaita?)

Consider: what new faculty member (at any level) will now dare criticize Israel or US foreign policy, even in private or on social media, as Steven Salaita did? In these days of a huge over-supply of PhDs, universities (not just UI) can always hire docile faculty instead of uppity ones. The lesson has been successfully taught once again.

—CGE


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