[Peace-discuss] Some "big name" academics demanding UIUC be kept on AAUP censure list

[Robert Naiman]

Judith Butler, Corey Robin, Lisa Duggan...

https://www.change.org/p/reinstate-professor-steven-salaita/u/14166402
If you are an academic, tell AAUP to keep UIUC on censure list
*Rima Merriman*
Bloomington, IN

Nov 13, 2015 — Sign the Statement of Academics on the Settlement of
Professor Steven Salaita’s Lawsuit Against the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FcwyvJyxGoV45lpNRUbcAeMhB_kiqE8h-DBNy6txf3s/viewform?c=0&w=1

November 11, 2015

As scholars in a wide range of academic disciplines we write to express
that we are both pleased and concerned that the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has agreed to settle Professor Steven Salaita’s
lawsuit challenging his illegal termination by the UIUC Board of Trustees
after he made comments on social media critical of Israel’s military
assault on Gaza in the summer of 2014. We note that the University agreed
to settle Professor Salaita’s claims only after a federal court had ruled
in Professor Salaita’s favor on key elements of his case, including that
his employment was terminated after he had been given a contract of
employment by UIUC, and that Professor Salaita’s comments on social media
were protected by the First Amendment.

We are pleased that the University of Illinois trustees, through the
payment of a substantial monetary settlement to Professor Salaita, have
acknowledged how Professor Salaita’s termination amounted to a serious
violation of both his constitutional right to free speech on matters of
public concern, and principles of academic freedom. Agreeing to pay what
amounts to the equivalent of Professor Salaita’s salary for ten years, the
University of Illinois trustees have implicitly conceded the core claims of
Professor Salaita’s lawsuit: that he was illegally terminated in
retaliation for his comments in connection with the Israeli war on Gaza,
and that UIUC officials’ decision to terminate Professor Salaita was
motivated, at least in part, by pressure they received from large donors to
the University as was revealed by emails disclosed by the University in
connection with the lawsuit.

At the same time, we are concerned about the terms of the settlement for
two principal reasons. First, it did not include Professor Salaita’s
reinstatement. Although we respect Professor Salaita’s decision to accept
the settlement and to move on with his career, we nevertheless call
attention to the fact that a cash settlement without an offer of
reinstatement leaves unaddressed the unjust terms by which his employment
was terminated. Not only were his fundamental rights of free speech and
academic freedom abridged, but he remains entitled to reinstatement at UIUC
as a matter of principle, whether or not he chooses to accept that
reinstatement. As it stands, the settlement demonstrates that the
university can abridge such rights at a price, setting a perilous
precedent.

Second, we recognize that UIUC’s unlawful treatment of Professor Salaita
has had implications well beyond Professor Salaita individually. The UIUC
American Indian Studies Program that hired Professor Salaita not only lost
Professor Salaita as a colleague (after a rigorous search), it has suffered
severe fall-out given the administration’s assault on the autonomy of the
program and its selection to appoint Professor Salaita to the program.
Professor Salaita’s hire was intended to build a rising, dynamic academic
home for research and teaching on American Indian Studies. Now the program
struggles with less than one full academic appointment. The decimation of
the American Indian Studies Program at UIUC has been an additional price
tag paid by the university’s capitulation to internal and external forces
that disapproved of Professor Salaita’s exercise of constitutionally
protected rights to free speech. Sadly, the settlement in this case fails
to address the larger price paid by students, faculty, and the broader
academic community that looked to the University of Illinois as a home of
robust academic inquiry into the complex issues of sovereignty, belonging,
dispossession, and conquest – both in the U.S. and globally.

On account of the manner in which Professor Salaita was terminated the
American Association of University Professors censured UIUC for its failure
to conform to sound academic practices as established in AAUP principles.
We feel strongly that the monetary settlement of Professor Salaita’s legal
claim does not address the underlying breaches of academic freedom and
widely accepted standards for the conduct of academic governance that
formed the basis of the AAUP sanction in this matter. For this reason we
urge the AAUP to not remove UIUC from its list of censured administrations
until such time as UIUC adequately addresses the larger pall of uncertainty
that has been cast over the manner in which academic freedom is understood
and respected at UIUC.

(List in formation )

Katherine Franke (Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia University)

Judith Butler (Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature,
University of California, Berkeley)

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Associate Professor of American Studies and
Anthropology, Wesleyan University)

Cynthia Franklin (Professor of English, University of Hawai'i)

Lisa Duggan (Professor of Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University)

Kendall Thomas (Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University)

Macarena Gomez-Barris (Associate Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity,
University of Southern California)

Robert Alexander Innes (Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies,
University of Saskatchewan)

Corey Robin (Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College and the CUNY
Graduate Center)

Colin Dayan (Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities & Professor of
Law, Vanderbilt University)

Margaret Russell (Professor of Law, Santa Clara Law)

David Prochaska (Department of History, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign)

Lisa Rofel (Director of Center for Emerging Worlds and Professor of
Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz)

Helga Tawil-Souri (Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and
Communication, New York University)

Valerie Forman (Associate Professor, Gallatin School, New York University)

Inderpal Grewal (Professor, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program,
South Asian Studies and Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies; Affiliate
Faculty in American Studies, Yale University)

Kandice Chuh (Professor of English and American Studies; Acting
Coordinator, American Studies Certificate Program, CUNY/The Graduate Center)

Valerie Forman (Associate Professor, Gallatin School of Individualized
Study, New York University)

Natalie Zemon Davis (University of Toronto)

Saba Mahmood (Professor, University of California at Berkeley)

Mohan Dutta (Provost's Chair Professor of Communications and New Media,
National University of Singapore)

Devika Chawla (Associate Professor, Ohio University)

Bill V. Mullen (Professor of American Studies, Purdue University)
===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1
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