[Peace] Request for signatories for open letter

[David Green via Peace]

Friends,

I've written an open letter (below) as a response to that which appeared in Sunday's News-Gazette regarding Steven Salaita. My goal is to collect at least 200 signatures, and to have the cost of publishing the letter divided equally among those who are willing to sign and/or willing to contribute. Please let me know if you are willing to sign and/or contribute. 

Best regards,

David Green

Most of those signing this letter have been fortunate enough
to spend our adult lives in a scholarly environment that has allowed us to seek
truths about the human condition and the nature of social injustice, whatever
our chosen discipline. We believe that the scientific progress for which this
and other American universities are famous can only be laudable in a society
that affirms the right of each of its members to a decent material existence as
the basis for developing innate gifts and talents. It is on that basis that we,
as privileged members of the richest and most powerful society in human
history, must honestly look in the mirror and judge our institution’s contributions
to social progress in the most universal and enlightened senses of that phrase.
It is in this light that we judge the recent events
pertaining to Professor Steven Salaita’s appointment to be consistent with trends
in the financing, structure, and governance of the university. Administrators
have adopted a “business model” that is beholden to corporations seeking profits
and wealthy donors seeking influence. The culture of the university is
increasingly defined by perceptions of its “prestige,” a troubling and shallow
notion that trivializes the search for truth, the complexities of human
development and learning, and the moral ramifications of what has come to be
called “success” in our society.
The values of “diversity” and “respect” that have been
invoked by Chancellor Phyllis Wise in relation to Professor Salaita’s public political
expressions seem to us, in this context, to be transparent covers for the conscious
repression of an individual who has intelligently, passionately, and honorably advocated
for an oppressed ethnic group—a group that has been largely excluded from these
values of diversity and respect, not to mention those of truth and justice, on
this campus. It seems clear to us that principles of academic freedom and
freedom of speech are easily abandoned in the face of a juggernaut of donors,
trustees, and administrators who are invested on a number of levels in the
manner in which our government projects its power in the Middle East, and in
which Israel (with U.S. military and diplomatic support) projects its power in occupied
Palestine, including Gaza.
It is clear to us that in such a selective and tendentious context
of “diversity” and “respect,” the vital relationships among academic freedom,
the search for truth, and the pursuit of social justice have no greater a
chance than that of a Palestinian child in Gaza. We betray the students on this
campus and the larger public interest when we allow these connections to be so
boldly severed by the Chancellor’s thoughtless and cowardly behavior, made
worse when rationalized by pretty words.
We not only have no confidence in Chancellor Wise; we have
no confidence in a system of “shared governance” which has so casually sold its
soul to repressive and reactionary forces in our society.
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