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 There's a thread about I/P, so if you really want to talk about how Salaita is right/wrong or want to talk about the conflict itself, go there instead I did put some of my opinions scattered throughout the discussion of this case, but it should be clear what's my thoughts and what the facts of the case are. Who is Steven Salaita and Why Should I Care? Steven Salaita was a tenured professor of American Indian studies at Virginia Tech until mid-2014, when he accepted a tenured move to the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. The UIUC Department of American Indian studies approved his hire, and he resigned his position at VT to take the job, moving his family to Illinois. Traditionally, and almost universally, when a department is allowed to make a hire and is has been approved by the dean, their decision needs to be approved by the Board of Trustees; this procedure is nearly everywhere pro forma, in that it’s a mere formality that is always granted to all previously approved hires. New hires start teaching prior to this approval, which sometimes doesn’t happen until after the new term begins--some people are paid before it is approved, in fact. In the summer, after the Israeli offensive in Gaza began (Operation Protective Edge), he, a Palestinian-American, made several tweets about the matter. They were angry and, I think everyone agrees, rather intemperate. Whether they were offensive is a different question, which I’ll get into later. In light of these tweets, UIUC’s Chancellor, Phyllis Wise, declined to forward the contract to the Board of Trustees. He would not be hired, contrary to the wishes of the hiring department. Many academics of all political persuasions are upset because they perceive it as an attack on academic freedom. The supporters of UIUC are a decided minority so if anyone has links to their arguments in support of UIUC I'd appreciate it. What Were the Tweets? Here are the major tweets that caused UIUC to withdraw the offer. quote:Zionists: transforming "antisemitism" from something horrible into something honorable since 1948. quote:Jeffrey goldberg's story should have ended at the pointy end of a shiv quote:You may be too refined to say it, but I'm not: I wish all the loving West Bank settlers would go missing. These tweets have context, of course. An in-depth discussion of the context (with, more usefully, a collection of a bunch of Salaita's tweets) is available here, and while I don't think the context is actually necessary to make any points about Salaita, it's worth noting. For instance, here are the tweets around the first tweet (which, I'll point out, I think is an exceptionally dumb tweet to make even if his point is absolutely not anti-Semitic at all). Prior to that tweet, he sent out this: quote:If it's "antisemitic" to deplore colonization, land theft, and child murder, then what choice does any person of conscience have? #Gaza In response to worries about those tweets, he writes quote:@mikehesselmial By attacking the discourses of Zionism that cheapen anti-Semitism by likening it to principled stands against state violence quote:@mikehesselmial My stand is fundamentally one of acknowledging and countering the horror of antisemitism. So I think it's clear that from context that those tweets aren't hate speech (I'm leaving aside the others for the sake of brevity), but you can read the article discussing the tweets if you care for more details about Salaita's tweeting. My takeaway here--feel free to dispute it--is that there's no real evidence that Salaita is tweeting bigoted things. I've thought that perhaps this is his way of defending his tweets from criticism that he's anti-Semitic (and he is in fact anti-Semitic), but there's just so little evidence that I'm not willing to claim that Salaita is a bigot based on those tweets. I would need more evidence. How Did UIUC Justify Their Decision? UIUC claims their decision was based on civility and a concern for students. Chancellor Phyllis Wise writes in a letter to faculty quote:As you may be aware, Vice President Christophe Pierre and I wrote to Prof. Steven Salaita on Aug. 1, informing him of the university’s decision not to recommend further action by the Board of Trustees concerning his potential appointment to the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Board of Trustees released a letter supporting Wise, adding in some words about civility being a prerequisite for being hired at UIUC. quote:Earlier today, you received a thoughtful statement from Chancellor Phyllis Wise regarding the university’s decision not to recommend Prof. Steven Salaita for a tenured faculty position on the Urbana-Champaign campus. What’s the Big Deal? The big deal is that many academics think this is an assault on academic freedom, and freedom of speech. Looking at Salaita’s tweets in a vacuum, they are surely at best intemperate (and offensive), but that isn’t cause to release him from his tenured position. Such is the claim. Note that UIUC doesn’t claim that they contained hate speech, only that they weren’t civil and were disrespectful. Lots of people are thinking that this isn’t because of the specific words he used, but because of the political viewpoint he expressed--I’m among them. This is because given the context of all these tweets, it’s quite probable that Salaita isn’t engaging in anti-semitism, or hate speech, or incitement to violence. The teaching record is apparently fine--if he’d been biased against students with certain views or backgrounds it would appear on the evals (I know this because I’ve read student evals and know what kinds of things appear on them--I've had a student mention that they think I'm biased against religion because I discussed the argument from evil, so trust me, if he had any appreciable biases in the class room they'd have been noted), and in complaints against him at VT, of which there weren’t any. And his scholarship was up to the professional standards of his field. The university, then, is infringing upon his right to free speech--he may not have been an official employee on the paperwork, but for all intents and purposes he was an employee (when there’s literally no precedent for this and people in his status have collected paychecks, it’s pretty easy to make the argument), and so this was an illegal action against his freedom of speech by his employer. UIUC is bound by the standards of the First Amendment, and while I’m sure the vagaries of employment law are going to be heavily debated, it’s not at all clear that UIUC acted in a legal manner here. Finally, UIUC’s argument is based on the appropriate ways to treat ideas and those that espouse them. Even disregarding the fact that this is protected under the First Amendment, I’ve heard much worse poo poo from academics on other topics, which usually go by with nary a peep, and I wouldn’t want to fire them for it. According to the standards UIUC says they applied here, that is not merely dickish, but a fireable offense even for a professor with tenure. I’m sure they could go and inspect the social media accounts of all their employees and find stuff that is at least as uncivil as Salaita’s tweets, yet I’m sure they wouldn’t fire them. I can think back to conferences and hearing people saying worse poo poo and all that happens is gossip about it, so it's not clear what UIUC thinks makes Salaita's tweets illegitimate and an offense worthy of his offer being rescinded while other behavior by others on different topics isn't. Finally this has to have a chilling effect on people. I know I removed a section on just war theory from my class because I was afraid the Gaza conflict would come up and people would take offense to an even-handed approach that doesn’t assume Israel's actions are justified or unjustified--it's debatable, like many things--(contrary to popular belief, people can teach things evenhandedly even if they feel very strongly about them--maybe UIUC should try and remember that), and this could cause trouble for my life. I know that people are talking about being extra-careful to not talk about the Israel/Palestine conflict in ways that could offend those that equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, because--guess what!--you could lose your loving job. I’m not talking about people who are prone to get very angry, either. Why UIUC Probably Acted I explained earlier why UIUC says they acted. Well, turns out we’ve got evidence they acted for other reasons: donors. Donors lobbied UIUC to withdraw the offer, else they’d withdraw their donations. This was because those donors took issue with Salaita’s words, and probably his pro-Palestinian stance, which undermines UIUC’s claim it was because of civility--no, they wouldn’t have been so lobbied and pressured if it wasn’t for Salaita’s tweets being about Israel. Some of the emails are here. Here are some choice quotes from the article. quote:"As a Jew, I do not feel comfortable knowing that the University of Illinois allows and supports this sort of behavior. I am currently an incoming senior, and while this is not the first time I have felt anti-Semitism at the University of Illinois, this is by far the most extreme and hurtful case." quote:While many of the emails are fairly similar, some stand out. For instance, there is an email from Travis Smith, senior director of development for the University of Illinois Foundation, to Wise, with copies to Molly Tracy, who is in charge of fund-raising for engineering programs, and Dan C. Peterson, vice chancellor for institutional advancement. The email forwards a letter complaining about the Salaita hire. The email from Smith says: "Dan, Molly, and I have just discussed this and believe you need to [redacted]." (The blacked out portion suggests a phrase is missing, not just a word or two.) quote:At least one email the chancellor received was from someone who identified himself as a major donor who said that he would stop giving if Salaita were hired. "Having been a multiple 6 figure donor to Illinois over the years I know our support is ending as we vehemently disagree with the approach this individual espouses. This is doubly unfortunate for the school as we have been blessed in our careers and have accumulated quite a balance sheet over my 35 year career," the email says. The Legal Issues Given the overwhelming presumption that the Board of Trustees approval is almost never in question, the fact that people at UIUC and elsewhere collect paychecks and teach classes prior to such approval, and the protection that tenure provides--Salaita accepted a tenured professorship at UIUC--it is almost certain a lawsuit is coming that touches on legal issues coming from employment law. But there's also the first amendment issues: is UIUC, a state university, allowed to regulate the speech of its employees--especially in the way that UIUC happened to do it? Here's an article by a legal scholar on the constitutional issues. Another useful discussion is here, with some talk about the employment law issues. The AAUP's take is here, and here's a choice quote from their letter. quote:We are deeply concerned about the action taken against Professor Salaita. Long after he was offered and accepted a tenured position, specific arrangements were made regarding courses, schedules, and salary. The exchange of letters between Interim Dean Ross and Professor Salaita appears to have been in accordance with generally established procedures by which academic appointments are tendered and accepted. Ten months elapsed during which time no one in the university administration gave any indication that the appointment as agreed upon might not be brought before the board. Only this August, after Professor Salaita had resigned his tenured position at Virginia Tech, prepared for his assignments, and shortly before the semester was to begin did he receive notification asserting that, because the board of trustees would not be acting on the matter, he did not have an appointment at the University of Illinois. Aborting an appointment in this manner without having demonstrated cause has consistently been seen by the AAUP as tantamount to summary dismissal, an action categorically inimical to academic freedom and due process and one aggravated in his case by the apparent failure to provide him with any written or even oral explanation. This is a thread for talking about this case and academic freedom generally. FINALLY, I just found this article in the Nation. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks decent.
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Aug 31, 2014 03:58
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I don't think it's nearly as bad Norman Finkelstein being denied tenure for embarrassing Alan Dershowitz.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:04
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ThirdPartyView posted:I don't think it's nearly as bad Norman Finkelstein being denied tenure for embarrassing Alan Dershowitz. I was about to bring this up. Normal Finkelstein's situation was cut from the same cloth, where his tenure was called into question over political disposition.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:06
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I know of the Finkelstein case, but not the details, so if you've got some stuff about it please post it.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:08
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ThirdPartyView posted:I don't think it's nearly as bad Norman Finkelstein being denied tenure for embarrassing Alan Dershowitz. I would argue that it is actually worse. Finkelstein was on the tenure track, but had not received tenure; Salaita was already tenured at Virginia Tech, and had been lead to believe that he was transferring from one tenured position to another. Furthermore, UIUC is a state university, while DePaul is private, so the 1st Amendment grounds did not apply.
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Aug 31, 2014 07:13
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I would argue that it is actually worse. Finkelstein was on the tenure track, but had not received tenure; Salaita was already tenured at Virginia Tech, and had been lead to believe that he was transferring from one tenured position to another. The onus is upon Salaits to prove that his nomination to be considered foe a tenure-track position was withdrawn from consideration due to first amendment reasons. There was no employment contract signed; his nomination to the position hinged upon the board's approval. A board consisting of voting members appointed by the Governor of Illinois for a term of six years who exercise final authority over all university matters in a course pursuant with the Illinois constitution and laws. The board had not delegated final approval authority over the nomination of Salaita to the department which tended his offer. The board operates as constitutional officers of the executive branch in Illinois. The board did not reject Salaita's nomination because of his views; to do so would be a violation of 5 ILCS 430/5-15. The board informed its designated agent, Wise, that it intended to reject Salaita's nomination for a contract of tenure position due to Salaita's conduct. Those who claim Salaita was a state employee, and not an individual whose employment application was under consideration through the designated process, I ask, did Salaits receive the required ethics training for all state employees in Illinois? Under 5 ILCS 430/5-10, it is a requirement that all state employees undergo ethics training within 30 days of their employment. If Salaita is to be considered a public employee from the date of his resignation at his previous employer, Salaita had 30 days to complete ethics training; I can file an ILFOIA to find this out if no-one has an immediate answer. To say the Board of Trustees for the University of Illinois determined to not accept the Department of Indian Studies' recommendation that Salaita be offered a state contract of employment for a tenured faculty position due to reasons beyond the specific conduct of Salaita referenced by the Board and its designated agent is to accuse the board of unethical conduct, and the burden of proof lies upon you to pursue that claim. Face the facts: Salaita was not an employee of the university; he was nominated for board approval of a proposed contract to be a tenured faculty member of that department, a role for which the board is constitutionally bound to exercise its oversight role in awarding state employment contracts. The board determined not to accept the nomination by the department by exercising its lawful and constitutionally-mandated oversight role, due to Salaita's public statements which were uncivil and called for violence. It is my personal opinion that Salaita should be prosecuted for his public statements due to his attempt to incite violence. However, I find it unfortunate that this is unlikely to occur due to the politics surrounding the situation. Tl;dr- Do not make statements on a public and free service under your official name when under consideration for an employment contract that you have yet to finalize, if you do not want those statements to be included during consideration for employment by the final hiring authority of a state institution. Further, don't be stupid and resign from a tenured position until you've signed the contract for your new position.
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Aug 31, 2014 08:18
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My Imaginary GF posted:Further, don't be stupid and resign from a tenured position until you've signed the contract for your new position. I'm curious: are you also in academia? I'm just a lowly grad student, but even I'm aware of how things typically work and it is unheard (at least to me) for a professor to move away from a department with the intent of pursuing employment somewhere else and still keep their tenured position. As the OP mentioned, this is highly, extremely, absolutely unusual for the Chancellor to do this. I mean, I'm willing to accept that maybe I don't have a perfect grasp on how the game is played but I'd like to think I do.
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Aug 31, 2014 09:04
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I'd say what he said is antisemitic, but I'm a free speech absolutist, so I support him getting the job. The point of free speech is to protect offensive speech. Speech that isn't offensive has no need to be protected.
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Aug 31, 2014 09:26
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Furthermore, UIUC is a state university, while DePaul is private, so the 1st Amendment grounds did not apply. DePaul actually gave Finkelstein tenure, but then the President overrode the tenure vote, which caused a shitload of backlash (and DePaul ended up having to pay Finkelstein a generous
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Aug 31, 2014 14:04
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Charlz Guybon posted:I'd say what he said is antisemitic, but I'm a free speech absolutist, so I support him getting the job. The point of free speech is to protect offensive speech. Speech that isn't offensive has no need to be protected. a)Your statement that inoffensive speech needs no protection does not square with absolutism - commercial speech is inoffensive, lots of extremely controversial speech ("legalize X") is inoffensive, etc. b)Absolutism does not mean he has the right to a job. Being for the legalization of {controversial thing} is not something you can generally say on Facebook while applying for a job as a police officer. This is considered normal. I think he has a case for damages arising from reliance on the contract, but in no way should someone who makes a tweet like that be employed as a college professor regardless of how sympathetic you might find his views.
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Aug 31, 2014 14:27
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My Imaginary GF posted:The onus is upon Salaits to prove that his nomination to be considered foe a tenure-track position was withdrawn from consideration due to first amendment reasons. There was no employment contract signed; his nomination to the position hinged upon the board's approval. Seems to be enforced pretty selectively, though. Name me another instance where something like this has happened. Finkelstein's case was different than this one so it doesn't really count. I bet you won't be able to name another case like this. If this is such a commonplace thing then you should be able to find other examples of it. The truth is that things like this are completely against the spirit of the reason tenure exists in the first place. University professors should be allowed to make controversial statements without fear of reprisal. That's the reason those positions exist. They are to be a sanity check on our society, and they do not work if they're gutted by silencing critics of pet causes such as the continuation of apartheid in Israel.
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Aug 31, 2014 14:29
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Put his tweets into supporting some kind of right-wing position than see how we all view it.
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Aug 31, 2014 14:47
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I still can't get over thisquote:What we cannot and will not tolerate at the University of Illinois are personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them Throughout my entire education I've always been told to rip the poo poo out of an argument, but not the person who made it. Are there seriously people in higher ed admin that are afraid of hurting an argument's feelings?
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Aug 31, 2014 14:50
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EasternBronze posted:Put his tweets into supporting some kind of right-wing position than see how we all view it. Well, it's happened, and anyone who suggested sacking a tenured prof for opinions got dogpiled.
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Aug 31, 2014 14:52
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My Imaginary GF posted:The onus is upon Salaits to prove that his nomination to be considered foe a tenure-track position was withdrawn from consideration due to first amendment reasons. There was no employment contract signed; his nomination to the position hinged upon the board's approval. quote:Some supporters of the university’s decision point to the often-important distinction between firing and not hiring. Academic freedom, they point out, is mostly a matter of contract law, and because Salaita had not yet been formally hired by the University of Illinois, he was not entitled to the same protection as someone who was already a member of the faculty. The AAUP's letter raises similar worries. So his case could go that way. Finally, I do want to point out that why they say they took an action could differ from the reasons they actually took the action; that'll be part of the discovery process of any trial and based on the little stuff we've seen about fundraisers it could be a disaster for UIUC--though that'd have to wait to see. Taking their words at face-value isn't exactly plausible given the existence of the fundraising emails. door Door door posted:I still can't get over this
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Aug 31, 2014 15:06
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door Door door posted:I still can't get over this Higher ed is a racket and a cash and carry business. Anything that might draw negative attention from your customer or alumni base is something to avoid. So consider that my alma mater fully embraces its joke status by hiring war criminals from Iraq and shills for global warming denial at the behest of rural missouri electric cooperatives, they will in the same breath pretend like racism and all the problems that the city and state face are over. This is fully consistent with the student demographic that attends said university- over 85% white and mostly suburban.
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Aug 31, 2014 15:35
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My Imaginary GF posted:A board consisting of voting members appointed by the Governor of Illinois for a term of six years who exercise final authority over all university matters in a course pursuant with the Illinois constitution and laws. The board had not delegated final approval authority over the nomination of Salaita to the department which tended his offer. The board operates as constitutional officers of the executive branch in Illinois. And actions of the executive are overseen by the judiciary. quote:The board did not reject Salaita's nomination because of his views; to do so would be a violation of 5 ILCS 430/5-15. The board informed its designated agent, Wise, that it intended to reject Salaita's nomination for a contract of tenure position due to Salaita's conduct. You know, it's great that whenever any issue comes up, I can always predict what your position is. First I find the strongest organization involved. Then I found out what they did. Then I find the most legalistic-sounding rationalizations of what they did which assume they acted in good faith. Everyone else who contradicts that view by default is acting in bad faith and has the onus to show us this. Et voila! My Imaginary GF's position.  quote:Those who claim Salaita was a state employee, and not an individual whose employment application was under consideration through the designated process, I ask, did Salaits receive the required ethics training for all state employees in Illinois? Under 5 ILCS 430/5-10, it is a requirement that all state employees undergo ethics training within 30 days of their employment. If Salaita is to be considered a public employee from the date of his resignation at his previous employer, Salaita had 30 days to complete ethics training; I can file an ILFOIA to find this out if no-one has an immediate answer. So potential negligence by Salaita's employer is evidence against him? Go ahead and file that ILFOIA, I would be entertained by the results. quote:To say the Board of Trustees for the University of Illinois determined to not accept the Department of Indian Studies' recommendation that Salaita be offered a state contract of employment for a tenured faculty position due to reasons beyond the specific conduct of Salaita referenced by the Board and its designated agent is to accuse the board of unethical conduct, and the burden of proof lies upon you to pursue that claim. Not really. That's up to Salaita's lawyers. We are just outside speculators, and can make use of additional data (as provided by the OP, see under Why UIUC Probably Acted) and come to our own conclusions. We do not have judicial authority, so we do not have judicial responsibility. quote:Face the facts: Salaita was not an employee of the university; he was nominated for board approval of a proposed contract to be a tenured faculty member of that department, a role for which the board is constitutionally bound to exercise its oversight role in awarding state employment contracts. The board determined not to accept the nomination by the department by exercising its lawful and constitutionally-mandated oversight role, due to Salaita's public statements which were uncivil and called for violence. Actually, I find the argument of estoppel pretty convincing in this case, and Illinois actually does have laws to that effect. Not a judicial authority myself, so not going to go into the legalese, but this person resigned one tenured position in the good faith understanding that he already had another one lined up. That's a big deal, especially in academia, where top candidates are often lured in this way. This can have serious chilling effects. quote:It is my personal opinion that Salaita should be prosecuted for his public statements due to his attempt to incite violence. However, I find it unfortunate that this is unlikely to occur due to the politics surrounding the situation. It is not going to happen in the United States of America because we have this thing called the 1st Amendment, so while hate speech can be used in arguments to escalate the charge of a crime into a hate crime, it is not in itself illegal. Even if he fails in his bid for compensation from UIUC or gets his tenured position, nobody is going to charge him with expressing his opinion. Nothing he said was inciting anyone to commit a crime. quote:Tl;dr- Do not make statements on a public and free service under your official name when under consideration for an employment contract that you have yet to finalize, if you do not want those statements to be included during consideration for employment by the final hiring authority of a state institution. Further, don't be stupid and resign from a tenured position until you've signed the contract for your new position. So basically, make sure you have the correct opinions before you go through the standard process of moving from one tenured position to another in the United States. 
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Aug 31, 2014 16:31
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My Imaginary GF posted:It is my personal opinion that Salaita should be prosecuted for his public statements due to his attempt to incite violence. However, I find it unfortunate that this is unlikely to occur due to the politics surrounding the situation. Which of his statements do you think constitutes an attempt to incite violence? Keep in mind that speech that advocates violence is still protected under the 1st unless it constitutes an incitement to violence that is both imminent and likely, according to Brandenburg v Ohio.
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Aug 31, 2014 16:47
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Absurd Alhazred posted:So basically, make sure you have the correct opinions before you go through the standard process of moving from one tenured position to another in the United States. For example, I think Alan Dershowitz is a complete douchebag, but I don't think he should have been fired from Harvard Law School (or if he wanted to move jobs to, say, Yale or Stanford Law School) for his horrible opinions on I/P (it should have been for his plagiarism that he got pissy about when Finkelstein pointed it out in OCD-like detail). Seriously, I'd prefer having fuckheads like Dershowitz or Dawkins who are quite upfront about their lovely beliefs so I know what to consider about their works, etc (at least in relation to those areas).
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Aug 31, 2014 18:31
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:I know of the Finkelstein case, but not the details, so if you've got some stuff about it please post it. The outline of the Finkelstein-Dershowitz affair is this: In 2003 Dershowitz (supposedly) wrote a book, The Case for Israel. At this time Finkelstein publicly alleged that Dershowitz had plagiarized significant sections of Case from a 1984 book by Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial. Finkelstein's doctoral dissertation was a thorough debunking of the 1984 book, and he later worked that dissertation into the book Image and Reality in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (1995). Finkelstein's early academic career and rise to prominence as a dissenter to the pro-Israeli consensus was based in large part on his work debunking From Time Immemorial, which was received with thunderous acclaim by the mainstream audience but was quickly dismissed with disdain by serious academics. It's a bullshit book and he played a big part in exposing it. So you could say that Finkelstein was very familiar with From Time Immemorial, and if he said Dershowitz had plagiarized that book then he likely has a pretty strong basis to make that claim. Responding to the controversy, Harvard mounted a token investigation initiated by Elena Kagan, who was Dershowitz's boss at the time. If you're not familiar with academia generally and history particularly, plagiarism is one of the most serious breaches of professional ethics. If a professor is found to have plagiarized, he is likely to be forced out, tenure or no. But thankfully Harvard's internal investigation absolved the famous celebrity professor with powerful political connections of any wrongdoing, so Dershowitz kept his job. In 2005 Finkelstein published Beyond Chutzpah, the second half of which is a thorough analysis of The Case for Israel. I've read it, and my summary would be that Finkelstein proves that the book was plagiarized, and that Dershowitz is either guilty of that offense or of rank incompetence. I think the most likely explanation is Dershowitz did not actually write the book, it was ghostwritten by his graduate assistants, and they plagiarized unintentionally because they didn't know any better. No matter the explanation, it does not reflect well on Dershowitz, but there were no professional consequences for him because he's extremely well-connected. He was embarrassed by the exposure, however. In 2007 Finkelstein came up for tenure approval at DePaul University, and Dershowitz threw his weight around to get revenge. Publicly, as an individual and through organizations he was affiliated with, he denounced Finkelstein and pressured DePaul to deny Finkelstein tenure. He was initially approved in spite of the public pressure, but at the next step of the process the university tenure board reversed the decision and denied him tenure. This information is not public but the overwhelmingly likely explanation is that Dershowitz convinced donors to privately threaten the DePaul administration with withdrawal of donations if Finkelstein was given tenure. tl;dr Norman Finkelstein essentially proved that Alan Dershowitz committed academic misconduct and plagiarism, but because Dershowitz is much more influential and politically-connected he escaped any punishment, and instead Finkelstein was the one whose career was destroyed.
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Aug 31, 2014 18:47
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ThirdPartyView posted:For example, I think Alan Dershowitz is a complete douchebag, but I don't think he should have been fired from Harvard Law School (or if he wanted to move jobs to, say, Yale or Stanford Law School) for his horrible opinions on I/P (it should have been for his plagiarism that he got pissy about when Finkelstein pointed it out in OCD-like detail). Seriously, I'd prefer having fuckheads like Dershowitz or Dawkins who are quite upfront about their lovely beliefs so I know what to consider about their works, etc (at least in relation to those areas).
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Aug 31, 2014 18:49
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I get the importance of allowing academics the freedom to express controversial, or even downright hateful, ideas in their work, but I don't see why that should be stretched to just any retarded opinion they may have. Would anyone be defending this guy if he tweeted some ChimpOut poo poo about Ferguson? Reminder that this guy continues to teach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_B._MacDonald
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Aug 31, 2014 19:05
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The Finkelstein case is a good example why tenure exists. His academic work is controversial and outside considerations might impact his work, which tenure was designed to prevent. In the Salaita on the other (re)tweeted statements on twitter that are just meant demean and offend Israel. Is he protected under the first admentment? Absolutly and he should not be put in jail for what he wrote. But as was the case with Donald Sterling, the first admentment does not protect you from consequences of your free speech.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:05
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I get the importance of allowing academics the freedom to express controversial, or even downright hateful, ideas in their work, but I don't see why that should be stretched to just any retarded opinion they may have. Would anyone be defending this guy if he tweeted some ChimpOut poo poo about Ferguson? People would be pretty pissed about it if they were fired, especially from a tenured position, for such things. I'm reminded of the case of Michael Behe, a defender of intelligent design in the biology department at Lehigh. Literally everyone in that department thinks he's an idiot, and so does the rest of academia, AND I would bet many think he's doing serious damage to Lehigh's reputation, and to biological sciences in the public eye generally...but nobody wants him fired. Academics are pretty selfish, and don't want there to be a precedent that you can legitimately remove someone from a tenured position for their views. Also I'm pretty sure that someone did tweet ChimpOut poo poo about Ferguson they'd still have a job. I'd like to take the time to note that speculation about what would happen in other cases is rather specious given the extraordinary nature of what happened to Salaita; I've not seen a single actual case that resembles Salaita's case in academia (except maybe Finkelstein's case). Also, Jesus Christ I'm kind of astonished that that Kevin MacDonald guy even exists, what an rear end in a top hat. GaussianCopula posted:The Finkelstein case is a good example why tenure exists. His academic work is controversial and outside considerations might impact his work, which tenure was designed to prevent.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:13
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He knew that he was walking a fine line, he should reap the consequences. It's got nothing to do with academic freedom or anything else. The line about the settlers was especially indefensible and I would hope that anyone who states that an entire population should "go missing" should have their hiring called into question. There's no context you can provide that mitigates that statement.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:17
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SedanChair posted:He knew that he was walking a fine line, he should reap the consequences. It's got nothing to do with academic freedom or anything else. The line about the settlers was especially indefensible and I would hope that anyone who states that an entire population should "go missing" should have their hiring called into question. There's no context you can provide that mitigates that statement. Did we read the same tweet? It's the equivalent of saying you hope someone drops dead: it's not a nice thing to say, but it is certainly not a death threat or an incitement of any kind and you have to be trying really hard in order to see it as anything of the sort.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:21
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SedanChair posted:He knew that he was walking a fine line, he should reap the consequences. It's got nothing to do with academic freedom or anything else. The line about the settlers was especially indefensible and I would hope that anyone who states that an entire population should "go missing" should have their hiring called into question. There's no context you can provide that mitigates that statement. Why should we ignore the stated UIUC reasoning and the leaked emails when it comes to this case?
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Aug 31, 2014 19:24
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:
The government is in no way responsible for protecting your first amendment right as an employee. Government organizations can, will and should fire you for what you say. tinytort posted:Did we read the same tweet? It's the equivalent of saying you hope someone drops dead: it's not a nice thing to say, but it is certainly not a death threat or an incitement of any kind and you have to be trying really hard in order to see it as anything of the sort. It doesn't have to be an incitement to be a disgusting and terrible thing to say. I don't want him to be arrested for what he said, but spouting off about how you want thousands of Jews to go missing (particularly in the context of children being kidnapped and murdered) is loving appalling and shows how bullshit his "I'm not really anti-semitic" pose is.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:34
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Patrick Spens posted:The government is in no way responsible for protecting your first amendment right as an employee. Government organizations can, will and should fire you for what you say. Is it impossible for someone to oppose the settlements in the West Bank without hating Jews, or does it just require that they repeatedly affirm that removing the settlements requires full compensation for the land etc. etc. while saying that the settlements are illegal and immoral colonization?
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Aug 31, 2014 19:39
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Patrick Spens posted:It doesn't have to be an incitement to be a disgusting and terrible thing to say. I don't want him to be arrested for what he said, but spouting off about how you want thousands of Jews to go missing (particularly in the context of children being kidnapped and murdered) is loving appalling and shows how bullshit his "I'm not really anti-semitic" pose is. Hmm, you know, it's not his fault that the illegal settlers are of Jewish descent, he's expressing a political sentiment, although phrased in a somewhat inflammatory fashion, against the presence of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. You can say he's a dick but conflating statements against settlers as statements against Jews seems like a deliberate effort to paint Salaita's opinions as bigoted.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:43
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Shinobo posted:I'm curious: are you also in academia? I'm just a lowly grad student, but even I'm aware of how things typically work and it is unheard (at least to me) for a professor to move away from a department with the intent of pursuing employment somewhere else and still keep their tenured position. This is actually a not uncommon thing at all, particularly with administrators. A department might hire someone to come become the chair of their department / director of their program, and grant them tenure with the hire, as how are they supposed to do a good job administrating the department while they're working their rear end off to make tenure? Also, varies from school to school and field to field, if you've gotten tenure once, you can probably get it again, etc, etc, etc. edit: Also, husband / wife package deals.
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Aug 31, 2014 20:10
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EvanSchenck posted:The outline of the Finkelstein-Dershowitz affair is this: Reminder that Finkelstein also posted this on his website:  http://i.imgur.com/jHriwoe.jpg Classy. The Monkey Man fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Aug 31, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 20:35
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The Monkey Man posted:Classy. Accurate as poo poo, though. Given that Dershowitz is a classless piece of poo poo to begin with, that's reasonable.
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Aug 31, 2014 20:39
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The Monkey Man posted:Reminder that Finkelstein also posted this on his website: I respect the man deeply for this action.
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Aug 31, 2014 21:13
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Peven Stan posted:Higher ed is a racket and a cash and carry business. Anything that might draw negative attention from your customer or alumni base is something to avoid. So consider that my alma mater fully embraces its joke status by hiring war criminals from Iraq and shills for global warming denial at the behest of rural missouri electric cooperatives, they will in the same breath pretend like racism and all the problems that the city and state face are over. This is fully consistent with the student demographic that attends said university- over 85% white and mostly suburban. Oh I'm well aware (I'm a grad student) but I guess I haven't had all the hope beaten out me yet because I'd expect such a statement from a dean with nothing but administration experience, not a chancellor with an actual academic background.
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Aug 31, 2014 22:22
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Patrick Spens posted:The government is in no way responsible for protecting your first amendment right as an employee. Government organizations can, will and should fire you for what you say. I also am kind of wondering (along with emanresu tnuocca) what exactly is anti-semitic about his post about the settlers disappearing. He's not claiming that they should disappear because they're Jewish, and while I firmly agree it's really dickish, dickish behavior has never been enough to relieve a tenured scholar of a job. If that's the extent to which his behavior is worth him losing a job, then UIUC needs to both explain exactly what the criteria for illicit speech is and then it needs to explain why it hasn't fired other employees of UIUC for their speech (just given the odds I can bet other tenured faculty have said equally harsh things about other topics). Because it hasn't ever fired anyone for their speech; these are things they've said directly in defense of their actions that they have never cited in defense of employment actions before. If they're to be consistent they need to get on that right away.
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Aug 31, 2014 22:54
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Hmm, you know, it's not his fault that the illegal settlers are of Jewish descent, he's expressing a political sentiment, although phrased in a somewhat inflammatory fashion, against the presence of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. You can say he's a dick but conflating statements against settlers as statements against Jews seems like a deliberate effort to paint Salaita's opinions as bigoted. It's also rather indicative of his wider point that anti-semitism has lost its meaning as "hatred towards jews" and has instead become a byline for "is critical of Israel" I believe the standard test of whether something is anti-semitic or not is "Does this argument hinge solely on Jews being terrible people" Criticizing settlements, illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, overt racism, segregation and apartheid policies is not anti-semitic, unless you believe that there is something inherently Jewish about those actions (nobody sane does, but Israel sure likes to claim this is the cause of the hatred)
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Sep 1, 2014 00:14
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Ddraig posted:It's also rather indicative of his wider point that anti-semitism has lost its meaning as "hatred towards jews" and has instead become a byline for "is critical of Israel" Allow me to relay to a response to this from the pro-Israel camp. Actually said me to by someone who considered themselves a "moderate" on I/P. "It's not that criticism of Israel is in itself anti-semitic, it's that criticism of Israel is evidence of anti-semitism." Some people really do think the facts weigh so heavily on Israel's side that they can't fathom any reason one might criticize Israel other than hatred of Jews.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:04
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DisgracelandUSA posted:This is actually a not uncommon thing at all, particularly with administrators. A department might hire someone to come become the chair of their department / director of their program, and grant them tenure with the hire, as how are they supposed to do a good job administrating the department while they're working their rear end off to make tenure? Also, varies from school to school and field to field, if you've gotten tenure once, you can probably get it again, etc, etc, etc. I believe Shinobo was questioning the idea of someone switching to a new position and keeping their old tenured position.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:49
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The Monkey Man posted:Reminder that Finkelstein also posted this on his website: Why would we need to be reminded about that? Why does this matter, at all, in light of what I posted? Dershowitz committed academic fraud and then used his political connections to punish the man who exposed him, and your sole response to the story is that Finkelstein posted to his website an off-color Carlos Latuff comic mocking Dershowitz? Who cares?
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Sep 1, 2014 01:57
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