The chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign broke her silence on Friday about the university’s decision to withdraw a job offer to a scholar accused of being uncivil in his harsh criticisms of Israel, The News-Gazette reported.
The university had offered the scholar, Steven G. Salaita, a tenured professorship in American Indian studies, with the offer subject to approval by the university’s Board of Trustees. But the university said later that it would not forward his appointment to the board for its approval, after Mr. Salaita drew scrutiny over tweets that were fiercely critical of Israel.
The move riled many academics who have pledged to avoid the university until it reverses the decision not to hire Mr. Salaita.
Phyllis M. Wise, Urbana-Champaign’s chancellor, said in a message to the campus that the university’s decision on Mr. Salaita “was not influenced in any way” by his views on the conflict in the Middle East or his criticism of Israel. But she raised concerns about civility and what she said was the university’s duty to ensure that all viewpoints were welcome.
“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,” Ms. Wise said. “We have a particular duty to our students to ensure that they live in a community of scholarship that challenges their assumptions about the world but that also respects their rights as individuals.”
She said that tenure brought with it “a heavy responsibility to continue the traditions of scholarship and civility upon which our university is built.”
John K. Wilson, a co-editor of the American Association of University Professors’ Academe Blog, blasted Ms. Wise’s explanation in a post on Friday. He called her letter “an appalling attack on academic freedom and a rejection of the basic values that a university must stand for.”
