Top officials at the University of Illinois “have done genuine damage” to the system by rescinding a job offer
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Top officials at the University of Illinois “have done genuine damage” to the system by rescinding a job offer to Steven G. Salaita over his inflammatory criticisms of Israel, 34 academic-department heads on the Urbana-Champaign campus have told the system’s incoming president, Timothy L. Killeen.
In an open letter to Mr. Killeen released on Wednesday, the department heads argue that Robert A. Easter, who is retiring as system president, Phyllis M. Wise, the Urbana-Champaign campus’s chancellor, and the system’s Board of Trustees all have issued “statements on academic freedom that were both expansive and troubling” in their attempt to justify denying Mr. Salaita a tenured professorship in American Indian studies.
The letter says the officials’ statements drawing a hard line against speech regarded as disrespectful and demeaning “are directly at odds” with the American Association of University Professors’ declarations on academic freedom, which place far more value on protecting the free exchange of ideas than on maintaining civility.
In addition, the letter says, the university’s treatment of Mr. Salaita violated his due-process protections, fundamental principles of shared governance, and the Urbana-Champaign campus’s long-established protocols related to hiring, promotion, and tenure.
The letter predicts that the system’s treatment of Mr. Salaita will lead to the AAUP’s censure of the Urbana-Champaign campus, and says it already has thrown a wrench into the campus’s searches for new faculty members and prompted scholars elsewhere to cancel more than three dozen scheduled talks there.
The letter also urges Mr. Killeen, who is expected to take office in January after most recently serving as vice chancellor for research at the State University of New York, to “explicitly and emphatically” reaffirm the system’s commitment to academic freedom and free speech.
