Anti-Israel Prof. Steve Salaita loses job offer at U. Illinois over hateful tweets
Steven Salaita’s Twitter conduct raised questions
We previously featured Virginia Tech, and soon-to-be U. Illinois (at Urbana-Champaign) Professor Steven Salaita, someone committed to the destruction of Israel, for his tweet partly blaming Zionism for anti-Semitic outbursts around the world:
That was not even the worst of his tweets. I’ve been following his account for months now, and his Twitter action was hateful against Israel to the point of deranged (view his tweets at the bottom of the post and see if you agree).
Apparently, these tweets have cost him his job offer at U. Illinois, but not before he resigned from Virginia Tech. It appears that because his “offer” was contingent on various approvals, he thought he had an actual “offer” but really only had nothing but a promise to consider hiring him and a departmental recommendation to hire.
I thought something was up when he stopped tweeting on August 2.
Via Inside Higher Ed:
Many faculty job offers (which are well-vetted by college officials before they go out) contain language stating that the offer is pending approval by the institution’s board of trustees. It’s just a formality, since many college bylaws require such approval.
Not so with a job offer made to Steven G. Salaita, who was to have joined the American Indian studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign this month. The appointment was made public, and Salaita resigned from his position as associate professor of English at Virginia Tech. But he was recently informed by Chancellor Phyllis Wise that the appointment would not go to the university’s board, and that he did not have a job to come to in Illinois, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
The university declined to confirm the blocked appointment….
Salaita did not respond to numerous calls and emails.
The sources familiar with the university’s decision say that concern grew over the tone of his comments on Twitter about Israel’s policies in Gaza. While many academics at Illinois and elsewhere are deeply critical of Israel, Salaita’s tweets have struck some as crossing a line into uncivil behavior.
Expect him now to become a rallying cry for the anti-Israel movement, which will portray it as a move based on his anti-Israel view, as opposed to his bizarre conduct.
Inside Higher Ed. further writes:
Cary Nelson, a longtime English professor at Illinois and a past president of the American Association of University Professors, has defended many professors who hold unpopular views. But he has also in the past said that it was legitimate — at the point of hiring — to consider issues of civility and collegiality. In this case, he said, that would lead him to oppose Salaita’s appointment.
“I think the chancellor made the right decision,” he said via email. “I know of no other senior faculty member tweeting such venomous statements — and certainly not in such an obsessively driven way. There are scores of over-the-top Salaita tweets. I also do not know of another search committee that had to confront a case where the subject matter of academic publications overlaps with a loathsome and foul-mouthed presence in social media. I doubt if the search committee felt equipped to deal with the implications for the campus and its students. I’m glad the chancellor did what had to be done.”
Here are some of his tweets, what do you think? Did he cross a line from political to so bizarre that there are doubts about fitness to teach? Should a university be compelled to hire someone who engages in bizarre behavior in public?
There are some themes in his tweets beyond the hate of Israel — stoking racial issues and supporting the Boycottt, Divest and Sanction movement. (He’s author of a Guide to how faculty can practice BDS.) He was very involved in the American Studies Association boycott resolution, hardly a surprise there.
Mocking the American “Lone Soldiers” killed in Israel:
Trying to stoke racial tension by blaming aid to Israel for Detroit’s problems:
He retweeted a horrible veiled threat towards Jeffrey Goldberg (now it was just a RT, but still):
These must be most ironic tweets of all:
UPDATE:
I still think this is the worst @stevesalaita tweet, though I rarely look at his TL https://t.co/nxFXrg4g7Q
cc @LegInsurrection
— Nurit Baytch (@NuritBaytch) August 6, 2014
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Comments
Wow, this guy is truly a loathsome human being. I hope he ends up teaching Polar Bear Studies at the University of Gulag.
That last tweet is certainly self-referential.
Well, good.
The kids at Univ. Ill. just dodged a bullet.
I hope this puke is next heard from asking of you want fries or a pie with your order.
Link on Drudge:
“Judgments about Trustworthiness made in first SECOND of meeting.”
I don’t need to meet this guy, and I don’t need more than a nanosecond looking at his picture to surmise that I don’t trust him to handle my burger and fries. The tweets are just redundant confirmation.
I’ll take a sweet, pimply-faced teenager with raging hormones over an adult “professor” with raging anti-Semitism as my burger prep artist any day of the week.
His face is a natural appetite suppressant.
Your burger is not “dressed” or composed by the guy on the end of the speaker.
That burger-composing person…as I know from my son who did that work in high school…is very dexterous and able to process information pretty quickly (if Sonic is the standard).
Actually I’d rather hope he’s out front with begging for fries from anyone leaving the place. Hunger would teach him some new values………..maybe.
Dems will get him another do noting job to continue his hate filled life. They’re good at keeping animals like him on their leash.
I’ll bet the poor, poor Palestinians could use some university professors to help them out.
Maybe he’ll get a job there, where he belongs.
Dual employment: Professor of Geology / Dig Site Team Lead. All you need to know is pour cement.
A professor of English, with a side interest in Native American studies? pour cement? those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.
Now there’s the proof to all of the high school and college (and certainly younger) kids who don’t think before they post on the internet. Gives new meaning to “This is going on your permanent record.”
My favorite college professor taught a semester class on the history of the American West, happily referred to by students as Cowboys and Indians. He’s the only guy I know who was a simultaneously a member of both the NRA and the ACLU. Oh, and as an observant Jew he’d proudly say he’s a Zionist as well.
This guy would have fit right in at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago)…Bill Ayers’ stomping grounds.
There are no doubt still plenty of leftist profs at U of I, but they will never be fired. At least this one more rabid “shit-stirrer” got left out in the cold … wonder if he gets his old job back.
Now for those UN teachers that abuse those Gaza kids, indoctrinating them to hate the Jews, and to participate in jihad. Canada has cut off their funding already, but Team Obama still loves them. From this report, it seems Obama gives millions to this group, known to coordinate with Hamas in training up little terrorists.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3715804904001/new-focus-on-un-schools-in-gaza-receiving-us-funding/#sp=show-clips/primetime
Cash-strapped Illinois was going to blow money on this POS?
Springfield needs a good cleansing in November.
I see two winners here: Virginia Tech and University of Illinois.
American Indian studies? Do they actually study American Indians? Or is this a slush fund to pay “activists” for political action?
From the higher ed link:
“his work in comparative American Indian-Palestinian-Arab American studies”
So yes, an activist masquerading as a scholar, squatting at some PCBS toilet.
He is the same idiot who bashed the “support our troops” meme in that Salon article some time ago.
I hope he spends the rest of his days asking “would you like fries with that?”
I’ve wondered for years with these people — which happens first; ugly on the outside or ugly on the inside? Some of these leftists (such as this guy) are so spectacularly unattractive (men and women) that I wonder if they are just desperate for attention, even if it’s the wrong kind.
I find this hilarious. His last tweet is so hypocritical that it actually made me start laughing in my chair.
Very typical of the crop of pseudo-intellectual professors that the left has been breeding inside our university system for the past couple decades.
All that is required to become a professor is to parrot the liberal party lines on ‘social justice’, ‘fairness’, etc.
They sit in a big group and congratulate each other on how smart they are, and think that if only the stupid unwashed masses listened to them the world would be perfect.
The rage on the left is so incongruous on this issue (all issues I guess). The Palestinians elect terrorists, and refuse a two state solution, because they don’t want to yield to Israel “the right to exist”. Israel’s resistance to annihilation is blamed.
But we are told “the Jews” run Hollywood and our financial realm. There are indeed many Jews in both realms, for example the last few federal reserve heads and many/most top finance heads in DC are Jewish. So with all that influence, why does Israel get such a bad rap?
I haven’t figured it out, but there must be mass bipolar disorder, or some socialized psychotic break, to accuse civilized Israel of such atrocities, while excusing the confessed terrorists.
Perhaps it is similar to the 70% of Americans that want less government, lower taxes, constitutional values. We (the tea party people) soon find out the left hates us sure, but even Mitch McConnell wants to “crush the tea party everywhere”. Twisted old stalwarts like Barber and Cochran spread racist lies, to enable Democrats to defeat the tea party candidate, in the Republican primary. It would seem “we the people” must be crushed under foot, in Mitch’s statist kingdom.
I do wonder if this one prof got rejected because he included “FU Obama” in his tweets more than for his anti-Israel rants. But there are some starlets and a very few others recognizing that standing up for Hamas, reveals some rather intense cognitive dissonance, and/or profound mind control from the leftist media.
The PC state religion of the left here, and the (radical) Islam absolutist religion of Hamas have found common cause, in condemning those that are self reliant rather than totally dependent on the state.
I’m just trying to understand the root cause of the mass confusion.
What does it say about the state of higher education in America when loons like this are allowed to teach our kids?
Just hope that Virginia Tech is not stupid enough to hire him back. Might be interesting to see what kind of job he lands outside of academia. Anticipate that the phrase he needs to memorize is “Do you want fries with that?”
So he was going to teach American Indian Studies? Sounds like this leftist loon should call Lieawatha and see if she can pull a few strings for him …. somewhere.
He obviously is a real tough guy judging by the language and content of what he has to say. He is also unhinged and Obama should have the secret service investigate his anal cranium. Good for the UI for showing sound judgement.
He seems to dislike “colonization.” So will he denounce all the colonization done by Arabs and Mongols and Turks, and anyone else who invaded and imposed the Religion of Peace over large parts of the earth by the sword? Well he denounce the colonization of Tower Hamlets, Luton, Malmo, Paris, Dearborn, etc?
He seems to dislike “ethnocentrism.” But he also seems to believe that North America should be emptied of people who are not of the ethnicity he prefers.
Anyway, what’s more shocking than the vulgarity and demented hatred is the limited ability to think.
Yeah, I picked up on that too – the idea of having an ethnic homeland for Native Americans (who, fwiw, were as diverse in culture and government as Europe has ever been) seems to be *congruous* with the idea of an ethnic homeland for Jews.
I’m all against the idea of Zionism not because I’m against Jews, or for Palestinians, but because I believe the idea of “ethnic homelands” is a losing proposition that only causes more problems.
“But he also seems to believe that North America should be emptied of people who are not of the ethnicity he prefers.”
Note that he doesn’t even appear to be of the ethnicity that he prefers, lol.
Holy mackerel! That picture… Steven Salaita looks like an honest to goodness human Muppet. A real life walking, talking, deranged hate spewing human caricature. That bullet-head. That schnoz. That facial expression. Those cold, vacant eyes. That face! That sweater he got from his Mom for his birthday. Paste a tuft of puffy hair to the apex of his cranium and a caterpillar above each eye… he looks just like Sesame Street’s Bert. With glasses.
Sooner or later some lib loon will finally take this line of thought to its logical end and demand the extermination of homo sapien so the Earth my be returned to homo neanderthalensis (after which lib loon neanderthals will demand their species be irradicated in favor of homo heidelbergensis, who came before, and so on… homo erectus, etc.).
But what about “academic freedom”? Oh, that only applies to *conservatives*.
Stupid troll, do you get that LOTS of things do not fall into the “academic freedom” ambit?
“Academic freedom” does not protect one from sexual misconduct, substance abuse, or making oneself a pariah in the press.
What, EXACTLY, was “academic” about this puke’s posts, given he is a (putative) English prof?
Hey, quit using facts, logic, and reason, it isn’t fair to people like Gus. 🙂
God’s sense of humor is unfathomable.
Tough guy keyboard commando is the ex-college prof.
Social media can doom ANY job applicant, and in this case it was well justified.
First they came for Ward Churchill, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a tenured phony Indian given to calling victims of Islamic terrorism, “little Eichmanns.”
Then they came for Steven Salaita, and I did not speak out—
Because he overcooked my burger.
… Never interrupt anyone who is making a fool of himself… Sometimes “First Amendment” pronouncements and rants have consequencies… I see a future for this guy in the Hamas anti-semetic studies department… Hopefully in the middle east somewhere….
He’s clearly mentally ill.
I don’t see why they fired him. The only differences between this and the typical publication in his field are that his tweets were in plain English and people actually read them.
What a loud-mouthed jackoff.
Wow. Talk about one picture being worth a thousand words.