Comments on: Chancellor issues campus-wide email explaining Salaita decision (Update: Trustees and officials support)

By: JohnC

JohnC — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 23:59:52 +0000

I think somebody spent some time around Salaita and found out he was an insufferable loud-mouthed horse’s ass.

By: genes

genes — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 23:19:11 +0000

First because many of their students(or their parents) are fruit-bats.
Second because some rich fruit-bat endowed a Chair.

By: tom swift

tom swift — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 22:49:15 +0000

That aside, the letter does enunciate an important principle which seems to be overlooked too often – “We have a particular duty to our students …” I’ve sometimes wondered how some schools can justify inflicting genuine fruit bats on paying customers.

By: tom swift

tom swift — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 22:45:45 +0000

University of Illinois has three campuses – Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield.

The names of the chancellors of all three appear under one or the other of these letters. All three are women.

Hmmm. What are the chances of that? Is it a bit of that “diverse and multi-cultural” stuff cited in the supporting statement?

By: Exiliado

Exiliado — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 20:31:18 +0000

Basically, he was not hired because he is a disrespectful idiot, not because of his opinions.

So there’s no problem. Let’s move on.

By: healthguyfsu

healthguyfsu — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:34:59 +0000

Stupid strategy.

Just come up with another reason why he was denied the position like most people do.

By: RuthC

RuthC — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:30:20 +0000

Dear Prof. Jacobson,

This “distinguished” philosopher has cancelled his lecture at UI in the prestigious CAS/MillerComm Lecture Series. http://cas.illinois.edu/events/millercom/

http://proteviblog.typepad.com/protevi/2014/08/scholar_declines.html

Why don’t you write to the Center for Advanced Study at UI and offer your services as lecture in his stead, the topic being something like “Defending Academic Freedom from the Threat of Boycotts”?

It would be awesome and I’d love to see the University’s response.

By: RuthC

RuthC — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:15:33 +0000

This letter is probably the best the University could do. But it does enter sticky territory, as an individual could theoretically behave differently inside and out of the classroom.
Salaita should never have been hired as a Native American Indian Studies professor in the first place. His academic work is biased and not scholarly, he is a propagandist masquerading as a genuine academic. His subject matter has nothing to do with Native American studies. Even without the tweets that much is obvious. There are too many bogus professors like Salaita already in academia; that is the real scandal. They will be careful to be polite on twitter but their scholarship is shoddy and dishonest and their motivation is to indoctrinate, not educate.

By: Ragspierre

Ragspierre — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 18:51:49 +0000

Yeeeeup.

Freedom is NOT license. When we exercise our freedoms, our exercise still has consequences.

Heh!

By: Gremlin1974

Gremlin1974 — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 18:45:05 +0000

So a simple translation would be that they are afraid he was going to be a butt head to any pro-Israel student’s and might let his views affect his decisions as an educator. Sounds reasonable to me.

By: Trapped in Davis

Trapped in Davis — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 18:38:51 +0000

Better be careful. This might start a trend among colleges and universities of expecting their professors to act like grown-ups.