late friday afternoon (august 22), university of illinois broke three-week long silence on controversy regarding chancellor's revocation of tenured offer steven salaita, had accepted faculty position in american indian studies program @ flagship campus @ urbana-champaign. chancellor phyllis wise , board of trustees chairman christopher kennedy both issued statements explaining revocation, in terms far more alarming original decision itself. not exaggeration chancellor , board of trustees have declared first amendment not apply tenured faculty @ university of illinois.
bit of background friday's bombshell statements. last october, professor salaita, teaching @ virginia tech, accepted tenured offer urbana-champaign campus. went through regular appointments process @ university of illinois, , received approval relevant departments , deans after review of scholarship , teaching. offer, accepted, conditional on approval board of trustees. such approval clauses typical in teaching contracts , had, previously, been pro forma @ illinois, @ serious universities: not job of board of trustees of research institution second-guess judgment of academics , scholars. before board took matter up, university officials describing salaita faculty member, , moved illinois , scheduled teach 2 classes fall.
salaita has twitter account. "tweets" limited 140 characters, medium conducive spontaneous , superficial commentary. palestinian-american , scholar of colonialism, salaita tweeted extensively israeli attack on gaza. contrary initial misrepresentations put circulation far right websites, none of tweets either anti-semitic or incitements violence. vulgar, juvenile, insulting, banal. first amendment unequivocally protects salaita's right express every 1 of opinions on matter of public concern, , so, if wants, vulgarity , insults. matter of american constitutional law, not close case.
part of first amendment's protection of such speech government, including state university, prohibited punishing speaker expression or viewpoint. revoking job offer because of such speech would, again, unconstitutional. salaita's constitutional , contractual claims no doubt adjudicated in court, , university should lose.
brings friday's shocking statements. chancellor wise declared "we cannot... tolerate... personal , disrespectful words or actions demean , abuse either viewpoints or express them." yet matter of well-settled american constitutional law, university of illinois must tolerate "words... demean , abuse either viewpoints or express them." university has no choice, both matter of constitutional law , matter of contractual commitment faculty academic freedom. scathing critiques of both viewpoints , authors abound in scholarly fields; end of serious scholarly inquiry , debate administrators become arbiters of "good manners." more simply, illegal university start punishing faculty failure live chancellor's expectations "civil" speech , disagreement.
university, of course, need not , should not tolerate mistreatment of students in classroom, there no evidence of such pedagogical misconduct in case; indeed, public evidence salaita successful , popular teacher. no serious university evaluates pedagogical fitness based on speculative inferences twitter accounts, yet chancellor's statement implies illinois has done in instance. faculty have pedagogical , professional obligations students, not include obligation refrain expressing views, whether matters of public concern or matters within purview of faculty member's scholarship, student somewhere might find upsetting, leading student conclude that faculty member might not "value[] student human being." student's entitlement treated , professionally in classroom; students have no entitlement never find views of professors offensive or upsetting.
chairman kennedy's statement worse chancellor's. while endorsing chancellor's abrogation of constitutional , contractual rights of faculty, goes further, declaring "there can no place" "disrespectful , demeaning speech" "in our democracy, , therefore, there no place in our university." may hope more civility in public life, "disrespectful , demeaning speech" not has extensive presence in our democracy (as knows), has constitutionally protected place well, united states supreme court has repeatedly affirmed. yet chairman kennedy says believes in "free speech tempered in respect human rights." there no doctrine of "free speech tempered in respect human rights" in american constitutional law. national embarrassment public official, chairman of university of illinois's board of trustees, apparently not know basic facts american constitutional system.
@ moments this, 1 wonders: lawyers? chancellor wise , chairman kennedy have made statements commit university of illinois illegal because unconstitutional courses of action. should resign, or removed office, before doing further damage 1 of nation's great research universities. public statements make clear unfit lead academic institutions in both freedom of speech , freedom of research , inquiry upheld.
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