UC Irvine Professors Come to Defense of Steven Salaita

The academic hysteria over the University of Illinois' withdrawal of a teaching position to 

Professor Steven Salaita has reached UC Irvine, where some group called the Irvine Faculty 

Association has put an op-ed in the campus paper, New University, crying foul and giving an 

overblown statement on free speech (their free speech).

http://www.newuniversity.org/2014/09/opinion/professors-advocate-academic-freedom-encourage-unfiltered-debate/

Today, I sent in this to the editor in chief asking it be published as a response. Whether it will be published I don't know.

"Last week, New University featured an essay by some group called the Irvine 
Faculty Association. I don’t know who they are or if they represent every 
teacher at UC Irvine, but I would like to respond to their statements about 
Professor Steven Salaita, who was offered a post at the University of Illinois, 
which was later rescinded over some comments he had made relative to the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 
 
First of all, the authors conveniently left out the most egregious statement 
Salaita reportedly made (in a tweet), which came in the wake of the kidnapping 
of three Israeli teens who were later found murdered. This is the statement 
attributed to Salaita: 
 
“You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not.  I wish all the (expletive) West 
Bank settlers would go missing.” 
 
Salaita’s explanation was that he just meant that he wanted all the Israeli 
settlements to close. That hardly holds water. Those three boys didn’t disappear 
because they had moved out of their home and moved to Tel Aviv. If that was all 
he meant, why say anything about who is “too refined to say it”? 
 
Since Salaita had left his previous hire and sold his home, I expect he will 
eventually receive some compensation for his expenses. Having said that, I hope 
the university sticks to its guns. Nobody has a constitutional right to any job, 
and an employer can decide whom they hire-and yes change their minds.  As things 
stand now, the Students for Justice in Palestine, predictably, has rushed to his 
aid trying to arrange speaking appearances in universities around Chicago with 
appeals for stipends, contributions, etc. I expect we will soon see him speaking 
here at UCI claiming victim hood. 
 
Salaita has his free speech rights, and nobody is calling for his arrest. Even 
the above statement is protected. However, when it comes to a position at a 
university, there should be some limit  when it comes to advocating violence, 
kidnapping, and death to certain individuals or groups of individuals. UI has 
apparently decided that Salaita went over the line and that some of his 
statements were, indeed, anti-Semitic.  As for those “wealthy donors” mentioned 
(what university donors aren’t wealthy?), just who are they referring to? 
 
This article is also highly overblown with cries of impingement of faculty free 
speech rights. Leaving aside the question of whether it is professional for  
teachers to use their classroom as a soapbox to indoctrinate students to their 
view of the world, what is there to cry about? The leftists and the 
pro-Palestinian crowd dominate the discourse in universities all the US. It is 
the other side, the conservative side, and the pro-Israel side which hardly has 
a voice on university campuses. The authors even have the nerve to refer to the 
so-called Irvine 11, who denied the Israeli ambassador to the US his right to 
speak without loud disruptions. 
 
As for the statement made by UCB Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, it came in the wake 
of constant complaints over the past years of anti-Semitic speech and 
intimidation on UC campuses including UCB. The original statement itself, in my 
view, was weak and pusillamenous, but my impression reading between the lines 
was that it was a thinly-disguised plea for the pro-Palestinian lobby on campus 
to clean up its tactics. He should have demanded it. Then he wrote a second 
letter apparently because he was afraid he might have offended someone. 
 
As for ex-Professor Salaita, if he needs a job, I suggest he team up with 
ex-Professor Norman Finkelstein, who is now reduced to the lecture circuit. They 
can do a traveling road show together."

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In addition, I commented on the on-line edition under the story with Salaita's tweet about the kidnapped Israeli teens and asked other readers if they wanted to see Salaita teaching at UCI.