Resources: The Firing of Steven Salaita

For my non-academic readers, over the last week there’s been a big story about academic freedom in the age of Twitter. An arab-American professor lost a job, it seems, because he was rude about Israel on Twitter. There’s lots to say here and I am working on several essays. Here are some resources.

 First, on the firing, then some reactions (there are lots and lots more), and then the ways that conservative media write about conservative professors who encounter, they say, prejudice for their political beliefs.

As always with these resource posts, please let me know what I missed either in comments (which work better now), facebook, twitter, or email. Thanks.

Prequel

News on Salaita Firing

Some Reactions
  • Electronic Intifada roundup.
  • Mondoweiss compares to Seeger and Robeson.
  • Change.org petition calling for reversal.
  • David Palumbo-Liu in Salon with his reaction.
  • Daily Caller hangs up its trophy.
  • Corey Robin. I don’t even know where to start as he’s been deeply involved in the story. Maybe here.
  • AAUP reactions from Illinois and Nationally (and former AAUP president Cary Nelson applauding Salaita’s firing)
  • FIRE points out the timing between a 7/22  defense of Salaita and the pocket veto of the hiring.
Conservative Complaints about Conservative Profs being fired/discriminated against or calls for liberal profs to be fired.

Meta-article on the position of conservatives in the American university. Most important piece I’ve read on the topic It is written by a serious conservative. It accesses lots and lots of data. It acknowledges the divide in numbers between liberal and conservative profs, but says:

Looking at survey data from all of higher education’s primary constituencies, I began to realize that Republicans and conservatives, while vastly outnumbered in academia, were, for the most part, successful, happy, and prosperous. Fewer than 2 percent of faculty (Republican or Democratic) reported being the victims of unfair treatment based on their politics. Only 7 percent of Republican faculty believed that discrimination against those with “right-wing” views was a serious problem on their campus, compared with 8 percent of Democratic faculty who expressed concerns about discrimination against those with “left-wing” views. Asked to consider what they would do if given the opportunity to “begin your career again,” 91 percent of Democratic faculty and 93 percent of Republican faculty answered that they would “definitely” or “probably” want to be a college professor. Similarly, few rightleaning students or administrators claimed to have been the victims of political mistreatment. Like their Democratic counterparts, most were satisfied with their experience in higher education.

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