https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/08282019-salaita-academic-freedom?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1
QuoteNo amount of money, no legal recognition that I was wronged, will replace the loss of my academic career, to which I devoted the majority of my life. Academic freedom can't make any university hire me, no matter how strong my CV. Everybody involved in the imbroglio at Illinois got to pick up the pieces of their vocation and move on to different pastures. I didn't. The fallout for me was permanent. They can put the ugly situation behind them. It's always right in front of me. I think about these things when I'm inspecting my school bus in the dark of a 20-degree morning.
It's important, then, to avoid treating academic freedom as sacrosanct and view it instead as a participant in material politics. Academic freedom cannot function without tenure, worker solidarity, and an adequate job market, which are all in decline. "Can academic freedom be saved?" is a less pertinent question than, "Is there any longer a marketplace for academic freedom?" The corporate university is disarming academic freedom by diminishing the circumstances in which it can be effective.
Puh-leeze.
I can't read the article because it's behind a paywall (the irony). But the quoted section is right on. There have been several cases like Salaita's in my field the past few years; how well the academic's right to work while also making extramural political speech is protected by their university directly correlates to whether they have tenure protections.
Quote"You may be too refined to say it, but I'm not: I wish all the fucking West Bank settlers would go missing."
While I support academic freedom, the concept of "academic freedom" didn't come into existence to protect faculty members from the consequences of political statements unrelated to one's expertise. What does the world lose if academics aren't able to make statements like that? Nothing. I don't need my academic freedom put in jeopardy by idiots lacking judgement.
The only thing that gives me a scrap of sympathy to the academic freedom argument is that the complaints were made by donors, not other scholars in other disciplines.
Academic freedom is not freedom to behave like a complete tool.
If the scholar had a second job as a standup comedian, it would be understood that pushing the envelope is part of his job. Just noticing.
A non-paywalled (at least for now) link to the CHE article itself. (https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/08282019-salaita-academic-freedom?key=mi0Bff1vaLHL09_no2EmgxCa2KUqaEhz-Ix90E6lJUyajM1kcFnvb3MSq3U8UiYOSlZJN1k2NTFYU09XajAxbEEzR2VPdk9DNXctc0ZqSkRpeG1VM1RiMUU0bw)
For those who don't know, CHE often posts on Twitter non-paywalled links to articles they are promoting.
To contribute to the discussion, Salita's article states
"Professional associations talk a lot about this crisis or that emergency but do little to organize their members."
For those who didn't read the recent CHE article on exactly this topic, by law, the professional organizations that hold specific IRS status cannot organize membership the way a union would. See https://www.chronicle.com/article/Scholarly-Associations-Can-t/246218 for details.
Quote from: mahagonny on August 29, 2019, 05:49:21 PM
If the scholar had a second job as a standup comedian, it would be understood that pushing the envelope is part of his job. Just noticing.
Well, yes. They are different jobs, with different expectations. But there's nothing wrong with confronting or firing an employee whose performance of his second job is interfering with his ability to carry out his first job.
Quote from: tuxthepenguin on August 29, 2019, 12:43:09 PM
Quote"You may be too refined to say it, but I'm not: I wish all the fucking West Bank settlers would go missing."
While I support academic freedom, the concept of "academic freedom" didn't come into existence to protect faculty members from the consequences of political statements unrelated to one's expertise. What does the world lose if academics aren't able to make statements like that? Nothing. I don't need my academic freedom put in jeopardy by idiots lacking judgement.
I agree that Salaita lacks judgement appropriate to the situation. But his commentary was very much in his area of scholarship. That makes it an important case to examine.
The strongest part of Salaita's CHE article (https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/08282019-salaita-academic-freedom) is where he examines how the criteria for speech protected under academic freedom shifts depending on who is complaining and who is being complained about. How clear are the rules and how fair is the process for adjudicating at your school?
The article also contains a lot of lashing out and a suggestion that containing him with any rules is unreasonable. I was not particularly sympathetic to those parts.
Quote from: ergative on August 30, 2019, 01:48:21 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on August 29, 2019, 05:49:21 PM
If the scholar had a second job as a standup comedian, it would be understood that pushing the envelope is part of his job. Just noticing.
Well, yes. They are different jobs, with different expectations. But there's nothing wrong with confronting or firing an employee whose performance of his second job is interfering with his ability to carry out his first job.
Perhaps I missed this part, but what part of Salaita's twitter criticisms of Israel interfered with his ability to carry out his first job? I mean other than that they angered donors?
Quote from: nescafe on August 30, 2019, 06:32:24 AM
Quote from: ergative on August 30, 2019, 01:48:21 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on August 29, 2019, 05:49:21 PM
If the scholar had a second job as a standup comedian, it would be understood that pushing the envelope is part of his job. Just noticing.
Well, yes. They are different jobs, with different expectations. But there's nothing wrong with confronting or firing an employee whose performance of his second job is interfering with his ability to carry out his first job.
Perhaps I missed this part, but what part of Salaita's twitter criticisms of Israel interfered with his ability to carry out his first job? I mean other than that they angered donors?
I'm Jewish and not even particularly pro-Israel and found his statements absolutely anti-Semitic. I would not trust him, as a person who would make such disgusting statements, to be a collegial faculty member or a fair grader for students, tolerant of different points of view.
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 07:12:06 AM
Quote from: nescafe on August 30, 2019, 06:32:24 AM
Quote from: ergative on August 30, 2019, 01:48:21 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on August 29, 2019, 05:49:21 PM
If the scholar had a second job as a standup comedian, it would be understood that pushing the envelope is part of his job. Just noticing.
Well, yes. They are different jobs, with different expectations. But there's nothing wrong with confronting or firing an employee whose performance of his second job is interfering with his ability to carry out his first job.
Perhaps I missed this part, but what part of Salaita's twitter criticisms of Israel interfered with his ability to carry out his first job? I mean other than that they angered donors?
I'm Jewish and not even particularly pro-Israel and found his statements absolutely anti-Semitic. I would not trust him, as a person who would make such disgusting statements, to be a collegial faculty member or a fair grader for students, tolerant of different points of view.
I can see why you wouldn't. When conflict is going on people are going to take sides. Especially if their ancestors come from somewhere around that region.
I think his story is about how the internet comes into your home and prods you, then tempts you to get into the fray, sound off. So much news available, so much commentary. So easy to reach so many instantly with your tweeting. Approaching getting into your thoughts and broadcasting them. They didn't live in this world when they formulated tenure.
"By that point I no longer thought about the tweets. I couldn't recall my state of mind when I wrote them."
Quote from: mahagonny on August 30, 2019, 11:53:38 AM
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 07:12:06 AM
Quote from: nescafe on August 30, 2019, 06:32:24 AM
Quote from: ergative on August 30, 2019, 01:48:21 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on August 29, 2019, 05:49:21 PM
If the scholar had a second job as a standup comedian, it would be understood that pushing the envelope is part of his job. Just noticing.
Well, yes. They are different jobs, with different expectations. But there's nothing wrong with confronting or firing an employee whose performance of his second job is interfering with his ability to carry out his first job.
Perhaps I missed this part, but what part of Salaita's twitter criticisms of Israel interfered with his ability to carry out his first job? I mean other than that they angered donors?
I'm Jewish and not even particularly pro-Israel and found his statements absolutely anti-Semitic. I would not trust him, as a person who would make such disgusting statements, to be a collegial faculty member or a fair grader for students, tolerant of different points of view.
I can see why you wouldn't. When conflict is going on people are going to take sides. Especially if their ancestors come from somewhere around that region.
I think his story is about how the internet comes into your home and prods you, then tempts you to get into the fray, sound off. So much news available, so much commentary. So easy to reach so many instantly with your tweeting. Approaching getting into your thoughts and broadcasting them. They didn't live in this world when they formulated tenure.
"By that point I no longer thought about the tweets. I couldn't recall my state of mind when I wrote them."
Adults take responsibility for their own behavior.
"But he started it..." is middle-school crap.
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 02:48:56 PM
Adults take responsibility for their own behavior. "But he started it..." is middle-school crap.
Speaking of that, honest question: suppose you post something on the twitter account and you realize minutes or hours later that, had you been writing something for publication, you would have edited the thing out or changed it. So which one is taking responsibility for your behavior:
(1) Delete the tweet; it does not express the distilled, accurate, most true statement that is you, and it might needlessly offend or misinform readers about your truest self. People need not be getting junk to read, or
(2) Leave the tweet. You wrote it and you can't revise history or deny the truth of who you are and what you've said. Man up and own it.
Quote from: mahagonny on August 30, 2019, 06:47:19 PM
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 02:48:56 PM
Adults take responsibility for their own behavior. "But he started it..." is middle-school crap.
Speaking of that, honest question: suppose you post something on the twitter account and you realize minutes or hours later that, had you been writing something for publication, you would have edited the thing out or changed it. So which one is taking responsibility for your behavior:
(1) Delete the tweet; it does not express the distilled, accurate, most true statement that is you, and it might needlessly offend or misinform readers about your truest self. People need not be getting junk to read, or
(2) Leave the tweet. You wrote it and you can't revise history or deny the truth of who you are and what you've said. Man up and own it.
Delete because most writing can benefit from another revision. Writing doesn't have to have anything to do with one's truest self, but often ends up with whatever was done enough when the deadline comes up.
I tend to write long because revision and editing are the time-consuming step in writing. I frequently don't know what I think until I've written a bunch down, read it over, and then edited until I run out of time.
People who know they have very unpopular views and are posting anywhere under their legal names in venues that are likely to come to the attention of their employers should not be letting anything go out without an overnight sit. That's like crossing the street without looking both ways and paying attention to what's in the street.
I disagree entirely that Salaita's criticisms of Israel and Netanyahu's government constituted anti-semitism, first of all. Incivil, provocative, or even spiteful speech against a settler-colonial state is still critique of a state. I also take umbrage with the emotional leap that happens when someone's tweets blow up like this, the phrase that "his speech is offensive to me so he must also be a poor role model, bad teacher, incapable of separating his politics from his pedagogy." One doesn't follow the other.
That said, there is something here that bothers me, as a scholar who also writes about issues that a lot of people have feelings about (it's the open borders debate in my case). The AAUP case turned on the idea that Salaita's tweets were extramural speech, and were thus protected on that basis. That has fed the perception that politics and political viewpoints are sui generis pieces of our lives, and Salaita's views on Israel and Palestine were some kind of unfortunate quirk that he made the unfortunate choice to air in public. But he's a scholar in Palestine Studies, who works on this stuff full-time, who writes about the occupation, and who until this incident was theorizing the relationship between indigeneity and forced removal across transnational contexts.
The pulling apart of professional vs. extramural speech is necessary for legal action (isn't it?), but at the same time, it feels completely disingenuous to me. It requires the academic to jump through the weird hoop of claiming expertise in their own professional discipline while conforming to the absurd dictate that their own views on that discipline are separate, quarantined, and of no consequence.
Anyway, that's off to the side of this article, which nails the issue of faculty's failure to practice solidarity in tough times pretty well. I had the misfortune of being on another campus that made national news shortly after the 2016 election. I watched a non-tenure-track colleague of mine go through these turns and was horrified by how swiftly the tenured faculty my department turned on him.
Quote from: nescafe on August 31, 2019, 08:07:11 AM
That said, there is something here that bothers me, as a scholar who also writes about issues that a lot of people have feelings about (it's the open borders debate in my case). The AAUP case turned on the idea that Salaita's tweets were extramural speech, and were thus protected on that basis. That has fed the perception that politics and political viewpoints are sui generis pieces of our lives, and Salaita's views on Israel and Palestine were some kind of unfortunate quirk that he made the unfortunate choice to air in public. But he's a scholar in Palestine Studies, who works on this stuff full-time, who writes about the occupation, and who until this incident was theorizing the relationship between indigeneity and forced removal across transnational contexts.
Fine, but he wasn't writing about the issue from that perspective, or critiquing the State. He was accusing a whole group of people of gleefully committing infanticide. Which crosses a line.
Quote from: mahagonny on August 30, 2019, 06:47:19 PM
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 02:48:56 PM
Adults take responsibility for their own behavior. "But he started it..." is middle-school crap.
Speaking of that, honest question: suppose you post something on the twitter account and you realize minutes or hours later that, had you been writing something for publication, you would have edited the thing out or changed it. So which one is taking responsibility for your behavior:
(1) Delete the tweet; it does not express the distilled, accurate, most true statement that is you, and it might needlessly offend or misinform readers about your truest self. People need not be getting junk to read, or
(2) Leave the tweet. You wrote it and you can't revise history or deny the truth of who you are and what you've said. Man up and own it.
If you say/do something in anger or other negative emotion that you realize is causing a lot of unintended hurt feelings or other consequences, do you...
1) Apologize and make amends?
2) Double down and do it again?
He had other, worse, tweets that he is not quoting.
Here is what I do not get. Granted, I am a European transplant and there is a lot that i do not understand, but I am puzzled by the logical fallacies in many of those tweets (ad populum, ad hominem...honestly, you name it, it is there). Again, I do understand that this is how political activism/speech/satire works, and I am aware that tweets are not academic arguments, but I found most of the tweets beyond offensive: to me, they seem inflammatory, just stirring up controversy for controversy's sake. Bracketing for a moment the anti-semitism (and yes, although not Jewish and far from being a supporter of Israel, I do think many of them are anti-semitic... a topic for another post, though) of the tweets, to me they defy fundamental principles of pluralistic discussion by attacking opponents rather than critiquing arguments or providing viewpoints that can further discussion, rather than silencing divergent opinion.
Quote from: polly_mer on August 31, 2019, 04:19:25 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on August 30, 2019, 06:47:19 PM
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 02:48:56 PM
Adults take responsibility for their own behavior. "But he started it..." is middle-school crap.
Speaking of that, honest question: suppose you post something on the twitter account and you realize minutes or hours later that, had you been writing something for publication, you would have edited the thing out or changed it. So which one is taking responsibility for your behavior:
(1) Delete the tweet; it does not express the distilled, accurate, most true statement that is you, and it might needlessly offend or misinform readers about your truest self. People need not be getting junk to read, or
(2) Leave the tweet. You wrote it and you can't revise history or deny the truth of who you are and what you've said. Man up and own it.
Delete because most writing can benefit from another revision. Writing doesn't have to have anything to do with one's truest self, but often ends up with whatever was done enough when the deadline comes up.
I tend to write long because revision and editing are the time-consuming step in writing. I frequently don't know what I think until I've written a bunch down, read it over, and then edited until I run out of time.
People who know they have very unpopular views and are posting anywhere under their legal names in venues that are likely to come to the attention of their employers should not be letting anything go out without an overnight sit. That's like crossing the street without looking both ways and paying attention to what's in the street.
More complex though? No one feels obligated to cross the street when there's peril. But yours is a good practical answer.
But I don't have tenure. My sense of obligation to say something unpopular, even when I think it's true, is much less. My attitude might be 'someone else who can afford to needs to say it.'
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 31, 2019, 09:35:19 AM
Quote from: mahagonny on August 30, 2019, 06:47:19 PM
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 30, 2019, 02:48:56 PM
Adults take responsibility for their own behavior. "But he started it..." is middle-school crap.
Speaking of that, honest question: suppose you post something on the twitter account and you realize minutes or hours later that, had you been writing something for publication, you would have edited the thing out or changed it. So which one is taking responsibility for your behavior:
(1) Delete the tweet; it does not express the distilled, accurate, most true statement that is you, and it might needlessly offend or misinform readers about your truest self. People need not be getting junk to read, or
(2) Leave the tweet. You wrote it and you can't revise history or deny the truth of who you are and what you've said. Man up and own it.
If you say/do something in anger or other negative emotion that you realize is causing a lot of unintended hurt feelings or other consequences, do you...
1) Apologize and make amends?
2) Double down and do it again?
I would probably do what most people do. Apologize 'if I've offended anyone' without weighing in on why they should be offended. Or if it were a tweet (I don't do Twitter) I would delete it and hope it's forgotten, like most people would. Because, as Dale Carnegie wrote, everyone will say that a mature person should accept criticism cheerfully, but almost no one does.
When you say something to many people, that you know is unpopular with some people, you could be hoping the scales will tip in your favor. When they don't your problem is not that you are beginning to wonder that you may harbor dark impulses and pleasure in offending people that you will have been accused of by then. Your problem is you counted your votes poorly.
Quote from: ciao_yall on August 31, 2019, 09:26:09 AM
Fine, but he wasn't writing about the issue from that perspective, or critiquing the State. He was accusing a whole group of people of gleefully committing infanticide. Which crosses a line.
This probably seems like too fine a line, but wasn't that tweet about Netanyahu? Correct me if I'm wrong (because if there is another tweet you're referring to, marshall it), but that tweet was pretty solidly in the camp of demonizing Israel's leader... a leader who has overseen furtherance of an illegal and violent confrontation with civilians in his own state. I googled briefly to see if there were other tweets you might be referring to and only came up with one about Israel killing children in the Gaza war of 2014.
Anyway, I think the point that Salaita shouldn't have made such a tweet can still be made without conflating it to say something it didn't. I wouldn't have tweeted with the tone that Salaita chose. I think he came off as kind of an asshole. But the way he lost his job then was really alarming to me, and it still represents a problem for scholars who have really no option to not make unpopular speech. It's not an opt-in/opt-out thing for people who work in these fields; tone is important, but critique is unavoidable and basically guaranteed to make someone angry or offended enough to come after your job. Well-defined norms for academic freedom plus a rigorous plan for how to preserve it at the campus level would be enough to meet/defuse public outrage when this happens. But that's not usually what happens. Instead, institutions respond to outrage incidents in unpredictable ways, with gross inequities in response (usually governed by the rank of the professor involved). The wider campus suffers a consequent chilling of speech: few will willingly teach Israel-Palestine pre-tenure in US universities, to name a common phenomenon. This is the campus climate we continue to promote and sustain unless we make some real changes in how we choose to respond to outrage incidents.
Quote from: nescafe on September 01, 2019, 09:16:44 AM
Anyway, I think the point that Salaita shouldn't have made such a tweet can still be made without conflating it to say something it didn't. I wouldn't have tweeted with the tone that Salaita chose. I think he came off as kind of an asshole. But the way he lost his job then was really alarming to me, and it still represents a problem for scholars who have really no option to not make unpopular speech.
So do you see any way the university could have come down on him (other than by firing) for being a jackass in any way which would have led to him showing any sort of remorse? People who like to be provocative for the sake of being provocative often don't listen to any sort of criticism.
Marshwiggl: my point precisely (which I failed to make in my post upthread). While I can see how his firing/non hiring could be problematic on one level, I can also imagine that the University's reaction is dictated by 'buyer remorse' . Honestly, I could not imagine working alongside this person and engaging in the work that is necessary for the benefit of the res universitatis , so to speak. If he cannot gauge the impact of his actions using Twitter as a public intellectual, I am horrified by all the other possible types of ill judgement that can ensue. To me at least, his tweets are the obverse of what academic freedom is/should be about.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 01, 2019, 11:22:24 AM
Quote from: nescafe on September 01, 2019, 09:16:44 AM
Anyway, I think the point that Salaita shouldn't have made such a tweet can still be made without conflating it to say something it didn't. I wouldn't have tweeted with the tone that Salaita chose. I think he came off as kind of an asshole. But the way he lost his job then was really alarming to me, and it still represents a problem for scholars who have really no option to not make unpopular speech.
So do you see any way the university could have come down on him (other than by firing) for being a jackass in any way which would have led to him showing any sort of remorse? People who like to be provocative for the sake of being provocative often don't listen to any sort of criticism.
I'm not sure it's the university's job to come down on a professor for being a jackass (christ, how many jackasses are there in the profession?). I also don't think Salaita was being provocative merely for the sake of being provocative, either. The anger over Israel's war in Gaza was/is a real and legitimate one. And it's kind of easy for someone like me (who is not Palestinian, nor a scholar of Palestine studies) to say I disagree with his tone. But even as I say that, I am conflicted about it because tone-policing is commonly used to shut people up when their perspectives are already marginalized. I've heard about enough unhirings of scholars who work on Palestine in the US academy to know that Salaita's case is not exceptional. Maybe what is exceptional about it is that Salaita has been the loudest about it... proving, perhaps, that incivility is an effective instrument after all.
Quote from: nescafe on September 01, 2019, 12:28:13 PM
I'm not sure it's the university's job to come down on a professor for being a jackass (christ, how many jackasses are there in the profession?). I also don't think Salaita was being provocative merely for the sake of being provocative, either. The anger over Israel's war in Gaza was/is a real and legitimate one. And it's kind of easy for someone like me (who is not Palestinian, nor a scholar of Palestine studies) to say I disagree with his tone. But even as I say that, I am conflicted about it because tone-policing is commonly used to shut people up when their perspectives are already marginalized.
What I find frustrating is the idea that somehow people expect some sort of "free pass" for what they say on Twitter, as though it's not basically the same as saying something anywhere else in public. If your account is clearly identified with you, since it has global reach, why does it justify an offensive tone that would be avoided face to face?
As hesitant indicated, someone who wants to be taken seriously as an intelligent thoughtful person should not sound like a snarky jerk on Twitter (or any other public forum, for that matter).
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 01, 2019, 02:57:51 PM
Quote from: nescafe on September 01, 2019, 12:28:13 PM
I'm not sure it's the university's job to come down on a professor for being a jackass (christ, how many jackasses are there in the profession?). I also don't think Salaita was being provocative merely for the sake of being provocative, either. The anger over Israel's war in Gaza was/is a real and legitimate one. And it's kind of easy for someone like me (who is not Palestinian, nor a scholar of Palestine studies) to say I disagree with his tone. But even as I say that, I am conflicted about it because tone-policing is commonly used to shut people up when their perspectives are already marginalized.
What I find frustrating is the idea that somehow people expect some sort of "free pass" for what they say on Twitter, as though it's not basically the same as saying something anywhere else in public. If your account is clearly identified with you, since it has global reach, why does it justify an offensive tone that would be avoided face to face?
As hesitant indicated, someone who wants to be taken seriously as an intelligent thoughtful person should not sound like a snarky jerk on Twitter (or any other public forum, for that matter).
I hear that frustration, but I guess I believe the proper consequences for being a jackass online are better served socially, not handed down by the same institutions that we trust to protect our right to speech. Don't like Salaita's tone? Don't invite him to a dinner party. But tone alone is not sufficient grounds for dismissal... and certainly not in the shady way that donors were involved here.
Quote from: nescafe on September 01, 2019, 12:28:13 PM
Maybe what is exceptional about it is that Salaita has been the loudest about it... proving, perhaps, that incivility is an effective instrument after all.
Alternatively: 'You may too polite to say it, but Netanyahu is a leader who has overseen furtherance of an illegal and violent confrontation with civilians in his own state.'
Not exactly grabbing the headlines, right.
Quote from: nescafe on September 01, 2019, 05:03:41 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 01, 2019, 02:57:51 PM
What I find frustrating is the idea that somehow people expect some sort of "free pass" for what they say on Twitter, as though it's not basically the same as saying something anywhere else in public. If your account is clearly identified with you, since it has global reach, why does it justify an offensive tone that would be avoided face to face?
As hesitant indicated, someone who wants to be taken seriously as an intelligent thoughtful person should not sound like a snarky jerk on Twitter (or any other public forum, for that matter).
I hear that frustration, but I guess I believe the proper consequences for being a jackass online are better served socially, not handed down by the same institutions that we trust to protect our right to speech. Don't like Salaita's tone? Don't invite him to a dinner party. But tone alone is not sufficient grounds for dismissal... and certainly not in the shady way that donors were involved here.
So is he the only person who has expressed those political views? Or have others expressed similar views, but without being so obnoxious about it? I'd guess there are lots who have expressed similar views, but in a more responsible way, who have never had their careers threatened. He's being sanctioned for being a jerk, period. Academic freedom shouldn't be a protection from normal human social expectations.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2019, 06:16:16 AM
So is he the only person who has expressed those political views? Or have others expressed similar views, but without being so obnoxious about it? I'd guess there are lots who have expressed similar views, but in a more responsible way, who have never had their careers threatened. He's being sanctioned for being a jerk, period. Academic freedom shouldn't be a protection from normal human social expectations.
Which political views? Advocacy for Palestinians and angry speech toward Israel? Salaita is certainly not alone there, and his tone might be provocative but he's not alone there, either. He's also not alone in having his career threatened in this way. And even though we now have a narrative that "angry tweets cause public outrage" because there is a small pile of these cases, the correlation between inflammatory tweets and threats to the job is a weak one. People who abide by the ever-shifting norms for "civil" discourse are targetted similarly because these campaigns aren't about tone policing at the root. (Tone policing is a justification offered up as a plausible justification, but I don't see anyone chasing down white men who mock the ahistorical right-wing nuts on Twitter yet, so I'm calling BS). Scholars of the Middle East and especially Palestine have been perennially targetted for their politics (or perceived politics) via Twitter, but it's one of many other venues for finding outrage.
Absent honest-to-goodness hate speech or incitement to violence, the campaigns against scholars who tweet "blue" etc are often that: campaigns. This is cause for concern in the academy more broadly, and most universities aren't ready to handle sudden, overwhelming public outrage appropriately. Cancel-culture means that these things can be sudden, swiftly-changing, and overwhelming in magnitude.
Quote from: nescafe on September 02, 2019, 08:02:37 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2019, 06:16:16 AM
So is he the only person who has expressed those political views? Or have others expressed similar views, but without being so obnoxious about it? I'd guess there are lots who have expressed similar views, but in a more responsible way, who have never had their careers threatened. He's being sanctioned for being a jerk, period. Academic freedom shouldn't be a protection from normal human social expectations.
Which political views? Advocacy for Palestinians and angry speech toward Israel? Salaita is certainly not alone there, and his tone might be provocative but he's not alone there, either. He's also not alone in having his career threatened in this way. And even though we now have a narrative that "angry tweets cause public outrage" because there is a small pile of these cases, the correlation between inflammatory tweets and threats to the job is a weak one. People who abide by the ever-shifting norms for "civil" discourse are targetted similarly because these campaigns aren't about tone policing at the root. (Tone policing is a justification offered up as a plausible justification, but I don't see anyone chasing down white men who mock the ahistorical right-wing nuts on Twitter yet, so I'm calling BS). Scholars of the Middle East and especially Palestine have been perennially targetted for their politics (or perceived politics) via Twitter, but it's one of many other venues for finding outrage.
Absent honest-to-goodness hate speech or incitement to violence, the campaigns against scholars who tweet "blue" etc are often that: campaigns. This is cause for concern in the academy more broadly, and most universities aren't ready to handle sudden, overwhelming public outrage appropriately. Cancel-culture means that these things can be sudden, swiftly-changing, and overwhelming in magnitude.
Does wishing a bunch of people would "go missing" count as hate speech?
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2019, 08:08:22 AM
Does wishing a bunch of people would "go missing" count as hate speech?
Depends. Are said people defined by their protected identities or their employment with a state maintaining an illegal occupation?
But I'm sure you knew that. I thought we were discussing in good faith. At least, I was.
Quote from: nescafe on September 02, 2019, 08:17:49 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2019, 08:08:22 AM
Does wishing a bunch of people would "go missing" count as hate speech?
Depends. Are said people defined by their protected identities or their employment with a state maintaining an illegal occupation?
Does that make a difference regarding whether their "going missing" is a problem?
It doesn't matter whether someone tweets "BUILD THE WALL!" or "OPEN BORDERS!"; reducing a complex issue to an inflammatory sound bite does not help serious consideration by reasonable people. People who calls themselves academics on
either side of an issue making simplistic statements like that are harming the reputation of higher education.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2019, 02:57:41 PM
Does that make a difference regarding whether their "going missing" is a problem?
It doesn't matter whether someone tweets "BUILD THE WALL!" or "OPEN BORDERS!"; reducing a complex issue to an inflammatory sound bite does not help serious consideration by reasonable people. People who call themselves academics on either side of an issue making simplistic statements like that are harming the reputation of higher education.
I don't entirely disagree with you that such tweets are offensive, reductive, and unhelpful. But the question that Salaita's case raises is whether such tweets are grounds for termination. The problem of politicized donor pressure makes this case dodgier, in my view, as does the general issue that academics who lose their job after political targetting can't "just finding another job."
I said this upthread, but think it needs consideration: the leap that is often made that academics who tweet reductive or nasty things must also be shitty teachers is also a post hoc rationalization that I find really troubling. The uncomfortable reality is that scholars with controversial research or marginalized politics are routinely targetted for outrage campaigns. Scholars like Salaita make easy targets because of their rhetoric (and that's not helpful). But the institutional failures that have to occur for a case like Salaita's to happen should be concerning for anyone working in higher education. Heeding those failures should be the focus at this point, rather than inventing justifications to ignore the uncomfortable realities that face some--but not all--scholars by virtue of their work.
<gets on soapbox>
The theory of academic freedom is we as a society are better off when people are working in all areas of human knowledge instead of deciding a priori which areas are off-limits. We don't know what we're going to need later, so it's very short-sighted to decide that because we don't need a specific area now, we won't ever need it.
In practice, though, resources are limited, human knowledge and potential human knowledge keeps expanding, and we have far more individuals qualified in the US to expand human knowledge or help consolidate human knowledge than we have resources we can dedicate to knowledge-for-the-sake-of-knowledge endeavors.
We absolutely don't need another person taking up an academic slot who is essentially painting with feces instead of raising unpleasant truths with possibly helpful actions to try. This is especially true when one starts looking at all the unpleasant truths that shouldn't fall off the radar and could really use some calm, but persistent champions pointing out what could be done and what actions are currently unworkable because of the complex history.
In practice, though, when I rank problems that are somewhat like Palestine that the US should be devoting substantial resources to fixing, Palestine is pretty far down the list as something that the US should be devoting resources to addressing either long-standing injustices or currently escalating situations that will affect US interests or our close allies to whom we have pledged protection. For example, the US has more than 500 federally recognized tribes and more than 300 reservations. The tragedy that is US citizens living in third-world conditions as a direct result of us breaking treaties is something that is our fault and is our responsibility to fix. Puerto Rico hadn't recovered from last fall and has been hit again. If we're fixing human suffering, then the folks within our own borders seems a good place to start.
If we're going to be protector of the world, then Israel doesn't even make the top 10 of countries to watch that have done very bad things in the past few years that are worrying to US interests. Sure, go ahead and put Israel on a list because someone should be keeping track, but in terms of issues of US national defense and related global security, calling for violence against Israel and especially individual Israeli citizens is not a productive action that will help anyone. Being a calm voice putting pressure on whatever diplomatic solutions are good ideas means one is more likely to be taken seriously as a scholar and expert worth consulting.
I am not at all concerned that people get fired for gross failures of communication in their research areas. I am much more worried that we're allocating resources to people who are playing at being professors and just thumbing their noses at power when we could be funding people who would work hard in unpopular areas to be able to come up with something productive to help ameliorate overall human suffering instead of just changing who is doing the suffering today.
In short, yes, some academics in the US should be studying Palestine, Israel, and all the messiness going on. However, it's a very bad idea to keep funding specific individuals who are poor communicators calling for more violence when we could have good communicators advocating other actions to try.
Quote from: polly_mer on September 03, 2019, 06:28:39 AM
We absolutely don't need another person taking up an academic slot who is essentially painting with feces instead of raising unpleasant truths with possibly helpful actions to try. This is especially true when one starts looking at all the unpleasant truths that shouldn't fall off the radar and could really use some calm, but persistent champions pointing out what could be done and what actions are currently unworkable because of the complex history.
Excellent metaphor!
I was thinking about the idea of academics who regard themselves as "activists". I would make the distinction as follows:
- If you're more concerned about having people riled up for your cause, even if they don't understand it, you're primarily an activist.
- If you're more concerned about having people understand the issue more completely, even if it doesn't rile them up (or even if they don't take your point of view), then you're primarily an academic.
Academia needs academics; activists are a poor substitute.
Twitter is the antithesis to STFU.
Quote from: nescafe on September 02, 2019, 07:06:02 PM
But the question that Salaita's case raises is whether such tweets are grounds for termination.
Not really TBH. His case was about
whether he had been hired. I don't recall the university ever claiming they could fire him because of what he said, because their defense was that his contract had not been approved at all levels, and therefore he wasn't an employee.
Legally, the university made a stupid argument, and it ended up costing them a lot of money. They knew it would be even dumber to claim he was an employee and they had the right to fire him. There's no way his tweets would have been grounds for firing. His previous employer knew that, so he still had that job until he resigned.
Quote from: polly_mer on September 03, 2019, 06:28:39 AM
We absolutely don't need another person taking up an academic slot who is essentially painting with feces instead of raising unpleasant truths with possibly helpful actions to try. This is especially true when one starts looking at all the unpleasant truths that shouldn't fall off the radar and could really use some calm, but persistent champions pointing out what could be done and what actions are currently unworkable because of the complex history.
Yep. While I would never support firing Salaita for his tweets, they really were a misuse of academic freedom, and anyone doing that is an enemy of academic freedom and free inquiry. Enough misuse of your freedom and eventually the people that gave it to you will take it away. This goes not just for him but for all the other abuses I see (which shall not be named). It's good that the final result, almost by accident, was one that will help preserve academic freedom for another generation.
The main things most tenured people care about is not academic freedom, but job security and money.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2019, 07:53:14 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on September 03, 2019, 06:28:39 AM
We absolutely don't need another person taking up an academic slot who is essentially painting with feces instead of raising unpleasant truths with possibly helpful actions to try. This is especially true when one starts looking at all the unpleasant truths that shouldn't fall off the radar and could really use some calm, but persistent champions pointing out what could be done and what actions are currently unworkable because of the complex history.
Excellent metaphor!
I was thinking about the idea of academics who regard themselves as "activists". I would make the distinction as follows:
- If you're more concerned about having people riled up for your cause, even if they don't understand it, you're primarily an activist.
- If you're more concerned about having people understand the issue more completely, even if it doesn't rile them up (or even if they don't take your point of view), then you're primarily an academic.
Academia needs academics; activists are a poor substitute.
I believe we need a good measure of activist academics who are adept at both of the positive attributes. The nature of the activism is field dependent, but without it nothing will happen. In applied biology, quite a lot of academics are being appropriately activist on climate change, for instance. Pumping out great research papers and teaching classes alone is not going to get the societal job done.
The painting-with-feces metaphor makes me question the department at Illinois that decided Salaita was the kind of personality they wanted in their midst, even if they were hoping for a fair degree of activism. It is their call, so the university should have respected it. It makes you wonder about the departmental conversation during the search. He wasn't exactly hiding his style.
Quote from: Hibush on September 03, 2019, 02:48:46 PM
The painting-with-feces metaphor makes me question the department at Illinois that decided Salaita was the kind of personality they wanted in their midst, even if they were hoping for a fair degree of activism.
The department was run by Robert Warrior, one of his PhD advisers, when he was offered the job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salaita#Career
Quote from: Hibush on September 03, 2019, 02:48:46 PM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2019, 07:53:14 AM
I was thinking about the idea of academics who regard themselves as "activists". I would make the distinction as follows:
- If you're more concerned about having people riled up for your cause, even if they don't understand it, you're primarily an activist.
- If you're more concerned about having people understand the issue more completely, even if it doesn't rile them up (or even if they don't take your point of view), then you're primarily an academic.
Academia needs academics; activists are a poor substitute.
I believe we need a good measure of activist academics who are adept at both of the positive attributes. The nature of the activism is field dependent, but without it nothing will happen. In applied biology, quite a lot of academics are being appropriately activist on climate change, for instance. Pumping out great research papers and teaching classes alone is not going to get the societal job done.
No it isn't, but saying "Trust me, I'm an expert" is demagoguery. The kind of moralizing that religious leaders have been castigated for is no more appropriate when done by an "academic" if uninformed action is valued over informed discussion, including differing points of view. Taking the example of climate change, there are all kinds of issues associated with it that have varying amounts of data to support; getting more people to understand and accept the well-established matters is much more worthwhile than getting a few wide-eyed zealots who accept any warning as apocalyptic fact.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 04, 2019, 07:01:05 AM
No it isn't, but saying "Trust me, I'm an expert" is demagoguery. The kind of moralizing that religious leaders have been castigated for is no more appropriate when done by an "academic" if uninformed action is valued over informed discussion, including differing points of view. Taking the example of climate change, there are all kinds of issues associated with it that have varying amounts of data to support; getting more people to understand and accept the well-established matters is much more worthwhile than getting a few wide-eyed zealots who accept any warning as apocalyptic fact.
My field is atmospheric science. I gave up several years ago trying to patiently inform random internet people of the very basic physics of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It was about as effective as pissing into a hurricane. Heck, you can go back to some of my first posts on the old forum to see my failed attempts with Smart Academic Types. If you can't get people to just understand basic models, there is no point trying to get them to understand the subtle uncertainties, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, etc. that come after that basic understanding.
I keep reading op ed pieces etc. that scientists should become activists. Have fun with that, give your Ted talks, I'm out. Once you cross that line it's not about science anymore, it's just debate class.
The real problem, in my opinion, is lousy science literacy and a stunning lack of critical thinking skills, combined with the rise of social media with all of its bubbles and feedback loops.
I've long come to the conclusion that humans will always choose the shredder as the option even when there is another option. So, away we go. I'll do my thing, which is really about sharing my excitement about science and hence getting (mostly young) people excited about science and the scientific process, but no way am I going to try to "persuade" anyone about the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
Quote from: fast_and_bulbous on September 04, 2019, 07:37:37 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 04, 2019, 07:01:05 AM
No it isn't, but saying "Trust me, I'm an expert" is demagoguery. The kind of moralizing that religious leaders have been castigated for is no more appropriate when done by an "academic" if uninformed action is valued over informed discussion, including differing points of view. Taking the example of climate change, there are all kinds of issues associated with it that have varying amounts of data to support; getting more people to understand and accept the well-established matters is much more worthwhile than getting a few wide-eyed zealots who accept any warning as apocalyptic fact.
My field is atmospheric science. I gave up several years ago trying to patiently inform random internet people of the very basic physics of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It was about as effective as pissing into a hurricane. Heck, you can go back to some of my first posts on the old forum to see my failed attempts with Smart Academic Types. If you can't get people to just understand basic models, there is no point trying to get them to understand the subtle uncertainties, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, etc. that come after that basic understanding.
I keep reading op ed pieces etc. that scientists should become activists. Have fun with that, give your Ted talks, I'm out. Once you cross that line it's not about science anymore, it's just debate class.
The real problem, in my opinion, is lousy science literacy and a stunning lack of critical thinking skills, combined with the rise of social media with all of its bubbles and feedback loops.
I've long come to the conclusion that humans will always choose the shredder as the option even when there is another option. So, away we go. I'll do my thing, which is really about sharing my excitement about science and hence getting (mostly young) people excited about science and the scientific process, but no way am I going to try to "persuade" anyone about the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
These are great examples--of what doesn't work well. The first step is to understand the mechanisms underlying policy change and see where intervention has the potential to change the outcome. Accosting random people with facts is the social-change equivalent of pissing into a hurricane, where cooling the surface of the Atlantic is the necessary mechanism. Figuring that out is a science, but most natural scientists are loath to look at it that way.
You also have to know your audience, their priorities and worldview and have a message that fits. "Trust me, I'm an expert" is rarely that message. Many academics treat a public audience like undergraduates (or like undergraduates but dumb). That is generally ineffective.
Doing the activism part is hard, but there is a science to it. You are often up against well-funded experts at playing that game, so it is worth getting the basics right.
I should swing this around to the Salaita situation somehow. That will have to take some more thinking.
Quote from: Hibush on September 04, 2019, 09:13:34 AM
Quote from: fast_and_bulbous on September 04, 2019, 07:37:37 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 04, 2019, 07:01:05 AM
No it isn't, but saying "Trust me, I'm an expert" is demagoguery. The kind of moralizing that religious leaders have been castigated for is no more appropriate when done by an "academic" if uninformed action is valued over informed discussion, including differing points of view. Taking the example of climate change, there are all kinds of issues associated with it that have varying amounts of data to support; getting more people to understand and accept the well-established matters is much more worthwhile than getting a few wide-eyed zealots who accept any warning as apocalyptic fact.
My field is atmospheric science. I gave up several years ago trying to patiently inform random internet people of the very basic physics of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It was about as effective as pissing into a hurricane. Heck, you can go back to some of my first posts on the old forum to see my failed attempts with Smart Academic Types. If you can't get people to just understand basic models, there is no point trying to get them to understand the subtle uncertainties, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, etc. that come after that basic understanding.
I keep reading op ed pieces etc. that scientists should become activists. Have fun with that, give your Ted talks, I'm out. Once you cross that line it's not about science anymore, it's just debate class.
The real problem, in my opinion, is lousy science literacy and a stunning lack of critical thinking skills, combined with the rise of social media with all of its bubbles and feedback loops.
I've long come to the conclusion that humans will always choose the shredder as the option even when there is another option. So, away we go. I'll do my thing, which is really about sharing my excitement about science and hence getting (mostly young) people excited about science and the scientific process, but no way am I going to try to "persuade" anyone about the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
These are great examples--of what doesn't work well. The first step is to understand the mechanisms underlying policy change and see where intervention has the potential to change the outcome. Accosting random people with facts is the social-change equivalent of pissing into a hurricane, where cooling the surface of the Atlantic is the necessary mechanism. Figuring that out is a science, but most natural scientists are loath to look at it that way.
You also have to know your audience, their priorities and worldview and have a message that fits. "Trust me, I'm an expert" is rarely that message. Many academics treat a public audience like undergraduates (or like undergraduates but dumb). That is generally ineffective.
Doing the activism part is hard, but there is a science to it. You are often up against well-funded experts at playing that game, so it is worth getting the basics right.
Maybe this deserves another thread, apologies if this is straying too far from the Salaita issue. I will just say this: I am NOT cut out for the whole persuasion thing. My first instinct when coming upon blatant misinformation from bad actors or far-gone bubbleheads is a string of expletives and ad hominem... which plays into the hands of the "well-funded experts playing the game" - the game being Divide and Conquer. So I just try to provide good examples of good science and hope that my own approach, which includes a lot of enthusiasm tempered with informed skepticism about my own research results, gets people to see how critical thought works, at least for me.
In the classroom it's one thing; I'm not going to "debate" climate change with undergraduates in an atmospheric radiation class. As you say, what works in the classroom does not translate to the rest of the world. All I see these days are people lobbing 'fact bombs' at one another, further dividing. If I had the stomach for it I'd consider politics but I'd rather just do science and make it as appealing/understandable/exciting as I can to an audience that is interested. In my case it's not Facebook or Twitter, but YouTube. I am all about YouTube and growing an audience and engaging them in the comments and in the videos themselves.
Maybe if Salaita had done a video saying those things he would have not posted it after some more careful consideration.