CHE: My Life as A Cautionary Tale (Salaita)

[nescafe]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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?

[nescafe]

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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[nescafe]

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.

[polly_mer]

<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.

[marshwiggle]

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.

[fast_and_bulbous]

Twitter is the antithesis to STFU.

[tuxthepenguin]

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.

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.

[mahagonny]

The main things most tenured people care about is not academic freedom, but job security and money.

[Hibush]

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.

[tuxthepenguin]

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

[marshwiggle]

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.

[fast_and_bulbous]

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.

[Hibush]

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.