LABOR BEAT: First Amendment protects the right to say f__k the draft, etc... Steven Salaita at the University of Chicago challenges University of Illinois censorship of pro-Palestinian views
Steven Salaita and Ali Abunimah at University of Chicago is a new Labor Beat video that covers in detail the increasing censorship and violations of free speech that are taking place in colleges and universities. The story is on YouTube at: http://youtu.be/A8GK19gpaOU... It is also archived at:
laborbeat.org
Steve Salaita speaking at the University of Chicago. Labor Beat photo.During a Chicago-area universities tour, Professor Steven Salaita spoke at the University of Chicago on October 7, 2014. He was joined by Electronic Intifada author Ali Abunimah. The topic of this meeting was to discuss the facts and implications concerning why a job offer made to Prof. Salaita in August at the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) was withdrawn by the administration, following his public tweets criticizing Israel over the bombing of Gaza and killing of over 500 children there.
Salaita is introduced by Brian Leiter, professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago. Professor Leiter comments on the legal circumstances. "That First Amendment right does not come with a caveat to the effect that only civil or respectful expression is actually protected...Yet the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois have acted as though they have a right to punish speakers who say "f**k" the draft or f**k America or f**k Israel. But they have no such right."
Salaita and Abunimah focused on the key issues of what Salaita's firing means in the critical battle on U.S. campuses over academic freedom, and in American society in general over the first amendment and U.S. foreign policy.
Salaita is amply quotable. Israel wants Palestinians to think of themselves "that our barbarity is atavistic and imminent. It precedes our subjectivity, restricts our earthly presence and marks us as inferior. We can achieve the lofty status of pitiable only when we grovel."
Ali Abunimah reveals documents showing the interference of UIUC's wealthy Zionist donors in the Salaita affair. Abunimah also speaks of his valuable research on the Zionist rightwing roadmap for manipulating political thought on American campuses: "Key pro-Israel lobby groups, like the David Project, have said in their own internal strategy documents that the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship will be decided on campuses...and they actually identify as positive trends for Israel the corporatization of higher education, the growth of private, for-profit education...and business schools that are growing at the expense of the humanities as a trend that is positive for Israel...They also talk about the kinds of tactics that are to be used at a very specific level... [The David Project says] in the long term efforts must be made to limit the ability for faculty members to use their positions to propagandize against the Jewish state...In the interim accusing faculty members who propagandize against Israel of academic malpractice is likely to be a much more effective strategy than challenging specific allegations or invoking anti-Jewish bigotry."
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, defending Steve Salaita. Photo: Steve Dalber, Labor Beat
The two-hour event has been carefully edited down to 28 minutes to fit our time slot on cable-tv. Shot with two cameras with quality audio via XLR output. Suitable for presentation to classrooms. Length - 28:10
