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
- Daily Caller calls out Salaita’s tweets.
- Local Urbana paper reports about it (UIUC expresses support).
News on Salaita Firing
- Original Inside Higher Ed report.
- Huffington Post summary.
- Daily Mail summary.
- Detailed Chronicle report on the unhiring.
- 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.
- Free Republic review of Neil Gross’s book
- Exiled – Case studies of liberal bias in the academy
- Sharon Sweet – prof who ordered students to vote for Obama?
- Professor bans Fox News. Daily Caller gets mad.
- Professor fired for climate change denial.
- Roosevelt adjunct prof fired for making racist anti-immigrant joke.
- Mike Adams wins promotion via lawsuit.
- Grabar, author of Exiled, reviews Neil Gross.
- Another review of Gross.
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.