Steven Salaita

Steven Salaita (born in 1975) is a scholar, author and public speaker who became notable when the University of Illinois withdrew its formal offer of employment as a professor of American Indian Studies after attention was drawn to his controversial tweets on the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict that were viewed as criticism of the Israeli government by some, and as crossing the line into antisemitism by others. As a result of his outspoken critique of the university's handling of his situation, Haaretz writes that Salaita has established "celebrity status on the lecture circuit" for his talk entitled "Silencing Dissent."

Early life and education

Salaita was born in Bluefield, West Virginia on September 15, 1975 to immigrant parents. His mother was born and raised in Nicaragua by Palestinian parents who originated in Beit Jala. He describes his own ethnic background as both Jordanian and Palestinian, and an interviewer states that his father was from Madaba, Jordan. His maternal grandmother "lost her home" in Ayn Karim outside of Jerusalem in 1948.

Salaita received his B.A. in political science from Radford University in 1997 and his M.A. in English from Radford in 1999. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma in Native American studies with a literature emphasis.

Career

Following completion of his Ph.D., Salaita became an assistant professor of English at University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, where he taught American and ethnic American literature until 2006. He was then hired as associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, and received tenure three years later. In addition to teaching English courses, Salaita wrote about themes of immigration, indigenous peoples, dislocation, race, ethnicity and multi-culturalism. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times refers to him as a "respected scholar in American Indian studies and Israeli-Arab relations."

Salaita won a 2007 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for writing the book Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where It Comes from and What it Means for Politics Today. The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights recognized his book as one that extends "our understanding of the root causes of bigotry and the range of options we as humans have in constructing alternative ways to share power." Miriam Cooke, professor at Duke University, described the book as "a sobering analysis of anti-Arab racism, from neo-conservative to liberal, rooted in America's settler colonial past and seeping into every corner of our lives. Steven Salaita takes the reader into the crisis of Arab-American communities in the wake of Sept. 11. Written with passion, this lucid account of the dangers of American imperialism paints a dark picture of the agenda of the Bush administration not only in the Arab world but also for people of color at home."

Sinan Antoon, assistant professor at N.Y.U., reviewed Salaita's book, The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan, published in 2006. He found the author's comparative approach to Palestinian and Native American writers and the influence of politics on their production "refreshing." He found the strongest chapter to be the one devoted to Salaita's personal experience of spending the summer of 2002 in the Shatila refugee camp, where he introduced Native American studies to the residents and developed perspectives on how "alternative narratives can broaden the consciousness of decolonial advocates." Antoon notes that Salaita limited his scope to prose and limited Palestinian literature to English translations.

In 2013 Salaita was invited to interview for an academic appointment with the AIS program. There were 80 applicants and Salaita was one of six invited to campus. He was the unanimous choice of the faculty to fill the position. Professor Robert Allen Warrior, AIS director, wrote that Salaita's "fresh and compelling contributions to the intellectual project of a critique of the concept of indigeneity, which is . . . the core of what has made us an international leader in our field.,” and argued that Salaita's contribution would allow the department to “engage with the broader implications of comparative indigeneity within and beyond the scope of US imperialism and militarism in North America and the Pacific to include the Middle East.” Dr. Reginald Alston, associate chancellor and dean of the graduate college, wrote of Salaita's candidacy: "The uniqueness of his scholarship on the intersection of American Indian, Palestinian, and American Palestinian experiences presents a rare opportunity to add an esoteric perspective on indigeneity to our cultural studies programs on campus. . . . I support offering Dr. Salaita a tenured position because of the obvious intellectual value that his scholarship and background would bring to our campus. His presence would elevate AIS internationally and convey Illinois’ commitment to maintaining a leading academic program on the historical and sociopolitical intricacies of American Indian culture." Salaita was then offered the tenured position, contingent upon approval of the Board of Trustees.

Following Salaita's hiring controversy, historian Diana Muir Appelbaum wrote in a review of Salaita's book, The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan, that Salaita's footnotes track to sources that fail to support his assertions, and he fails to provide evidence for what she views as his central assertion that, "Zionist leaders drew inspiration from American history in conceptualizing ways to rid Palestine of its Indigenes." In an opinion piece published in The Jerusalem Post, Cary Nelson, professor of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, president of the American Association of University Professors from 2006 thru 2012, and adviser to the Zionist advocacy group Israel on Campus, wrote that in Quest for Canaan Salaita argues that Palestinians are an indigenous people similar to Native Americans, while most Jewish Israelis are products of European colonialism. In Nelson's view, Salaita states this conviction as a fact and "did not subject the book’s thesis to appropriate scholarly standards."

One week after publishing an article describing Salaita's unhiring as a "good thing," Israeli-American academic Liel Leibovitz wrote a review of Israel's Dead Soul in the online Jewish Tablet Magazine, describing it as "Devoid of any real understanding, context, or nuance, stupidly dogmatic, and frequently given to hyperbolic fits of hatred, it should not qualify as scholarship," and specifically criticized Salaita's sourcing of facts, writing that " either remarkably careless with the facts or happy to thwart them to support his narrative." Leibovitz quotes Salaita's assertion that Israel “is the least likely of nations to have a soul", and his reasoning that "It is never a good idea, even through the trope of strategic essentialism, to link an ethnic group to a military apparatus. Such a move automatically justifies discourses—in this case anti-Semitic ones—that should never be justifiable”, but is particularly critical of Salaita's sourcing problems. Lebovitz provides examples of Salaita's failure to source facts, writing that, "Salaita’s use of sources grows more irresponsible as the book unfurls." For example, Salaita backs up his assertion that, “it is worth noting that numerous cases of anti-Semitic vandalism in 2007 and 2008 were found to actually have been committed by Jews,” with the story of a man who painted anti-Semitic graffiti in Brooklyn. Salaita writes that the "New York Times reported that Ivanov was trained by the Mossad,” referring to a line in the New York Times story that Ivanov "told police...that he had been trained by Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad." However, Leibovitz could not find the story in the Times. He did find a JTA story stating that the patently troubled and apparently delusional man had claimed to have been trained by the Mossad.

Controversies

"Support our Troops" controversy

While teaching at Virginia Tech in 2013 Salaita became the center of controversy after writing an article in which he explained his refusal to endorse the Support our Troops slogan, questioning support for troops who "tortur(e) prisoners at... Guantánamo", "murder people by remote control", and who he claims to have "seen many times in the Arab world acting like an Adam Sandler character." He "wonders if our troops are... an agglomeration of oversensitive duds and beggars," although he also states that American soldiers, "do not have to become bad people." His argument is that forced patriotism does little to help the armed forces who risk their lives for their country, and instead supports those who profit from war. He clarified his views on radio: "I want us very much to support the human beings who comprise the military. I want us to question and challenge the platitude, support the troops, and think about who that platitude, whose interest that platitude actually serves." A university spokesman said that the university supported Salaita's freedom of speech and was protecting him against threats. Commenting on Salaita's views and the surrounding controversy, Greg Scholtz of the American Association of University Professors noted: "Upholding academic freedom can be a difficult and even embarrassing thing for universities. But we find that the most reputable institutions give the most latitude."

UIUC hiring controversy

See also: UIUC § Steven Salaita controversy

In October 2013, The University of Illinois offered a professorial position to Salaita, contingent upon approval by the Board of Trustees, but withdrew the offer in 2014, apparently after reviewing tweets of his the university viewed as controversial. On October 3, 2013, Salaita was contingently but formally offered a position originally scheduled to begin in January 2014 at the rank of Associate Professor with indefinite tenure as part of the American Indian Studies Program. Salaita accepted, but with a projected start date of August 16, 2014. However, on August 1, 2014, Vice President for Academic Affairs Christophe Pierre, and Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise wrote to Salaita saying that that they had chosen not to present his potential appointment to the Board, effectively cancelling the job offer at a point after Salaita had resigned his position at Virginia Tech. Published e-mails between the university staff and donors Illinois obtained through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, showed the university was subjected to the "fury" of donors who objected to Salaita's political opinions. Salaita declared this was an infringement on his academic freedom and insisted the university reinstate its offer rather than search for a financial settlement.

On September 10 the trustees voted down a proposal to reconsider his offer of employment. An outcry ensued, both at the university itself and in other academic institutions. Five departments voted "no confidence" in Chancellor Wise, several academic organizations condemned the university's actions, and some scholars have cancelled lectures scheduled at the university. On its web-site the American Indian studies program shared its statement of no-confidence "With this vote of no confidence, the faculty of UIUC’s American Indian studies program also joins the thousands of scholars and organizations in the United States and across the world in seeing the chancellor’s action as a violation of academic freedom and freedom of speech." The assertion that the Salaita appointment is a matter of academic freedom is controversial; sources such as Cary Nelson, argues that Salaita had not yet become a faculty member at the time that his offer was withdrawn, while the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana found that "Professor Salaita's appointment should have entitled him to the due process rights of a tenured faculty member," and the University "violated the AAUP/AAC&U 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure."

Journalist Robert Mackey wrote in his blog, Open Source, published on the New York Times website, that the withdrawal of Salaita's employment offer came "following" contentions by pro-Israel faculty, students and donors that to Salaita's tweets regarding Israel's military actions in Gaza were "anti-Semitic". Salaita rejected the accusations of anti-Semitism in an interview with The Jewish Daily Forward, saying he is "deeply opposed to all forms of bigotry and racism including anti-Semitism." He countered that the situation is part of a campaign by "wealthy and well organized groups to attack pro-Palestinian students and faculty." The case received wide attention on many college campuses because it raises the issue of suppression of academic freedom regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The newspaper serving Champaign-Urbana pointed out that the situation was unique because, so few "prospective employees... would engage in the kind of self-destructive behavior that Salaita did between job offer and contract approval." In response the university's actions, a group of over 40 Jewish faculty and students at the university signed a letter to Chancellor Wise and the board saying, "Your decision to fire Professor Salaita is in fact what threatens us as Jews. By pointing to anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism in an attempt to obscure politically and financially-motivated University actions, you minimize the Jewish voices of those who have resisted real and violent anti-Semitism. By conflating pointed and justified critique of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism, your administration is effectively disregarding a large and growing number of Jewish perspectives that oppose Israeli military occupation, settler expansion, and the assault on Palestine."

In November 2014, he filed a lawsuit against the university, insisting it make public the meeting minutes and email correspondence of university staff who were involved in withdrawing his employment offer. Salaita has received support for his cause from the Modern Language Association, the AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association, while others have attacked his lack of "civility" in his tweets or renewed accusations of anti-Semitism. Cary Nelson, the President of the AAUP from 2006 to 2012, lamented that it has become difficult to find an academic arena "grounded in an empathy for both Palestinians and Israelis."

In March 2015, Todd Samuel Presner, the director of the Jewish studies center at the University of California, Los Angeles, followed similar action by Cornel West and Anita Hill in cancelling a lecture he was scheduled to give at the University of Illinois over its withdrawal of a job offer to Salaita. Todd Presner notified Phyllis Wise that he would not visit the campus for its Rosenthal Lecture because of how she and the university board handled the Salaita case. The lecture, “A Message in a Bottle: Holocaust Testimony and the Jewish Future,” was scheduled for April 27. Presner wrote in his letter to Wise: " I condemn anti-Semitic speech and also recognize his right to express his views. At the same time, I also believe that we need to thoughtfully and honestly confront the complex and violent reality that spawned these speech acts (and many others, on both sides). That’s a tall order when the silencing of dissent at all levels of public and private discourse is evermore prevalent and particularly when that silencing comes from the very places that are meant to protect it.” Celebrated civil rights activist and academic Cornel West also canceled a speech scheduled in April at the University of Illinois because of the university's treatment of Salaita. He described the university's decision to cancel Salaita's employment offer "a moral scandal."

Litigation

In November 2014 Salaita sued the University of Illinois to force them to release all records relating to the hiring process, as required by the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. In January 2015 he sued to have his job offer reinstated. The motion hearing for the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit is set to take place February 13 in Champaign County Circuit Court.

Political activism

Salaita's case was viewed by The Nation as relevant for the political right to criticize Israel "frankly and without threat of punishment." In supporting Salaita, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure concluded that: "The process by which Dr. Salaita’s proposed appointment was withdrawn and eventually rejected did not follow existing policies and procedures in several substantial respects, raising questions about the institution’s commitment to shared governance. The reasons given—the civility of tweets made by Dr. Salaita in the summer of 2014—is not consistent with the University’s guarantee of freedom of political speech. Statements made by the Chancellor, President, and Trustees asserting that the incivility of a candidate’s utterances may constitute sufficient grounds for rejecting his appointment should be renounced. We conclude, however, that the Chancellor has raised legitimate questions about Dr. Salaita’s professional fitness that must be addressed. In light of the irregular circumstances leading up to the Board of Trustees’ disapproval of an appointment for Dr. Salaita, the Committee recommends that Dr. Salaita’s candidacy be remanded to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for reconsideration by a committee of qualified academic experts."

Books

• Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where it Comes From and What it Means for Politics (2006) - Winner of 2007 Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights' "Outstanding Book" Award.
• The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan (2006)
• Modern Arab American Fiction: A Reader’s Guide (2011)
• Israel’s Dead Soul (2011)