video: Steven Salaita and Ali Abunimah speak out for free speech and academic freedom

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Video: Steven Salaita and Ali Abunimah at University of Chicago
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Tue, 10/14/2014 - 21:25
Labor Beat: Steven Salaita and Ali Abunimah at University of Chicago

During his recent Chicago-area tour, Professor Steven Salaita spoke at the University of Chicago on 7 October.

I joined him on his panel, along with former prisoner of conscience and grassroots resistance leader Bassem Tamimi from the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.

The topic of the event was Salaita’s recent firing by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) from a tenured position in the American Indian Studies program after pressure from pro-Israel donors and others enraged by Salaita’s tweets condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza.

University officials insist that they fired Salaita for a lack of “civility,” a vague standard that barely masks an act of outright censorship.

While the event itself lasted two hours, videographer Larry Duncan of Labor Beat has edited it down to 28 minutes for broadcast on local cable television. It therefore includes comments from Salaita and myself, and part the introduction by Brian Leiter, professor of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago.

“Brazen attack”

Leiter calls Salaita’s firing over his tweets “the single most brazen attack on freedom of speech in American universities in my lifetime.”

He says that the First Amendment “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 ‘fuck the draft’ or ‘fuck America’ or ‘fuck Israel.’ But they have no such right.”

“Openly dictatorial”

Salaita and I focused on what Salaita’s firing means in the critical battle on US campuses over academic freedom, free speech and US policy toward Israel.

The crackdown on free speech is also part of the broader neoliberal agenda and corporatization of universities.

“There are countless mechanisms in place to ensure conformity to the imperatives of the powerful and the wealthy. These mechanisms regulate tone, content, actions and access. They will become unnecessary only when campuses become openly dictatorial,” Salaita says. “UIUC took an open and unapologetic step in that direction.”

He adds that Israel wants Palestinians to think of themselves “that our barbarity is atavistic and immanent. 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.”

In my comments, I talk about pressure from wealthy pro-Israel donors and university officials’ lack of transparency in the Salaita affair.

Referring to my book The Battle for Justice in Palestine, I note that “Key pro-Israel lobby groups, like the David Project, have said in their own internal strategy documents that the future of the US-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.”

I also talk about how the attack on Salaita fits in with the kind of strategies recommended by the David Project to silence criticism of Israel by accusing educators of “academic malpractice.”

With thanks to Larry Duncan of Labor Beat.

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