True colors of academia on full display.
Via FOX News
An academic group voted Saturday to censure the University of Illinois’ main campus over its decision not to hire a professor after his anti-Israel Twitter tirade, a vote the university’s chancellor said will have repercussions and is being taken seriously.
Members of the American Association of University Professors affirmed the censure by a voice vote at the group’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
The decision comes in reaction to the university rescinding Steven Salaita’s job offer following his posts on Twitter concerning Israel and the West Bank.
The vote hinged on the principle of academic freedom, said Anita Levy, an association staff member involved with the group’s investigation of the matter. A report by the group described Salaita’s tweets as expressions of “outrage in strong language over the war in Gaza.”
Levy said in a statement that rejecting the professor’s appointment “violated Professor Salaita’s academic freedom and cast a pall of uncertainty over the degree to which academic freedom is understood and respected” at the school.
The academic association has 56 institutions on its censure list.
University spokeswoman Robin Kaler said the school has an “unyielding commitment to the principles of academic freedom.”
And, in an email sent to faculty on Saturday by The Associated Press, University Chancellor Phyllis Wise said the decision was “disappointing, but not unexpected.”
“We take this decision by the AAUP seriously,” Wise said in the email. “We understand that it will have repercussions on the scholarly activities of many in our community, and we intend to address both the censure and the underlying concerns through our established processes of shared governance.”