This article is about a college professor named Steven
Salaita who was offered a tenure position at the University of Illinois only to
later be informed he can no longer have the position. The reason Dr. Salaita
was no longer able to take the position is because of his anti-Israeli tweets.
The University of Illinois saw the tweets and decided to rescind the offer due
to Salaita’s political expressions. Salaita is the author of six books that
share his political beliefs, so the University was aware of Salaita’s
anti-Israeli views. Therefore these tweets should not have been a surprise. The
legal director for the Center of Constitutional Rights, Baher Azmy has been
working to show the University that what they did was unconstitutional and not
fair to Dr. Salaita. I chose to post this article because I think it is a
perfect example of how careful people need to be on social media. Also, this
article touches upon Salaita’s first amendment rights and whether or not the
University is violating his freedom of speech.
Questions for my classmates:
Does the University have justification to take back their
offer of the position because of Dr. Salaita’s tweets?
Do you think it is acceptable for people to publicly share
their political beliefs on social media?
Do you believe that the fact that Dr. Salaita’s views are
anti-Israeli affected the University’s decision in any
way?
Should Dr. Salaita still be offered the position at the
University? Why or why not?
I do not think the University had the right to rescind their offer to Salaita. While his tweets were admittedly rude and controversial, he is granted the right to freedom of speech under the Constitution, and it is unlawful to essentially take this right away from him. If the University had an issue with his views before even offering him the tenure, then they would not necessarily have to hire him. But to revoke the offer (after he began to uproot his family for what seemed to be a promising job) because of disparaging tweets that only correlated to his past beliefs already expressed in his books is unfair and unconstitutional. I think it is acceptable to share your personal views on social media, because if people don't agree with you it is just their own opinion, and we as citizens of the United States have the right to exercise our freedom of speech. I don't think it was necessarily Salaita's views alone that caused the revoke of his job offer, because these were made known to university officials prior to the offer. I do, however, think that the manner in which these views were presented was what prompted the university to re-examine his job offer, and perhaps the vulgar language in the tweets coupled with his anti-semitist and anti-Israel views were together what caused the university to revoke his job offer out of the unease these tweets caused. I think Dr. Salaita should still be offered a position at the university on the terms that his personal views do not tamper with his professional demeanor, and I think his classes can easily be sat in on by officials to ensure that he is not teaching biased and potentially harmful material in an unprofessional manner. I think college is when many students come across a variety of ideologies and that is where they truly learn the different views of the world, and Dr. Salaita offers a perspective from which students can gain insight from and learn more about the Israel-Palestine tension and the people on both sides of the matter. Ultimately, Dr. Salaita should be allowed to have the job, as long as he keeps himself in line and remains professional.
ReplyDeleteHere is another article on this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/07/steven-salaita-university-of-illinois-fired_n_5658806.html
It seems clear to me that the University chose to revoke Dr. Salaita’s position based on his tweets and not his anti-Israel views as a whole. The University had to know about his views because of the many books he has written in the past. If the university went to great lengths to look at Dr. Salaita’s tweets, I’m sure they looked into the books he wrote. Even if this isn’t so, the books were most likely in his resume and it is would be easy for University of Illinois to tell what they are about based on the titles like “Israel’s Dead Soul”. I believe that the University does not have justification to take back their offer based on this mans tweets. It is our right, based on the constitution, that the people of America have freedom of speech. In my eyes, social media, specifically twitter in this case, is just sharing your thoughts with the world. When a person is speaking they are sharing their views and beliefs to the people around them. When a person is tweeting they are displaying their rightful opinion to anyone that chooses to read them. For me, there is no difference, Not giving him this job based on tweets would be like not giving this man the job for speaking those words to someone out loud. I understand that as a professor you may have to live up to certain expectations and different rules in order to stay professional and uphold that image, but the University revoking the job was over board. They could have given him warning saying that the University didn’t approve of it or once he started working he wasn’t allowed. Although I disagree with that, it was the least the University could have done. How was Dr. Salaita supposed to know this would have jeopardized his job by tweeting his opinions? I think that Dr. Salaita should still be offered his job. Revoking it is a form of discrimination and it completely unconstitutional. Also, this situation reminds me of when a High school Coach was fired over a facebook picture. Here is the article : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/laraine-cook-fired-facebook-photo-breast_n_4234128.html. This woman got her job back after a long battle. Although the situation is not exactly the same it portrays the current issues we are having today with social media and its effect on people’s careers. I feel as though new policies will have to be made in this country to keep up with the times and deal with controversial situations like this. Social Media is a major part of today’s society and if people are going to get fired or not hired over it, awareness must be spread, jobs must come with stipulations or laws must be set in place.
ReplyDeleteI would like to start my comment by apologizing for being a day later than the deadline. Now I will get to the issue at hand. My first thought when reading the article and the caption provided by Kayla is how ridiculous it is for the University to be able to take away the job offer of Dr. Salaita simply because of him posting his views on social media. This is not only because it is entirely against his right of speech and, therefore, unconstitutional, but also because Salaita has several books on his opinion of the situation in Israel and his political stance. To me, at first, it seemed absurd that the University would be willing to give him his tenure even when he is the author of several books stating his political opinions an then take it away due to a few tweets he posted. Not only that, but it is known that the doctor's finest research is done based on these opinions. However, as I looked farther into it, I decided the University may have a good reason for resigning their offer. This is only because after looking at the tweets the doctor sent I realized why they must have changed their mind. It is one thing for Salaita to write professional books about his political opinions and to do research with it as well. However, by sending those tweets that contained both vulgar language and offensive context he was showing the immature side of himself. Therefore, I understand why the University decided he was not someone they wanted to represent their school.
ReplyDelete