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April 28, 2015
For more information, please contact:
Henry Reichman, AAUP First Vice President,
Hans-Joerg Tiede, Member of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure
Anita Levy, AAUP Associate Secretary, , 202-737-5900, ext. 3653
Trustees and Administration of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Failed to Demonstrate Cause When Rejecting Steven Salaita’s Appointment
A report released today by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) finds that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) administration and the board of trustees of the University of Illinois violated principles of academic freedom when they withdrew a tenured faculty appointment that had been offered to Professor Steven Salaita. The job offer was withdrawn after Professor Salaita made a series of impassioned Twitter posts expressing outrage about the war in Gaza. The report, written by an investigating committee, addresses a number of critical issues in this case. Among its findings:
“The dismissal of Professor Salaita has roiled the UIUC community and much of academia; it is one of the more significant violations of academic freedom this decade," said Henry Reichman, professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay, and chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, who also chaired the investigating committee in this case. "The issue in the case has never been the content of Salaita’s message. One may consider the contents of his tweets to be juvenile, irresponsible, and even repulsive and still defend Salaita’s right to produce them.”
AAUP investigating committees, which are authorized in a few selected cases when significant violations of academic freedom, tenure, or governance have been alleged and persist despite AAUP efforts to resolve them, are generally composed of AAUP members from other institutions with no previous involvement in the matter. In this case the Association built upon the work of the UIUC senate's own Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom and shared governance, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good. Founded in 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country’s colleges and universities. The AAUP is a nonprofit professional association headquartered in Washington, DC.