We previously wrote about the decision of the University of Illinois to withdraw the employment of Professor Steven Salaita due to his publication of anti-Israel views on Twitter. I raised concerns over the decision as punishing an academic for views expressed outside of the classroom. It appear that the American Association of University Professors has the same concerns. The AAUP has passed a censure of the University — a significant sanction for a university that has strived to be included among the top school.
Steven Salaita had already been offered a tenured position in the American Indian studies program on the Champaign-Urbana campus and was just waiting for approval by the university’s Board of Trustees, usually a perfunctory stage. However, Salaita posted strongly anti-Israeli sentiments after the start of the recent war in Gaza. After those postings, he was informed that the university was rescinding its offer due to opposition on the board.
Salaita is a former associate professor at Virginia Tech. He was offered the new job with an $85,000 salary last October to begin on January 2014. The University was enthusiastic about his joining the faculty. In a letter from Brian Ross, the interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, he was told “Please let me express my sincere enthusiasm about your joining us. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers a wonderfully supportive community, and it has always taken a high interest in its newcomers. I feel sure that your career can flourish here, and I hope earnestly that you will accept our invitation.” Salaita signed the offer letter and accepted the position.
The situation changed when Salaita turned to Twitter to express his views about the Israeli attacks in Gaza. For example, on June 20, after three Israelis were kidnapped and killed, Salaita wrote: “You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the (expletive) West Bank settlers would go missing.” Then, on July 22, he wrote: “#Israel kills civilians faster than the speed of 4G.”
He has also tweeted that “Zionists: transforming ‘anti-semitism’ from something horrible into something honorable since 1948.” In another tweet he suggested that journalist Jeffrey Goldberg ought to get “the pointy end of a shiv.”
Just a couple weeks after those tweets, on August 1st, U. of I. Chancellor Phyllis Wise informed Salaita in an email that the offer was being rescinded because his appointment was subject to approval by the university’s board of trustees, and the appointment would not be submitted to the board: “We believe that an affirmative Board vote approving your appointment is unlikely. We therefore will not be in a position to appoint you to the faculty … Thank you for your interest in and consideration of the University of Illinois.”
However, U. of I. English professor Cary Nelson, former national president of the American Association of University Professors, supports the decision to rescind the offer. He notes that Salaita had not yet been formally hired and that his tweets showed that he was “not the right fit for the campus.” He views the tweets as anti-Semitic and can be viewed as linked to his work: “It is because the tweets are an extension of his publication, they are central to his work and many feel they cross the line into anti-Semitism. The anti-Semitism does (bother me) and what appears to be almost a solicitation of violence.” Nelson has been criticized on the Internet by advocacy groups for being part of an effort to block Salaita due to his views.
However, the connection to his work is precisely the point for many of his supporters who note that the university was already aware of his views since he is the author of a 2011 book, “Israel’s Dead Soul.” He has a long academic interest in colonialism and Palestine. This also includes his book, The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan: Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms (Syracuse University Press). He is also part of a large number of faculty members who have called for boycotting Israeli academic institutions.
The AAUP has denounced the University of Illinois for violating academic freedom. In an email sent to faculty on Saturday, University Chancellor Phyllis Wise said the decision was “disappointing, but not unexpected.”
There continues to be an uncertain line drawn as to what comments are deemed sufficient to terminate academics as shown recently by the controversy surrounding Saida Grundy at Boston University. For academics, uncertainty over what they can say is a direct threat to academic freedom. There seems no discernible line between comments attacking whites (Grundy) and comments attacking Israel. Indeed, Grundy’s comments referred to students and faculty on campus. We have discussed how people are increasingly being punished for statements on social media. This trend is far more worrisome when it is used to terminate academics for expressing unpopular views or theories. For that reason, as offensive as I found her comments, I viewed Grundy’s comments are protected and supported the decision not to termination her. I prefer a bright line rule than the fluid standard that emerges from these cases.
What do you think?
I suppose one could say that some folks in New York have anti Harlem views. But is that the same as anti black views and attitude. Lee Atwater taught RepublCons how to get the white bigot vote. The Southern Strategy is still that of the RepubliCon Party. Ya see, you dont have to say the N word three times anymore to get the attention of the white bigot voter. You can call someone a welfare cheat. Now you can simply refer to some project as an offshoot of ObamaCare. The first word is the one that works.
So here we have this anti Jew hater with some sort of middle east last name. He focuses on Israel and not the Jew. Sort of. When you read his schmuck verbage it is quite clear that he would be in the Third Reich if he lived back then. What the AAUP is doing is giving the Jew hater some slack but they would not do this if he was a black hater.
We are sliding downhill in a handbasket towards Hell here in America.
I think that the University of Illinois did the right thing and needs to be validated. The AAUP needs to be derided. This so called “Professor” needs to go back to Afghanistan or to whatever Stan country he hails from.
Curley from the Three Stooges coined a great phrase back in the 30s. “Hotsie Totsie – I smell a Nazi.”
Doesn’t matter Squeeky, birthers were always nuts, before, during and after the release of his birth certificate.
Speaking of birthers, I just read that Donald Trump has officially declared that he is running for Prez.
This is gonna be fun! 🙂
Here is a little tidbit from the Patton papers. Yes, George Patton, probably the greatest American general of WW2. Yes, to the delight of all, in the quote below the General was talking about Jews. These are his words not mine, but I wonder if the notion applies here to this situation so many years later.
“They have utterly lost the Anglo-Saxon conception of justice and feel that a man can be kicked out because somebody else says he is a Nazi. They were evidently quite shocked when I told them I would kick nobody out without the successful proof of guilt before a court of law . . .
Cheney and Dobbs didn’t do any such thing RECENTLY. In 2009, two years before Obama released his long form birth certificate, they suggested that Obama ought to quit being such a dick, and release the long form, and clear up the doubts. FWIW, back in those days, about 58% of the country had some sort of doubts about where Obama was born,. That number included many Democrats.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/08/04/rel10k1a.pdf
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
No BamBam,
Darren, nor JT would delete Patriot’s comments. This is a free speech blog. You can call black people “drooling ferals” and gay folks the “gaystapo”, and post anti American video’s all ya want.
@Patriot
Titus is probably senile, and one of the few attorneys in the country who propagate the “two-citizen parent” crap. The SCOTUS ruled on this in 1898, in Wong Kim Ark, and defined a “natural born citizen”, as someone born in the U.S., whose parents were neither foreign diplomats nor military type invaders. They also found that this concept was incorporated into the 14th Amendment. That is simply the law, and letters from John Jay, or books by Swiss guys like Emerich Vattel, don’t trump the SCOTUS. You can b*tch about it, and scour garage sales for legal dictionaries and old civics books to your heart’s delight, but SCOTUS ruled, and every subsequent court and governmental body which hears the Birther case, relies on Wong Kim Ark, and chases the Birthers out of the courtroom.
If you are honestly confused, and not just some kind of a nut, you may enjoy reading this, which will set you straight on the issue:
https://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/a-place-to-get-the-really-right-answers-about-natural-born-citizenship/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I don’t know. I think Darren believes in free speech.
Professor Turley is to busy to moderate. I think he is seeking out cop bashing stories in England. I saw there was one where the bobbies were taking excessive tea breaks and getting free crumpets. I am sure we will see a thread deploring this shortly.
It appears as though patients at Creedmoor have now entered the fray.
The Bund established a number of training camps, including Camp Nordland in Sussex County, New Jersey, Camp Siegfried in Yaphank, New York, Camp Hindenburg in Grafton, Wisconsin, Deutschhorst Country Club in Sellersville, Pennsylvania,[12] Camp Bergwald in Bloomingdale, NJ[4][13][14][15][12] and Camp Highland in New York state. The Bund held rallies with Nazi insignia and procedures such as the Hitler salute and attacked the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jewish groups, Communism, “Moscow-directed” trade unions and American boycotts of German goods.[4][16] The organization claimed to show its loyalty to America by displaying the flag of the United States at Bund meetings, and declared that George Washington was “the first Fascist” who did not believe democracy would work.[17]
Kuhn and a few other Bundmen traveled to Berlin to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics. During the trip he visited the Reich Chancellery, where his picture was taken with Hitler.[4] This act did not constitute an official Nazi approval for Kuhn’s organization: German Ambassador to the United States Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff expressed his disapproval and concern over the group to Berlin, causing distrust between the Bund and the Nazi regime.[4] The organization received no financial or verbal support from Germany. In response to the outrage of Jewish war veterans, Congress in 1938 passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act requiring foreign agents to register with the State Department. On March 1, 1938 the Nazi government decreed that no Reichsdeutsche [German nationals] could be a member of the Bund, and that no Nazi emblems were to be used by the organization.[4] This was done both to appease the U.S. and to distance Germany from the Bund, which was increasingly a cause of embarrassment with its rhetoric and actions.[4]
German American Bund rally poster at Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939
Arguably, the zenith of the Bund’s activities was the rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 20, 1939.[18] Some 20,000 people attended and heard Kuhn criticize President Roosevelt by repeatedly referring to him as “Frank D. Rosenfeld”, calling his New Deal the “Jew Deal” and denouncing what he believed to be Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership. Most shocking to American sensibilities was the outbreak of violence between protesters and Bund storm troopers.
Looks like Darren is asleep at the wheel.
Folks: is ti Seig Hiel or Sieg Heil? I cant spull.
AAUP= All Aryan Utopian Privileges
Here is some American History for you. The AAUP is heading us to hell in a handbasket. Been there- done that. Check this out.
Higher Ed and the Third Reich
June 17, 2009
By
Elizabeth Redden
Photo: Cambridge University Press
A new book examines American colleges’ ties to Nazi Germany in the 1930s — and chronicles a record characterized by indifference, complicity and collaboration.
“In order to understand the whole course of development that leads us to the Holocaust, I think it’s very important to see what influential sectors in the United States were doing. And in the case of higher education, it’s a very shameful record of complicity and indifference to atrocities committed against the Jews from 1933 onward — and actually a lot of collaboration, in terms of participating in well-organized student exchange programs, participating in well-orchestrated Nazi festivals in Germany, sending delegates to those and ignoring protests,” says Stephen H. Norwood, a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and author of The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses, new from Cambridge University Press.
In an interview, Norwood describes university leaders as indifferent to evidence of a barbaric regime rising abroad in part because of their own polices of anti-Semitism and exclusion back home. “They just didn’t care very deeply about Jews and anti-Semitism because they were themselves involved in maintaining quota barriers against Jewish students. There were very, very few Jews on the faculties of American universities throughout the entire inter-war period. And there are whole fields that were basically off-limits to Jews,” he says.
Norwood’s book begins by laying out the evidence of Germany’s “unprecedented relapse into barbarism” in the months immediately following Hitler’s ascent to power: “The Nazis’ anti-Semitic terror in 1933 precipitated demonstrations and boycotts on an unprecedented scale, often initiated at the grassroots level,” Norwood writes.
“But although academicians were the Americans most conversant with European affairs, few engaged in public anti-Nazi protest. As many working and lower-middle-class Americans marched in the streets and struggled to organize a nationwide boycott of German goods and services, American universities maintained amicable relations with the Third Reich, sending their students to study at Nazified universities while welcoming Nazi exchange students to their own campuses. American’s most distinguished university presidents willingly crossed the Atlantic in ships flying the swastika flag, openly defying the anti-Nazi boycott, to the benefit of the Third Reich’s economy. By warmly receiving Nazi diplomats and propagandists on campus, they helped Nazi Germany present itself to the American public as a civilized nation, unfairly maligned in the press.”
Two of Norwood’s chapters feature his research on “legitimating Nazism” and “complicity and conflict” at Harvard and Columbia Universities, respectively; that research, when previously presented in other forums, has provoked controversy (more on that later).
The book goes well beyond the Ivies, however, and another chapter focuses on the all-female Seven Sisters Colleges — which, despite Nazi-era quotas limiting women’s enrollment at German universities, staunchly promoted the Junior Year in Munich up until the start of the war. (“In September 1939,” Norwood writes, “with war looming, a ‘dauntless group’ of juniors assembled in New York City eager to sail to Europe for a year of study at the University of Munich; it was prevented from doing so only by the outbreak of hostilities.”)
While much of the book details failures of university leadership, one chapter, called Nazi Nests, focuses on the faculty — specifically those of German programs. “University German departments, often staffed by faculty members sympathetic to the Hitler regime, and the German clubs they sponsored, constituted important bases of support for Nazi Germany in the United States,” writes Norwood. German departments at the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin hosted receptions for Hans Luther, Nazi Germany’s ambassador to the United States, and German faculty members were prominently represented at anniversary celebrations for the Universities of Heidelberg and Goettingen, in 1936 and 1937, respectively.
The chapter also traces the termination of the single anti-Nazi German faculty member at the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass Residential College, a part of Rutgers University), as illustrative: “The issues involved in [Lienhard] Bergel’s termination are complicated,” Norwood acknowledges, “but what is most alarming about the case is the administration’s indifference to having an all-Nazi German department at NJC, and the Rutgers’ trustees’ obvious hostility to committed opponents of Nazism.”
Another chapter throws an unflattering spotlight on the University of Virginia’s Institute of Public Affairs’ roundtables, which, from 1933 to 1941, “provided a major platform and an aura of academic legitimacy for Nazi Germany’s supporters and for the propagation of antisemitism,” Norwood argues. Charged with presenting “both sides of questions,” Virginia’s administration worked closely with Nazi Germany’s embassy in Washington to find speakers, and, Norwood writes, they “accorded great respect to the Nazi spokespersons, some of whom the U.S. government later arrested as seditionists, as unregistered German agents, or for disseminating Nazi propaganda.”
Meanwhile, Norwood criticizes American Catholic universities for keeping up friendly relations with Benito Mussolini’s Fascist government, and also for their support of the Fascist General Francisco Franco in Spain (“Catholic leaders in the United States and Europe considered Franco’s war against the democratically elected Loyalists a religious crusade against Communism,” Norwood writes). Norwood writes about the firing of Moyer Springer Fleisher, a bacteriology professor at Saint Louis University, for sponsoring a pro-Loyalist lecture.
It’s Norwood’s research on Harvard and Columbia, however, that — at least to date — has been most high profile. Norwood writes, among other things, of then-Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler’s “warm” reception of the German ambassador, Luther, describing him in 1933 as “the official diplomatic representative to the Government of the United States on the part of the government of a friendly people.” The university dismissed a Jewish instructor of art history, Jerome Klein, who signed a protest against the invitation to Luther, and also expelled a student, Robert Burke, who had protested the university’s decision to send a delegate to the University of Heidelberg’s 550th anniversary celebration, in 1936.
Columbia released a statement on Norwood’s research in 2006 that the university spokesman, Robert Hornsby, said still stands. “It is true, as Professor Norwood claims, that an official of the German government spoke on the Columbia campus in 1933 and that the University sent a representative to the University of Heidelberg in 1936 to attend the celebration of its 550th anniversary.
“In retrospect, one might wish that no one who believed in democratic values would have had any connection with Germany after Hitler’s accession to power. But in fact, American interactions with Nazi Germany – financial, commercial, cultural, academic, and political — were extensive throughout the 1930s and even into the first months of World War II. If the events that Professor Norwood describes are examples of ‘collaboration,’ then the collaborators include many thousands of leaders and citizens of the United States, Britain, and many other nations,” the statement reads, in part.
“The President of Columbia in the 1930s, Nicholas Murray Butler — like many presidents of elite universities of his era — tried for a time to limit Jewish enrollment at the University, an effort of which Columbia is not proud. But Butler himself called the Nazi regime the chief threat to democratic institutions in the world in1937…. Professor Norwood is entitled to his extravagant interpretation of Columbia’s modest interactions with Germany in the 1930s. Few historians would take it seriously as a reasonable response to the facts he has assembled.”
BarkinDog -you would appreciate the documentary “America and the Holocaust”
How do we take back our Country from the Zionist Jews?
We do it with our Freedom of Speech – Expose the Zionists
Zionists and American traitors did 9/11
Jeff Rense with Gilad Atzmon & Brother Nathanael on The Greatest Threat To The World
http://rense.gsradio.net:8080/rense/special/rense_Atzmon_Nathanael_053012.mp3
911 was An ISRAELI ZIONIST FALSE FLAG ATTACK – Ken O’Keefe
https://youtu.be/a8aGJlXuavk
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2015/05/dr-david-duke-jeff-rense-on-zionism-april-9th-2015-3006270.html
Dr. David Duke & Jeff Rense on Zionism – April 9th, 2015
*************
LMAO, he’s one of yours for sure.
http://gawker.com/5320465/the-birthers-who-are-they-and-what-do-they-want
“Liz Cheney and Lou Dobbs have recently defended the “birthers,” the dumb group of internet psychos who think it’s impossible that a black man could’ve been democratically elected president. Where did they come from and what do they actually believe?”
****************
Nah, he one of yours.
Netanyahu The War Criminal
Jeff Rense with Preston James
“Netanyahu: Butcher of Palestinian Children and Israel’s Mouthpiece of Lies”
He spoke to a den of Zionist whore traitors in Congress who gave him 22 standing ovations
Netanyahu, Mass Murderer & War Criminal, ordered the 9/11 Nuclear Attack on America
https://youtu.be/xT_Mn9M4maI
Neturei Karta Jews burn Israeli flag
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/static/Resizer.ashx/news/468/282/436666.jpg
Opposing the evil government of Israel / Zionism is not anti-Semitism
The anti-Zionist Neturei Karta hareidi sect was named as one of the top 10 most influential and active
anti-Israel groups in the United States, in a list released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
It is encouraging that many professors and students in U.S. colleges and universities are active in anti-Israel protests.
Israel must be held accountable for its mass murder, war crimes and apartheid.
LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
‘ISRAELIS AND ZIONIST JEWS PLAYED KEY ROLES IN 9/11 ATTACKS
https://youtu.be/RXqTcw8Q4f0