June 19 , 2015

(Educators)The American Association of University Professors held its centennial conference and business meeting recently in Washington D.C. In keeping with its goal of defending academic freedom, the AAUP devoted at least two sessions to the hiring controversy of Steven Salaita, the professor who received media attention after losing a potential job last summer for tweeting hate-filled anti- Israel and anti-Semitic posts.

Last July, Salaita tweeted, "Let's cut to the chase: If you're defending #Israel right now you're an awful human being." He also proclaimed, "Zionists: transforming 'antisemitism' from something horrible into something honorable since 1948," And after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped, he took to Twitter with "You may be too refined to say it, but I'm not: I wish all the F**king West Bank settlers would go missing." The boys' dead bodies were discovered two weeks later.

As a recent college graduate, I can only imagine how scary it would be for an "awful human being" like myself to speak up as an Israel-supporter in one of Salaita's classes.

One of the AAUP conference sessions discussed social media, civility and free expression on campus. Another session was titled: "From Finkelstein to Salaita: The Rebirth of Illinois Conference Committee A." The description asserted, "Illinois is ground zero of the academic freedom struggle. Norman Finkelstein and Steven Salaita are the preeminent academic freedom cases of our time. Northeastern Illinois University and National Louis University are among the institutions most recently censured by the AAUP.

ices would benefit their children.