University of Illinois professor loses his job after anti-Israel tweets

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has retracted a job offer to an outspoken critic of the conflict in Gaza, according to a letter released Wednesday and signed by the university’s chancellor.

Steven Salaita, a former Virginia Tech professor, had been offered a tenured appointment as an associate professor in the American Indian Studies department with a salary of $85,000, pending approval from the board of trustees. Such approval is essentially guaranteed, and his start date was set for Aug. 16, the Chicago Tribune reported.

But according to Inside Higher Ed, “sources familiar with the university’s decision say that concern grew over the tone of his comments on Twitter about Israel’s policies in Gaza.” As the blog pointed out, criticism of Israel is not unusual in academia. Nor is it that rare at the University of Illinois, where varying viewpoints of the Israel-Palestine divide have played out in the pages of the campus newspaper, the Daily Illini.

In an Aug. 1 letter obtained by the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise and Christophe Pierre, the vice president for academic affairs, wrote Salaita, “Your appointment will not be recommended for submission to the Board of Trustees in September, and we believe that an affirmative Board vote approving your appointment is unlikely.”

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