Reinstate Professor Salaita

Dear fellow petitioners: I am reopening this petition in the light of momentous developments in Dr. Steven Salaita's case, both in the courts and at UIUC. Since ex-Chancellor Wise never responded to this petition (originally addressed to her and Professor Robert Warrior, Director of American Indian Studies), we are now re-routing our petition for the reinstatement of Steven Salaita to Acting Chancellor Barbara J. Wilson and Edward L. McMillan, Chair of the Board of Trustees, inspired by the following words and action of 41 executive officers at UIUC: 41 Executive Officers at UIUC Call for the Reinstatement of Steven Salaita August 23, 2015 Dear President Killeen and Acting Chancellor Wilson, We the forty-one undersigned Executive Officers and campus leaders from departments and academic units across the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign urge you to help end the crisis that has plagued our university for more than a year. It has increasingly become clear that the decision to rescind Dr. Steven Salaita’s appointment as an associate professor with indefinite tenure in the American Indian Studies Program violated the principles of shared faculty governance and may also be legally liable. The decision has also inflicted harm upon the reputation and standing of our university. The AAUP has censured the Urbana-Champaign campus for the violation of academic freedom. An ongoing academic boycott against our campus continues to adversely affect an important dimension of our intellectual livelihood. More than 5,000 scholars around the world, many of them prominent intellectuals, refuse to participate in talks or conferences at the University of Illinois. Such events are part of the exchange of ideas for which our campus has always been known, and their cancellation impoverishes the conversation on campus to the detriment of students and faculty alike. Over the long term, it threatens our competitiveness in bringing in external funding and recruiting distinguished scholars. We are therefore asking you to use the authority of your offices to recommend to the Board of Trustees that they reverse their previous decision and reinstate Dr. Salaita at the next board meeting in September. We firmly believe that this step will help put the university on track toward ending AAUP censure and regaining its place among the most respected public institutions of higher education in the country. The decision to reinstate Dr. Salaita will also make it easier to resolve pending litigation and save the university community and state taxpayers from the high costs of defending a wrong decision in the court of law. We ask for a meeting to discuss our request to restore the rightful stature of the University of Illinois. Sincerely, James Anderson, Head, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership Matthew Ando, Chair, Department of Mathematics Antoinette Burton, Interim Director, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities C.L. Cole, Head, Department of Media and Cinema Studies David Cooper, Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center Clare Crowston, Chair, Department of History Jerry Dávila, Director, Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies Anna Maria Escobar, Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Michael Finke, Head, Slavic Languages and Literatures Stephanie Foote, Chair, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Interim Director, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Greg Girolami, Head, Department of Chemistry Waïl Hassan, Director, Center for Translation Studies Stephanie Hilger, Head, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures Valerie Hoffman, Head, Department of Religion Valerie Hotchkiss, Director, Rare Book and Manuscript Library Jonathan X. Inda, Head, Department of Latina/Latino Studies Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, Head, Department of Theatre Lilya Kaganovsky, Director, Program in Comparative and World Literature Brett Kaplan, Director, Program in Jewish and Culture and Society Marcus Keller, Head, Department of French and Italian Edward Kolodziej, Director, Center for Global Studies Susan Koshy, Director, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory Soo Ah Kwon, Head, Department of Asian American Studies Jean-Philippe Mathy, Director, School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics David O’Brien, Chair, Art History Program Robert B. Olshansky, Head, Department of Urban and Regional Planning Andrew Orta, Head, Department of Anthropology Jesse Ribot, Director, Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy Program Michael Rothberg, Head, Department of English Kirk Sanders, Chair, Department of Philosophy Spencer Schaffner, Director, Center for Writing Studies Douglas Simpson, Chair, Department of Statistics Anna W. Stenport, Director, European Union Center Eleonora Stoppino, Director, Program in Medieval Studies Andrew Suarez, Head, Department of Animal Biology William Sullivan, Head, Department of Landscape Architecture Jonathan V. Sweedler, Director, School of Chemical Sciences Ariana Traill, Head, Department of the Classics Robert Warrior, Director, Program in American Indian Studies Assata Zerai, Director, Center for African Studies