Dear supporters: As many of you know, UIUC Board of Trustees met on Monday, August 18, to discuss the revocation of Professor Steven Salaita's contract and address the widespread outcry this unfortunate decision has created. Earlier the same day, Chancellor Phyllis Wise met with UC faculty members on campus to hear their views. We still don't know the outcome of these deliberations. Supporters like us are determined to see this through to the end. A negative outcome will not stop us from continuing to take action. Foremost among continuing solidarity efforts is the faculty boycott of UIUC called for by members of US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and other faculty worldwide. See their press release dated August 18 here: http://www.usacbi.org/2014/08/over-1200-scholars-boycott-university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-until-professor-steven-salaita-reinstated/. Here is an example of how this boycott of UIUC works: David Blacker of the University of Delaware, who had been invited to speak on September 29 to kick off the 2014-15 CAS / MillerComm annual series, sent a letter to the organizers at UIUC declining the invitation and explaining his reasons for doing so. He says, "I have decided I must honor the growing worldwide pledge of academics not to appear at U. of I. unless the Salaita matter is acceptably resolved. I refer of course to the University's recent punishment of Professor Salaita for engaging in political speech in a public forum. I neither endorse nor reject any of SaIaita's remarks and their substance is not relevant to my decision to cancel. Neither do I base my decision on a n assessment of the affair 's constitutional-legal aspects, which are uncertain. My decision is not about Israel/Palestine and it is not about legal nuance .... My concern has to do with the academic freedom needed by scholars in order to do our job properly. Academic freedom does not exist when it is withheld from scholars with unpopular or even 'offensive' views. As an educator and citizen, I agree strongly with Justice Brandeis that 'If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education,the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence (1927)." Instead of choosing education and more speech as the remedy for disagreeable speech,the U. of I. has apparently chosen "enforced silence.' It thus violates what a university must stand for -- whatever else it stands for -- and therefore I join those who will not participate in the violation. In my judgment, this is a core and non-negotiable issue of academic freedom." Like Professor Blacker, all 15,242 of us will not rest until this egregious action on the part of UIUC administration is acceptably resolved.