Do professors have freedom of tweet?
The professor is Steven Salaita, who had given up his post as associate professor of English at Virginia Tech to take a tenured position as a professor in the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was to have started this week.
In effect, job offer rescinded.
When the News-Gazette contacted the university for comment for that story, spokesperson Robin Kaler confirmed that Salaita would be on board as an associate professor, adding “Faculty have a wide range of scholarly and political views, and we recognize the freedom-of-speech rights of all our employees.”
At the end of last week, an online petition addressed to Wise in support of Salaita’s appointment was closing in on 11,000 signatures.
