On the One-Year Anniversary of the Steven Salaita Story, Some Good News

Big news out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign today.

First, a federal judge firmly rejected UIUC’s argument that it never hired Steven Salaita because the Board of Trustees hadn’t yet given its final seal of approval at the time of his firing last year. According to Judge Henry Leinenweber of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (a Reagan appointee):

If the court accepted the university’s argument, the entire American academic hiring process as it now operates would cease to exist, because no professor would resign a tenure position, move states, and start teaching at a new college based on an ‘offer’ that was absolutely meaningless until after the semester already started.

As the Chronicle of Higher Education goes onto report:

If the university truly regarded such job contracts as hinging on board approval, he said, it would have the board vote on them much earlier in the hiring process, before paying a prospective faculty member’s moving expenses and offering that professor an office and classes. “Simply put, the university cannot argue with a straight face that it engaged in all these actions in the absence of any obligation or agreement,” he said.

The university’s board actually might have undermined itself legally in deciding to hold a formal vote on Mr. Salaita’s employment after Phyllis M. Wise, the campus’s chancellor,attempted to rescind the job by not forwarding it for board approval, the ruling indicated. If the university had not made some sort of offer to Mr. Salaita, the judge asked, “why hold a vote at all?”

Based heavily upon his determination that such an agreement existed, Judge Leinenweber said Mr. Salaita can proceed in trying to prove that university administrators and board members conspired to breach his contract, violate his free-speech rights under the First Amendment, and deny him academic due process.

Last summer, at just about this time, many defenders of Chancellor Wise’s decision to fire Salaita, including many readers of and commenters on this blog, tried to make the case that the UIUC proceeded to make in federal court and that has now been firmly rejected by that court. Indeed, Judge Leinenweber makes many of the same arguments against UIUC’s claim that many of us made against that claim last summer (see especially, pp. 13-19). While it was depressing and exhausting to have to make these arguments over and over again—arguments that were plain as day to most of us in academia—it’s nice to see them vindicated in court.

Second, Chancellor Wise resigned today. With, to my mind, an unprecedented statement admitting to the costs this controversy has imposed upon her and her administration.

External issues have arisen over the past year that have distracted us from the important tasks at hand. I have concluded that these issues are diverting much needed energy and attention from our goals. I therefore believe the time is right for me to step aside.

While Wise was battling critics on an array of issues, the Chicago Tribune reports that it was the Salaita case that was truly taking the greatest toll.

But the harshest criticism against Wise focused on the decision last summer to withdraw a job offer to professor Steven Salaita after he made a series of critical and profane comments about Israel on social media. U. of I. rescinded Salaita’s offer for a tenured faculty position in the American Indian studies department weeks before he was scheduled to start teaching.

That decision led to much fallout, including a recent censure by the American Association of University Professors, a prominent professors group, which said U. of I. violated the principles of academic freedom. More than a dozen U. of I. academic departments voted no confidence in Wise’s leadership, and faculty across the country have boycotted the campus and canceled events there. Salaita has filed a federal lawsuit alleging breach of contract and violation of his free speech rights.

Those controversies apparently came to a head this week, and Wise submitted a one-sentence resignation letter Thursday.

…

“It is the right thing for her to step down. I wish that I could be more supportive of her, but unfortunately during the last year, she has made so many missteps that have cost the university so many hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees,” said U. of I. religion professor Bruce Rosenstock, president of the Campus Faculty Association, a faculty advocacy group.

It was exactly one year ago today that the Salaita story broke nationally. It’s been a grueling year for Steven, which he discusses in Uncivil Rites, a terrific little book that I read and blurbed not long ago and that I heartily recommend to all of you. But on this, the one-year anniversary of the breaking of his story, I hope he can take some solace in these bits of good news.

Update (11:15 pm)

After reading Leinenweber’s opinion, Brian Leiter affirms a point I’ve long been making about the threat of discovery:

Thus, the court asked the question:  if the facts are as Salaita alleges, does he have a valid breach of contract claim, and the court gave that a resoundingly affirmative answer (coming pretty close to ridiculing the university’s position that there wasn’t really a contract).  The breach of contract and the First Amendment claims are Salaita’s most potent in terms of damages.  It was obviously agreed in advance that Chancellor Wise would step down given an adverse decision, presumably because the University knows that the outrageousness of her conduct will be exposed to view once discovery begins and presumably also thinking that it will be easier to settle with Salaita once they are rid of the University official who said, “We will not hire him.”  My bet is that, in order to block discovery, which would throw open to public view the bad behavior of many actors behind the scenes, and in order to avoid the damages attached to losing the breach of contract and First Amendment claims (which they would almost certainly lose, and for which the damages could easily amount to compensation for his entire career, i.e., 35 years of salary and benefits, plus additional damages for the constitutional claims), the University will now try to reach a settlement in which he is reinstated (subject to some face-saving terms for the University, like Salaita promising not to scare students in the classroom), and compensation is limited to damages for the last year plus his attorney fees.  This is a very good day for tenure, for contracts, and for free speech.