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<b><small><small><small><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/10/u-illinois-releases-inappropriately-withheld-emails-controversies-over-salaita-and">https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/10/u-illinois-releases-inappropriately-withheld-emails-controversies-over-salaita-and</a></small></small></small></b><br
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<h1 style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px
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Illinois Kept Secret</h1>
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<div class="pane-content">August 10, 2015</div>
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style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">Scott
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<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">As
Hillary Clinton has learned the hard way,
using your personal email account when doing
government work doesn't make the content of
those emails exempt from public records
laws. The University of Illinois System <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://uofi.uillinois.edu/emailer/newsletter/77321.html"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">announced</a> its own
email scandal Friday afternoon, admitting
that some senior officials -- whom it did
not name -- used private email accounts for
official business and failed to turn over
some of those email records in response to
public records requests, as required.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">While
the university did not name the "certain
administrative personnel" who didn't turn
over their private email records, there is
at least circumstantial evidence indicating
that Phyllis M. Wise, chancellor of the
flagship campus at Urbana-Champaign, is
among them. Many of the email records that
were now released were either from or to the
chancellor. And the announcement of the
email violations came a day after <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/07/chancellor-u-illinois-urbana-champaign-resigns"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">Wise announced that
she would be quitting her position</a> as
of next week.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">The
emails suggest that the private accounts
were used (despite clear university policy
that they are covered by open records
requests) to keep matters private. In one
email, Wise quotes Robin Kaler, Wise's chief
spokeswoman, as warning "me and others not
to use email since we are now in a
litigation phase. We are doing virtually
nothing over our Illinois email addresses. I
am ever careful with this email address and
deleting after sending."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Numerous
emails contain references that are likely
embarrassing to the senders and the subjects
-- and the email provides a look at the
kinds of conversations that senior
administrators never like to be visible. For
instance, Ilesanmi Adesida, provost at
Urbana-Champaign, emailed Wise about the
search for a system president whom Adesida
wrote in the email might not be needed. He
told the chancellor: "I agree, this place is
messed up."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">The
emails provide new details on some of the
biggest messes at Illinois in the last two
years. They show how Wise and other senior
administrators (and some faculty members)
viewed their controversial decision to block
the hiring of Steven Salaita. And the emails
show how the Illinois board chair put strong
pressure on the administration to do
something about James Kilgore, an adjunct
who briefly lost his job because of his past
involvement with the Symbionese Liberation
Army. In both cases, the email records show
high-level administrators and board members
involved in academic decisions normally left
to academic departments.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px"><strong>The
Salaita Case</strong></p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/06/u-illinois-apparently-revokes-job-offer-controversial-scholar"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">he outlines of the
Salaita case</a> have been clear for a
year -- he was offered a tenured job in the
American Indian Studies program at
Urbana-Champaign, and the hire was
sufficiently far along that he had quit his
previous job (at Virginia Tech) and been
assigned classes to teach at Illinois for
fall 2014. But Wise intervened at the last
minute and said that</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px"> she
would not forward the Salaita appointment to
the board for approval, and that he didn't
have a job. She did so after publicity over
Salaita's Twitter feed, where he wrote
passionately about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict in ways that struck many supporters
of Israel as uncivil and hostile to Israel
and supporters of that nation. <br>
</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Once
the controversy started, Salaita and many
faculty members maintained that he had been
fired, without the due process Illinois
promises tenured faculty members. This is
part of a federal lawsuit Salaita filed
against the university -- and on which a
judge on Friday <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/07/judge-rejects-move-u-illinois-dismiss-salaita-lawsuit"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">refused a request by
Illinois to dismiss</a>.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Wise
and her supporters maintained that Salaita
was not fired, but that he simply had never
been hired, as the board never gave its
approval. As a result, they said he wasn't
entitled to the due process of a tenured
faculty member.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.uillinois.edu/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=278006"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">The 294 pages of
emails</a> involving Salaita released
Friday show, however, multiple references by
Wise and other Illinois officials to Salaita
already having been offered a job at the
time that Wise blocked him from starting it.
The emails don't show a debate about what to
do about a proposed hire moving through the
system, but about one that has effectively
been made.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">For
example, an email from Wise just prior to
her telling Salaita he could not take up his
position said, "Let me add that the hateful,
totally unprofessional and unacceptable
Twitters have appeared mainly since July.
This is after the decision to hire him and
after his acceptance of our offer. It
reveals a side of a person that I believe
makes it difficult for him to contribute to
the culture of respect, collegiality,
collaboration that we hold so dear," she
wrote.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">The
emails also make clear that Illinois acted
against Salaita on the basis of the Twitter
comments. This could be important legally as
he has maintained -- with backing from
numerous academic and civil liberties groups
-- that his posts are protected expression
under the First Amendment. But Wise in her
emails suggests that there are limits to
protected expression.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">In
one, she says, "The real question for me is
when does freedom of speech cross the line
into hateful, harassing unprofessional
speech and action." (While there has been
much criticism of Salaita's comments and
tone, there have not been reports of
unprofessional "action" by him, and it is
unclear what Wise means there.)</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">The
emails also reveal a constant exchange of
ideas and gossip about how various faculty
groups at Urbana-Champaign and elsewhere
responded to the controversy as it continued
from last summer into the fall. Many
academic departments at Illinois and many
groups nationally condemned the university
for preventing Salaita from taking up his
position. But Wise also had <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/22/salaita-case-illustrates-two-cultures-academe-many-experts-say"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">strong support from
many faculty members in the sciences</a>,
who viewed Wise's overall management of the
university more favorably.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">The
records that were released show Wise
receiving advice from scientists on the
situation and on understanding their
colleagues in the humanities.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Douglas
Beck, a physics professor whose emails show
sympathy for Wise and her handling of the
situation, wrote to her, "There is a crisis
of value, most deeply felt in the
humanities. There is surely a component of
self-pity and desire to play the victim; but
I think we too are at fault in not taking
enough time to explain how important we
believe, e.g., the humanities, to be,
especially their stand-alone, intrinsic
value (not associated with interdisciplinary
etc. activities) ….</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">"There
seems to be a belief that the campus can
operate almost completely as a democracy,
where the faculty have the final say in
every important decision. They somehow don't
understand or choose to ignore all the work
that goes on outside their offices that
allows them to teach their classes and
seminars, read and write, with little
interference …. This may define the two
cultures" on campus, he added.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">That
email message is <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://goodenoughprofessor.blogspot.com/2015/08/when-i-first-started-blogging-about.html?spref=tw"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">already being
criticized</a> online by other faculty
members.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Salaita
did not respond to a request to comment on
the emails released Friday but he did
comment on Twitter, and focused on the new
evidence that senior Illinois officials
considered that he had in fact been hired.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">In
one tweet, he wrote, "I wish UIUC apologists
would just admit they're glad I got fired
b/c of my views. The 'but, but he wasn't
hired' routine is embarrassing." In another,
he said, "Misrepresenting academic hiring
protocol to suit a pro-Israel POV you're too
coy to vocalize screws over everybody, not
just political foes."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px"><strong>The
Kilgore Case</strong></p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">James
Kilgore was hired as an adjunct in global
studies and urban planning in 2011 and
earned good reviews until 2014, when <em>The
News-Gazette</em>, a local newspaper,
published an article about his past. He was
hired at Illinois two years after leaving
prison, where he served time for his
involvement with a 1975 bank robbery in
which a woman was killed (Kilgore was not
the gunman).</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">He
told those hiring him about his past -- he
was a member of the Symbionese Liberation
Army, a group best known for kidnapping the
heiress Patty Hearst. After the <em>News-Gazette</em>article
ran, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/08/contract-renewal-adjunct-criminal-past-raises-academic-freedom-concerns-illinois"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">Kilgore was summoned
to a meeting with the provost and told
that future teaching there was unlikely
and that sections for him to teach --
already approved by relevant departments
-- were being held up</a>.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">University
officials denied that there was anything out
of the ordinary about their involvement in
blocking Kilgore from teaching, but many
professors said it was a violation of the
rights of Kilgore and the departments that
wanted him to teach to prevent him from
doing so, when there was no evidence that he
had violated any university policies. After
several panels reviewed the situation,
Kilgore was permitted to return to teaching,
and he has courses scheduled for this fall.
(Kilgore no longer supports the ideas of the
Symbionese Liberation Army.)</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">What <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.uillinois.edu/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=278003"
style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(239,117,33)">the new emails on
Kilgore</a> show is that there was strong
pressure from Christopher Kennedy, then
chair of the Illinois board, to bar anyone
in Kilgore's position from teaching. Kennedy
also expressed the view that the university
"needs to, in many ways, reflect the values
of the state." The Kennedy email backs up
the views of many faculty members, who said
that Kennedy and other trustees were
inappropriately involved in decisions about
faculty hiring.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">In
an email from Kennedy to Robert Easter, then
president of the university system, after
the <em>News-Gazette</em> article appeared,
Kennedy wrote that "the story will be
offensive to taxpayers."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">"I
think they are going to be offended by the
notion that their taxes are going to support
the lifestyle and career of a fellow who
tried to overthrow the U.S. government and
targeted police officers and innocent
victims for killings," Kennedy said, adding
that he believes that those who serve prison
terms deserve the chance to go on with life
but that he was "uncomfortable" with the
idea that "the second chance should come
from public support."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Kennedy,
a son of Robert F. Kennedy, who was
assassinated, noted that he has personal
experiences that shape his opinions on
issues. But he said that the university
can't be surprised by incivility by students
"given that we have held up to the students
as examples people like this fellow, who
thought it was OK to target cops and
noncombatants for murders as an expression
for political disagreement."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">And
he suggested that the university must
generally pay more attention to the views of
state citizens. "I think the university, as
the state's public university, needs to, in
many ways, reflect the values of the state,"
Kennedy wrote. "If we become too cavalier in
our attitudes about this, then the people of
the state and their representatives will
respond. They'll hinder our ability to free
ourselves of unwanted procurement rules,
they'll limit our ability to provide
supplemental retirement benefits, they'll
acquiesce to a decrease in … support for the
university."</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">Kilgore,
via email to <em>Inside Higher Ed</em>,
offered this reaction to the newly released
emails:</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">"These
emails show that the motivation to get rid
of me came from the Board of Trustees. They
further confirm that early on in this
process the university was aware that I had
not concealed anything about my background
when I was hired. This issue has prompted
the university to recognize that addressing
people's criminal backgrounds is an issue
they cannot avoid in our present context.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding-bottom:10px">"With
70 million people in the U.S. with criminal
records and almost 20 million with felony
convictions, we who have felony convictions
are no longer an aberration. I only hope the
university will use the opportunity to
develop a policy to open the door to people
who have felony convictions and give them
the second chance that their 'Inclusive
Illinois' slogan implies. I also hope that
the development of a policy will eliminate
any urges from Board of Trustee members to
intervene in hiring decisions, especially at
the level of academic hourly."</p>
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