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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://socialistworker.org/2017/07/25/dont-let-fear-be-the-lesson">https://socialistworker.org/2017/07/25/dont-let-fear-be-the-lesson</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Don't let fear be the lesson</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">July 25, 2017</div>
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<p>In 2015, <span class="sw-author">Steven Salaita</span>
was wrongly terminated by the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) because of his tweets condemning
Israel's barbaric bombing of Gaza, which the university
claimed were "uncivil."</p>
<p>The Palestine solidarity movement rallied to Salaita's
defense, and UIUC was eventually forced to settle
financially with him. Salaita then took a position with
the American University of Beirut (AUB) as the Edward W.
Said Chair of American Studies and has been living in
Lebanon with his family since. But last year, AUB
President Fadlo Khuri called off a search for a director
of the Center for American Studies and Research when a
search committee unanimously recommended Salaita.
Critics claimed that AUB was again making Salaita a
target, while AUB said the search had been marred by
"conflicts of interest and misconduct."</p>
<p>Salaita has announced that he and his family are
returning to the U.S. Unable to find a job in academia,
he plans on writing and speaking. In this statement
first published on social media, Salaita describes
what's next for him--and why he does not regret his
decision to speak out against Israel and in defense of
Palestinian rights.</p>
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<p>A FEW thoughts on leaving academe: Next week, I will
depart Beirut and return to the D.C. area. I'm grateful
to the students and friends who made our time in Lebanon
so rewarding. We'll remember this period with great
fondness. My son grew from a toddler into a little boy
in Beirut. His first memories are registered at AUB
[American University of Beirut].</p>
<p>Despite applying to positions on four continents, I was
unable to find an academic job, so I no longer count
myself among the professoriate. A number of colleagues
have attempted to recruit me, but their efforts always
get shut down by management. In turn, I often feel like
I'm reliving the UIUC fiasco, which isn't conducive to
the kind of mood I prefer to inhabit. I'm easygoing, but
I refuse to tolerate the indignities of a blacklist.</p>
<p>My immediate plan is to write and give talks. I'm still
young and energetic. I don't intend to slosh around in
self-pity. Whatever I end up doing, I will maintain the
spirit of noncompliance that defined my time in academe.
If you take any lesson from my ouster, please don't let
it be fear or caution. Docility is a gift to those who
profit from injustice. Academe can no longer afford this
luxury.</p>
<p>People still ask if I would go back in time and change
anything. I would not. If my behavior were dishonorable,
then I might have something to regret. I condemned a
brutal ethnocratic state. On this count, I will die
unapologetic. And insofar as we are forced to
contemplate life in binaries, I prefer unemployment to
subservience. My heart is with those who struggle for
dignity amid terrible oppression. I spare no loyalty to
a bourgeois industry that rewards self-importance and
conformity.</p>
<p>Despite every node of my disposition screaming at me
not to say what I'm about to say, I again surrender to
my lesser judgment: I leave academe feeling that, no
matter my copious shortcomings, I managed to remain a
decent human being. Zionists have worked overtime to
incriminate me, but they've never found anything
incriminating--not from a lack of diligence, but because
there's nothing to find but plainspoken disdain for
settler colonization. I haven't always been a good
professor--I'm disorganized and forgetful and reclusive
and unresponsive and an easy grader--but I've never
compromised my ethics or sold out colleagues and
students in order to ingratiate myself to power.</p>
<p>Thank you for entertaining my self-indulgence. If my
words sound incompatible with the demands of nuance and
discretion that predominate in academic culture, then
it's because I'm no longer of the culture and thus
unconstrained by its emphasis on disinterest and
diplomacy. I can speak according to the whims of my
conscience. This is what happens when you manage to
survive a punishment. You become free.</p>
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