Loading ...University of Illinois OKs $875,000 settlement to end Steven Salaita dispute
The University of Illinois’ decision last year to revoke a job offer to controversial professor Steven Salaita will cost more than $2 million, including an $875,000 settlement that trustees approved Thursday.
Salaita, who lost a tenured faculty position after posting a string of anti-Israel comments on social media, will get $600,000 in the deal in exchange for dropping two lawsuits against the university and agreeing he will never work at U. of I.
Salaita’s attorneys will get $275,000.
The settlement — to be paid out within 30 days — is on top of the $1.3 million in legal fees the university has spent during the past 14 months on Salaita-related issues, including a federal suit brought by Salaita that alleged breach of contract and violation of his free speech rights.
Trustees voted 9-1 to approve the agreement, in which the university admits no wrongdoing. The settlement will be paid for by self-insurance and institutional funds, which includes some taxpayer money. Trustee Timothy Koritz voted against it, saying the trustees’ decision last year to rescind the offer was “in the best interest of students.”
“I hope the settlement brings some closure to a challenging period for our entire community,” Urbana-Champaign interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson said after the vote. “I truly believe it marks a point in time when we can collectively shift our conversations from what has happened in the past to where we want to go in the future.”
Steven Salaita: U. of I. destroyed my career
Indeed, the past year has been a particularly unpleasant and divisive one for the campus, marked by faculty boycotts and protests, and votes of no confidence in the former chancellor. Critics of the university’s decision called it an affront to free speech and academic freedom — the principle that protects faculty who speak out on controversial issues.
In an emailed statement, Salaita called the settlement “a vindication” for himself and a “victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment.”
“The petitions, demonstrations and investigations, as well as the legal case, have reinvigorated American higher education as a place of critical thinking and rigorous debate, and I am deeply grateful to all who have spoken out,” Salaita said.
The controversy began in July 2014, weeks before Salaita was to begin a tenured faculty job in the American Indian Studies program on the Urbana-Champaign campus. He had accepted the $85,000-a-year job the prior year, resigned from his position on the faculty at another university, and had begun the process to move his family to Illinois.
But that summer, after getting feedback from donors, students and parents, then-Chancellor Phyllis Wise started raising concerns about Salaita’s anti-Israel Twitter posts, many of which contained profane and inflammatory language.
Salaita had been posting prolifically about the Israeli government and its military actions in Gaza. In one tweet he wrote: “Let’s cut to the chase: If you’re defending #Israel right now you’re an awful human being.”
Salaita has described his tweets as “passionate and unfiltered,” and many focused on the number of children killed in the conflict.
But Urbana-Champaign officials decided they didn’t want him in the classroom, and they pulled his job offer in August. The U. of I. board of trustees affirmed that decision in a vote the next month.
Salaita sued in January, contending that U. of I. violated his rights to academic freedom and free speech when it rescinded the offer, and that it breached the contract to hire him. The university claimed that the job offer was at all times subject to the ultimate approval of the board of trustees and that “at no time was Dr. Salaita hired as a faculty member.”
As that lawsuit and a separate state case progressed, Salaita and his attorneys repeatedly called for him to get a faculty position at U. of I.
But Salaita recently decided that it was time to “move on,” according to his attorney.
“He wanted to put this case and the University of Illinois behind him,” said Anand Swaminathan of the Chicago-based firm Loevy & Loevy. “They eventually offered a number that was acceptable to Steven and allowed him to have the peace of mind and financial security that he needs to move on.”
Salaita, who currently has a one-year appointment at the University of Beirut in Lebanon, hopes to get a faculty job in the United States, Swaminathan said.
U. of I. also wants to move on.
In particular, the university hopes the settlement will help get it off a list of censured universities by the American Association of University Professors. The prominent group found that U. of I. violated Salaita’s due process rights as a faculty member, acted outside the widely accepted standards of academic governance and created an uncertain climate for academic freedom on campus.
While acknowledging the settlement amount is “significant,” Wilson said it is less than what the university would have paid to continue to defend the lawsuits as they proceeded to the trial and hearing phases over the next year.
The two sides began working with a federal mediator last month to help reach an agreement. Wilson said the university made clear to Salaita that “we were not going to hire him.”
“The university from the beginning recognized that we had disrupted Dr. Salaita’s career and made it difficult for his family,” she said. “We feel some amount of compensation is reasonable and appropriate given that situation.”
Source: www.chicagotribune.com