Two Syracuse University professors protested a talk on campus Wednesday night given by a professor who lost his job at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign because of his controversial tweets about Israel.

Steven Salaita, who lost his job at Urbana-Champaign in August, said the university’s action violated his freedom of speech as well as his academic freedom. But physics professor Peter Saulson and magazine journalism professor Harriet Brown, who staged a protest outside of Salaita’s talk in Crouse-Hinds Hall auditorium, disagreed.

Brown said the first amendment allows for all speech, but felt Salaita’s tweets were hate speech.

“I believe we need to call people on hate speech,” Brown said. “I believe everyone should have the first amendment right to say what they want to say, but the content of what they say still matters and so I’m here to just put their words out in public and let people know what they’re applauding and let them make their own decisions about it.”

During his 45-minute talk, Salaita expressed his concerns over the implications of his firing and also defended his actions. He also discussed the university administrations’ idea of civility, arrogance of the University of Illinois board of trustees and how comments against Israel’s state actions do not equate with anti-Semitism.

Salaita added that the atrocities in Gaza warranted his extreme language.

“I don’t think that I did anything wrong,” he said. “If there’s any regret, it’s that some people interpreted the tweets as a personal attack on them as Jews.”

He elaborated on one of his tweets that read, “You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f***ing West Bank settlers would go missing.”

“The tweet about the settlers going missing has gotten so much attention. I got in trouble for tweeting, but if I wanted the settlers kidnapped or murdered, I would have said so,” Salaita said.

Silvio Torres-Saillant, an English and Textual Studies professor at SU, said he thought it was unusual that a professor could get fired in the United States over his opinions of another state’s actions.

“The other thing that worries me even more is the kind of logic that construes opinions against a state as opinions against the population of that state,” Torres-Saillant said.

Peri Schuster, a sophomore political science major, said she thought Salaita did not adequately address the offensive nature of his tweets. Schuster said she was personally offended by Salaita’s tweets and disagreed with a lot of Salaita’s talk.

“I think there is a different way of going about your opinions,” Schuster said. “I like to debate, but the way he went about it was hateful. If anything, what he did was create more controversy than peace.”

Salaita said he did nothing that would justify his firing or compromising his free speech. Salaita added that sometimes people need to air their frustrations.

“Sometimes when we’re deeply affected politically, we’re deeply affected emotionally. Sometimes we don’t always feel like putting things in a way that will bring in the widest possible visitorships,” he said. “Sometimes we want to express our frustration at the world. That’s what I did in probably 15 tweets among the many thousands.”

Published on October 30, 2014 at 12:30 am

Contact Jake: acappucc@syr.edu