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Melanie Kossuth
Harriet Malinowitz
Academic Writing I – Section 22
6 April 2015
Gauging Decades of Conflict in 140 Characters
In the United States, intellectual discussion of both national and international matters are
fostered on multiple platforms each with their own unique following, tone of conversation, and
purpose. Steven Salaita, a distinguished professor of ethnic writing and cultural studies, took to
a variety of media to respond to current affairs, share his research, and express his thoughts.
Although Salaita was an accomplished scholar in his fields of interest, as seen through his
publication of six works, the brief statements that he made via Twitter appeared quite
unprofessional and offensive. The extent of his free expression of shocking statements
ultimately resulted in the revocation of his job application by the University of Illinois after he
left his previous position at Virginia Tech University (O’Brien et al); however, the real issue is
that Salaita was accused of being unprofessional in a genre that is meant to be informal. The
University’s misguided evaluation of Salaita’s tweets was inappropriate because of their
overlooking of Twitter’s nature.
Beginning in the summer of 2013, Steven Salaita, an associate professor at Virginia Tech
University, was offered a tenured position at the University of Illinois in his primary field of
American Indian Studies. During the transitional period before his supposed relocation to
Illinois, he resigned from Virginia Tech and essentially worked in no educational institute;
unfortunately during that time, the trustees of the University of Illinois discovered his less than
respectful tweets. One thing led to another and the masses caught wind of his “derogatory and
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degrading… posts on social media” (O’Brien); in consequence, the accumulation of outrageous
reactions to these tweets led to the University of Illinois to cancel their appointment of Steven
Salaita before his resume could be properly evaluated through the board (Des Garennes).
If the University was genuinely concerned about the behavior that their potential
professors exhibit outside of the classroom, the proper way to handle such a matter would have
involved an extensive background check of Salaita’s online activity or reading through a number
of character references. However, awareness of Salaita’s tweets only came about once the hiring
process had already begun, and the discovery was made by trustees, not the administration or
department heads, of the University of Illinois. The trustees’ collection of Salaita’s statements
within 140 characters on the social media platform Twitter were apparently weighed so heavily
as a determinant to his character that his “tweets reveal him to lack sufficient civility for an
appointment at the University of Illinois… [and] he does not represent the values, morals, and
people of the university” (O’Brien). This is a misguided interpretation by the trustees since
Twitter is a medium designed to foster conversation through using colloquial language, bringing
together posts from multiple sources, and encouraging the creation of a larger network. The
college is supposed to evaluate the candidate based on character references and submitted
content, such as a cover letter, job application, and academic samples. The college should be
aware of the rhetorical situations for different media – how Salaita’s articles were written in
response to particular issues, how his publications serve as comprehensive compilations of his
research and analysis, and how his tweets are meant to call attention to war. The reality of war is
a bigger problem than the fact that Salaita is voicing his stance on the matter on an informal
platform.
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How Twitter works is critical to Salaita’s purpose for tweeting and to how his eligibility
for the position at the University of Illinois started to be questioned. Each person on Twitter has
their own customized newsfeed based on the accounts that they follow and the people that
directly address them; one can scroll for hours through their newsfeed spending a fraction of a
second reading a status update, looking at someone’s selfie, learning a fun fact, or catching a
score update for the game. For Salaita, his strategic approach is to make the tweet that stands out
from the rest of the newsfeed so that people will actually take the time to consider his opinion on
the Israel/Palestine conflict – he says that “the first rule for any serious writer is to agitate the
contentious and embrace the disreputable” (Des Garennes). He can accomplish such an effect by
the use of expletives, harsh accusations, insults, and shocking imagery. One tweet, “Let’s cut to
the chase: If you’re defending #Israel right now you’re an awful human being” (Salaita), would
probably elicit a negative response from the reader since Salaita potentially calls out their
character depending on their political stance for the issue. It appears that he thinks an insult is
appropriate if there is a disagreement about which side is the right one, but how can supporting
one side of an argument be indicative of the quality of the individual? In line with his teaching
philosophy, this is Salaita’s purpose – to encourage the readers to challenge their own opinion
about the subject; it is meant to start an ongoing conversation or argument not to serve as an
insulting comment in isolation. Concerning “not the political content of Dr. Salaita’s tweets but
their emotive content” (O’Brien), all that the trustees could deduce from Salaita’s tweets was that
his engagement in controversy was not in line with the way that they wanted the University of
Illinois to be represented (Des Garennes). Although Salaita does condemn one side of the
conflict, the overarching purpose of his tweets is to call attention to the war; he demeans the
people who advocate brutality and basically says how he does not agree with the killing of
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children in Israel. Because the University was too focused on Salaita’s seemingly unprofessional
delivery on Twitter, they failed to see how he effectively utilized the genre to call attention to
particular issues.
There is a great contrast between Salaita’s accomplished resume and his brash tweets. In
his cover letter to the University of Illinois, Salaita lists his extensive interests in fields of culture
and writing, his prestigious publications, and his outstanding ratings from his fellow faculty as
well as students; in general, he advocates his ability to be a valuable team player through his
suggestion that his “methodological orientations and ethical commitments complement the work
of each member of the department’s faculty” (Salaita – cover letter). As clearly shown through
his publication of six works in the time that it usually takes to write one, Salaita is extremely
passionate about his studies of Middle East – Israel and Palestine in particular. Similarly, his
tweets also express that passion but in such a way that comes off as shocking, inappropriate, and
unprofessional, resulting in the University’s “negative evaluation on the basis of the quality of
his scholarship” (O’Brien) for example, “you may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all
the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing” (Salaita). The use of an expletive
immediately signals informal writing, and to address the reader and suggest that they are too
refined definitely opens their eyes. Although Salaita’s sarcastic and humorous intent may be
unrecognizable, Twitter is well defined by accounts that serve merely as quick pops of humor or
nifty tidbits of information; Professor David Lloyd of the University of California, who has
worked alongside Salaita in the anti-Israel movement, submits the purpose of this platform is
“not for writing final and definitive statements… it’s about generating conversation.
That’s the practice [Salaita] engages in. You know it works because of the connectivity it
generates. It’s dialogical, not monological. This is an extraordinarily inventive scholar.
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He’s using the brief message as a kind of intellectual shock to break through the
platitudes of Israel” (Des Garennes).
In Salaita’s academic writing, his purposes are to share his findings, spread awareness, and to
advance his career. Comparatively, his purpose for tweeting is to vent or to bring attention to
serious international conflict via a commonly used platform. Regardless of which medium he
uses, “Salaita is a comparative scholar” (Des Garennes) – he may change his style of writing to
suit the medium, but the piece remains rich in content and does not shake his academic integrity.
Chancellor Phyllis Wise opposed Salaita’s participation in the boycott Israel when she
said that, as a cohesive unit representing the University of Illinois, it is of “critical importance
[that] the faculty [are able] to pursue learning, discovery, and engagement without regard to
political considerations” (Des Garennes). The trustees doubted Salaita’s ability to fulfill these
core principles of the university on the basis of his controversial and unprofessional way of
communicating on Twitter. Although his academic writing is fully supported by evidence and
careful structuring of analyses and arguments, his tweets purposefully pack a punch on similar
subjects because they are limited to 140 characters. The university was misguided in their
decision to dehire Salaita because they failed to consider the connectivity generated through the
social media platform and instead focused on his unprofessional manner out of context.
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Works Cited
Des Garennes, Christine. “Who is Steven Salaita?” The News-Gazette. 7 September 2014.
Web. 22 March 2015.
O’Brien, David et al. Report on the Investigation into the Matter of Steven Salaita before the
Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. 2014. Pdf. 22 March 2015.
Salaita, Steven. Cover Letter for Job Application to University of Illinois. The News-Gazette.
22 October 2012. Pdf. 22 March 2015.
<http://www.newsgazette.com/sites/all/files/pdf/2014/08/30/Salaita.pdf>
Salaita, Steven. “You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank
settlers would go missing.” 19 June 2014. Tweet.
Salaita, Steven. “Let’s cut to the chase: If you’re defending #Israel right now you’re an awful
human being.” 8 July 2014. Tweet.