Steven Salaita And The Anger Of the Subjugated

“There is a subtext to this whole business. The firestorm of reactions to Salaita…is indicative of a continuing determination to police and regulate the nature of the resistance offered by those who speak up on behalf of the traditionally subjugated.”

Samir Chopra

In response to my post yesterday, which I crossposted over at the NewAPPS blog, a couple of readers there wondered about the analogy I had drawn between Professor F and Steven Salaita‘s cases. Reader Meir Alon suggested my comparison was ‘very wrong’, Darius Jedburgh said my comparison of Salaita was, indeed, ‘slanderous’, and yet another worthy wondered what the point of it all was.

In constructing the analogy I noted Professor F, like Salaita, had a distinguished academic record, that she worked in a field which often featured polemically charged debates, many of which for her, because of her personal standing and situation–Professor F  has very likely experienced considerable sexism in her time–were likely to be charged emotionally, and that a few hyperbolic, intemperate responses, made in a medium not eminently suited to reasonable discourse, and featuring many crucial limitations in its…

View original post 513 more words

LIS Practitioners and Scholars Support Steven Salaita | Sarah T. Roberts | The Illusion of Volition

LIS Practitioners and Scholars Support Steven Salaita | Sarah T. Roberts | The Illusion of Volition.

“As Library and Information Science (LIS) practitioners, students and scholars, we are committed to the principles of our field: to the free access to and flow of information and to the intellectual freedom of all. We are shocked and dismayed by the unilateral decision on the part of Chancellor Phyllis Wise and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Board of Trustees to rescind the employment of Dr. Steven Salaita based on his speech in social media.”

ALA members to discuss controversial film ‘The Speaker’ at Annual Conference | News & Press Center

“Barbara Jones, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, said she has received requests from many younger ALA members over recent years who want to understand what happened in 1977 and want to revisit the controversy with a 21st-century perspective.  “I remember my first term paper at Columbia University’s School of Library Service (1977) was about ‘The Speaker’ controversy.  It is an issue still with us today when it comes to speech that most of us hate to protect or endorse.  We plan to give ALA membership ample opportunity to express their opinions about this issue before, during, and after the conference, because it is complex and important.”

“The debate over the limits of free speech has always been incendiary,” said Judith Platt, director of free expression advocacy for the Association of American Publishers.  “For those of us in the book community it is crucial to understand the history and context within which that debate has taken place. This program on ‘The Speaker’ and it’s attendant controversy will provide an excellent forum to deepen our understanding.””

ALA members to discuss controversial film ‘The Speaker’ at Annual Conference | News & Press Center.

Library Juice » Whistleblowers, Intellectual Freedom, and Librarians

Library Juice » Whistleblowers, Intellectual Freedom, and Librarians.

“As librarians, professionals dedicated to equitable access to information, we should be acutely aware of and decidedly outspoken about the current threat to the vital role that whistleblowers play in times of heightened government secrecy, that of alerting us to troubling, unethical, immoral, and/or criminal acts in our name.”