Phyllis
M. Wise
Chancellor,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Robert Warrior, Department of American Indian Studies (UIUC)
Robert Warrior, Department of American Indian Studies (UIUC)
August
7, 2014
Dear
Chancellor Wise and Professor Warrior,
I
refer to the recent decision by the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign to
“de-hire” Professor Steven Salaita, apparently in response to his social media
posts on Gaza.
That
social media foster spaces of social change, bypassing the dominant narratives
circulated in the establishment media is an observation that has been solidified
in US academic and public sphere celebrations of the Arab Spring. In a wide
ranging collection of essays, communication experts studying social media point
to the democratic possibilities fostered by social media such as Facebook and
Twitter.
In
my own work on “Voices of Resistance” documenting grassroots-driven social
change processes across the globe, I attend to the possibilities of
transformative democratic politics grounded in participatory processes enabled
by social media. I see the tweets shared by Professor Salaita within this
broader context of opening up democratic and participatory spaces, spaces for
witnessing, spaces for alternative narrative accounts, and spaces for engaging
in broader questions of global organizing that disrupt the public
relations-driven one-way communicative influences of powerful social, political
and economic actors.
Therefore
I argue that Professor Salaita should not only be defended but also celebrated
in a University. The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is lucky to be
able to hire not only a scholar who excels in his scholarship, but also an academic
that takes seriously the public role of the academe.
Universities
have a vital role to play in constituting public discourse and dialogue,
especially at a moment in human history where much of the opportunities for
authentic participation have been co-opted. It is within this context of
fostering, catalyzing, and nurturing democratic possibilities that the
participation of Professor Salaita on social media such as Twitter and Facebook
plays a key role in opening up possibilities of democratic discourse in ways
that are otherwise silenced by mainstream media. Defending the academic freedom
of Professor Salaita also includes the strongest defense of his right to
participate in social media as a public scholar, engaging publically with his
insights and thus contributing to democratic public discourse.
As
in the recent unfolding of global communicative flows in response to the
Israeli invasion of Gaza, through the witnessing of images, narratives, and
experiences from the ground, shared through an array of social media networks,
we come to account for the effects of violence, the large scale health and
human consequences of war, and the one-sided nature of mainstream media
communication which often takes the form of propaganda during crises. As we
witnessed in the period building up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the mainstream
media circulate stories narrated by dominant structures without interrogating
the veracity of the frames that are offered by the establishment sources. That
such undemocratic one-way communication can have large scale negative
consequences are well evident in the realm of US invasions in Iraq and
Afghanistan. During the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza however, accounts and
narratives offered by everyday citizens, in conversation with insightful
commentaries by a number of public intellectuals offer vital entry points for
countering the dominant narratives and their corresponding erasures.
Twitter
is an important medium of social change. It draws us into an issue by offering
a pithy frame, captured in 140 characters. The writer of the tweet has an
opportunity to influence by delivering a robust message packed in a few words.
The effectiveness of a message in the twitter sphere can be measured by the
number of retweets, likes etc. Moreover, from the standpoint of opening up
democratic possibilities, tweets offer new openings for foregrounding
alternative frames that might otherwise be absent from mainstream discourse.
Tweets
are distinct communicative acts, different from the acts of everyday speech and
writing in traditional contexts. Tweets not only differ from communication on
traditional media channels but also from other forms of social media
communication. In this sense, the linguistic expectations and normative ideals
on twitter are distinctly different from the normative ideals on Facebook. The
norms regarding communication on twitter and Facebook are different from the norms
of writing academic articles. It is from within this contextual framework that
one needs to judge the language of Professor Salaita’s tweets. The language of
the social media sphere finds its strongest effects in breaking through the
discursive norms of mainstream spheres. The nature of civil discourse in social
media must therefore be understood in the overarching context of new media
expectations, nature of the issue, and history of the issue. Claims to
incivility can quickly work to silence the very democratic possibilities that
opened up new spaces for imagination in the Arab Spring. To suggest that Professor Salaita ought to be
silenced because his language on twitter is not civil forecloses discursive
possibilities.
I end
this letter by reiterating my appeal to reinstate Professor Salaita at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
As
a scholar of communication, I am hopeful that you will offer your fullest
support to the democratic possibilities that are grounded in commitments to
free speech, diversity, and participatory democracy. I hold the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in the greatest of respect, and hope that you will
continue to reflect the commitment of the University to academic freedom,
democracy, and participatory communication.
Please
do email me at mohanjdutt@gmail.com if you would
like to engage in an opportunity to dialogue.