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Some questions about the boycott from an Illinois faculty member

Brian Leiter

A humanities faculty member at Illinois writes with some reasonable questions:

First: Under what conditions would the academic boycott of UIUC be ended?

I support the boycott — or probably more accurately, I support the goals of those who are boycotting. I was worried before now because I thought and continue to think that there is zero chance the boycott will actually work. Now that it appears that the boycott has not worked — at least, not to restore Salaita's job or to protect academic freedom — what is the current endgame? Will the boycott be lifted if and when Salaita settles with the university? Or if and when Wise is removed from her position? Or if and when the Trustees are replaced? Or what?

Second: Does the academic boycott extend to job talks?

I suspect (hope?) that the university's actions have seriously hurt its chances of making senior hires in the foreseeable future. But would anyone coming to Illinois to give a job talk be seen as crossing the boycott lines? Will the boycott be seen as applying differently to junior and senior people? In not too long, I expect our department to post new job advertisements. How will the wider community view them?

What do readers think?

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6 responses to “Some questions about the boycott from an Illinois faculty member”

  1. Eugene

    "Now that it appears that the boycott has not worked…"

    Isn't this a little premature? Shouldn't we be asking this question after we've given the boycott much more time?

    BL COMMENT: I suspect my correspondent was referring to the fact that the boycott began before the Chancellor reaffirmed her decision to revoke the offer, with the hope that she would not do so. But I think we can agree–or at least hope–that it may still have an impact, as you note.

    Reply
  2. Stephen Biggs

    What should end the boycott? Boycotters must have reason to believe that UIUC is unlikely to wrong others in ways similar to the way that they have wronged Salaita. What would give us sufficient reason? UIUC reinstating Salaita would be enough. UIUC dismissing Wise on the ground that she made the wrong call on Salaita would be enough. Perhaps UIUC eliminating the chancellor and board from any future hiring decisions would be enough. Perhaps a court ruling that punishes UIUC severely would be enough. Perhaps even the passing of a few years without any similar incident would be enough. But right now we don't need to worry about borderline cases because there is no borderline case (the actions of the trustees and Wise so far suggest that they will continue to wrong others in relevantly similar ways) and we don’t need to have antecedently decided what to do if a borderline case arises (nothing will depend on making an immediate decision about whether to end the boycott).

    Should the boycott extend to job candidates? No. That is, job candidates (senior or junior) should be able to participate fully in ordinary UIUC hiring processes without violating their commitment to the boycott. If we insist that anyone who participates in an ordinary UIUC hiring process thereby abandons the boycott, then we ensure that only people who don’t know about the boycott, don’t support the boycott, or are willing to abandon the boycott will be hired by UIUC. That would make UIUC a worse place for students, faculty, staff, and Illinois. This point does not apply to ordinary academic visitors because replacing boycotters with uninformed or non-boycotting visitors is unlikely to significantly impact the culture at UIUC—visitors don't join the UIUC faculty senate, become UIUC administrators, etc. (Perhaps extending the boycott to job candidates would make sense if we had reason to believe that job candidates wouldn’t be downgraded for boycotting the ordinary hiring process or that posts would go unfilled if boycotters refused to participate in the ordinary hiring process. But neither claim is plausible.)

    Reply
  3. John Protevi

    The questions about the role of jobseekers are difficult questions. I haven't setled my own thoughts, but even if I had, can't speak for other boycotters. I think that a historical perspective can help here.

    Academic freedom, as Brian has noted, is allowed but not required by law, beyond the First Amendment rights we have as citizens. Beyond that we have only the notices put in our faculty handbooks. So in effect academic freedom is really only a recruitment and retention incentive administrations offer faculty. All we really have to protect it is our individual ability to sue, and our collective ability to kick up a fuss: open letters, boycotts,AAUP censures and now, courageously, we see the vote of no confidence tactic admirably put to work today by our UIUC Philosophy Department colleagues.

    My fear however, is that with the buyers market administrators may think that academic freedom is superfluous as a recruiting tool since young people are so desperate they'll take any job with money attached. Not so for senior people with potential suitors, but for younger folks? To accept a job talk invite at UIUC in current conditions, under Chancellor Wise's administration is going to be a really testing question.

    Reply
  4. Jade Schiff

    Testing what, though? Moral fiber? Priorities? I was fortunate to land a tenure-track job after 3 years on the market that began in 2008–probably the worst possible time to be looking. I had a wife and child. I had very clear preferences about the kind of job that I wanted, but one preference was clearer than all the others: I needed some job rather than no job, and it was very clear to me that I might need to make compromises. If I were invited to speak at UIUC now I would decline without question because I support the boycott and can afford to turn them down. If I were a graduate student I would hate to have to make that choice, but I suspect that I would take a deep breath, hold my nose and accept. And I would never judge a junior scholar to interviewing for or accepting a position. Some people don't have the luxury of standing on principle.

    Reply
  5. Derek Bowman

    But your reply confuses two distinct questions:

    1. What should job seekers who support the boycott do?

    2. How should others who judge the boycott judge junior scholars who give job talks at UIUC?

    I read John Protevi's comment as addressing the former question, while your reply clearly addresses the second. I think you make a compelling case that that question has a simple answer: not to make any negative judgment. But that doesn't change the fact that the former remains a difficult question. It may be true that some don't have the luxury of standing on principle, but many do.

    Last year I applied to a position at UIUC, which I did not get. Given the nature of the academic job market, presumably 200-400 other applicants were also rejected for that job. Those of us who were able to survive being involuntarily deprived of a job at UIUC could have just as well survived voluntarily giving up such an opportunity.

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  6. Untenured Prof

    The boycotters should not include graduate students seeking their first academic appointment. That would be ineffective in any case, both for the reasons mentioned above and because the aim of the boycott is to prevent UIUC from making lateral and senior hires, from inviting prestigious figures in English, History, Philosophy, Biology, Physics, Law, and so forth to campus–all the things one rightly expects of a major research university. The fact is, the boycott will make UIUC a less attractive place to work (and that is a good thing), and so junior hires with multiple offers will have strong reason not to opt for UIUC. But in the case where one has no other offers, a job at UIUC is a lot better than no job at all.

    Frankly, I think it would be wickedly funny and also appropriate for the APA, MLA, AHA, and other professional societies to write polite letters to UIUC inquiring after the current standards of civility being upheld on campus, which they could then convey to job seekers. We know it's not alright to speak graphically about Israel, but what about the Catholic Church, the Democratic and Republican Parties, abortion, gays, U.S. foreign policy, and so on? I'm sure we all want to know how to argue civilly about these issues, so as not to ruin our chances for employment at their university.

    Reply

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