Dear Chancellor Phyllis Wise:
We are faculty in Chicana/o and Latino/a departments and programs across the nation. We write to express our outrage with your recent
decision to prevent Steven Salaita from assuming his appointment to the
Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign. Revoking Dr. Salaita’s already accepted offer because of his twitter
statements about recent events in Gaza is a flagrant violation of academic
freedom and an affront to our colleagues in American Indian Studies. As Chicano/a and Latina/o Studies scholars, we have fought for our space in the academy and we see this
administrative decision to deny Salaita's hire as an encroachment on faculty self-governance and our collective ability to define the terms and
futures of our specific fields of study.
Until such time as the University
of Illinois at Urbana Champaign decides to allow Dr. Salaita to take the
position he was offered and accepted we will not participate in any events on
your campus including attending academic conferences, lectures, or visits.
Listed institutions are for
identification purposes only.
Instructions: Please use the comments section to add your name and affiliation. This petition is specifically for faculty who do work in the fields of Chicano/a and Latino/a Studies, regardless of your department affiliation. We will only submit names that have listed affiliations.
To leave a comment, you can sign in using the box "comment as" right below the text box for comments. If you don't have an account with one of the given options, you can sign in using the anonymous function. Simply leave your name and affiliation (position, department, university).
If for any reason you can't sign the petition by adding to the comments section, please send your name and affiliation to luz(dot)calvo (at)csueastbay(dot)edu and I'll add your name.
Finally, help us by sharing the link to this petition with your colleagues or on social media. Thanks!
To leave a comment, you can sign in using the box "comment as" right below the text box for comments. If you don't have an account with one of the given options, you can sign in using the anonymous function. Simply leave your name and affiliation (position, department, university).
If for any reason you can't sign the petition by adding to the comments section, please send your name and affiliation to luz(dot)calvo (at)csueastbay(dot)edu and I'll add your name.
Finally, help us by sharing the link to this petition with your colleagues or on social media. Thanks!
