Brilliant and ethical’ English professor ‘loses his job’ at top U.S. university after posting a series of anti-Israel Tweets
A ‘brilliant and ethical’ professor has lost his job at a major U.S. university over his anti-Israel remarks on Twitter, it has been claimed.
Steven Salaita had been offered a role at the University of Illinois on the American Indian Studies course – and the appointment was expected to be confirmed.
But according to the Huffington Post, there have been reports that his outspoken criticism of Israel’s part in the Gaza conflict may have cost him his job.
In one Tweet he told his followers: ‘It’s simple: either condemn #Israel’s actions or embrace your identity as someone who’s okay with the wholesale slaughter of children.’
Another read: ‘Only #Israel can murder around 300 children in the span of a few weeks and insist that it is the victim.’
On the same day he wrote: ‘It’s quite simple, really: don’t support any ideology whose practice results in dead children.’
According to the Huffington Post, the university has yet to comment on why the appointment was blocked.
But it states that the Inside Higher Ed and the Daily Gazette have reported his controversial anti-Israel tweets were the reason he has not been taken on by the Urbana-Champaign based university.
Supporters of Mr Salaita, who was previously working as an associate professor in the English department at Virginia Tech University, have already set up a petition on the website Change.org urging bosses at the university to reverse their decision.
More than 9,000 have already backed the petition which demands the ‘immediate reinstatement’ of a ‘brilliant, ethical, and prolific’ professor.
Organisers said bosses at the university were ‘effectively firing him the very month he was to take up a tenured position there’.
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