The man who delivered the 2019 TB Davie Memorial Lecture to celebrate academic freedom at the University of Cape Town (UCT) regards the concept as a ‘myth’ and argued that some political ideas deserved more freedom than others.
In our article ‘Academic Freedom at UCT is teetering’, we referred to the atmosphere of intolerance and stifling political correctness that is destroying the very idea of academic freedom.
The article highlighted the notorious ‘disinvitation’ of Danish editor Flemming Rose in 2016, who was to have delivered that year’s TB Davie Memorial Lecture, an annual event organised by UCT’s Academic Freedom Committee to celebrate academic freedom.
An American anti-Zionist academic – who lost a tenured university position over his graphically antisemitic outbursts on Twitter – was invited to deliver the 2019 TB Davie Memorial Lecture on 7 August.
The title of Dr Steven Salaita’s address was ‘The Inhumanity of Academic Freedom’.
Salaita delivered an attack on the ‘corporate university’ and depicted Israel as the supine tool of an international ‘ruling class’.
According to Ben Cohen of The Algemeiner, Salaita’s inflammatory comments on social media during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014 led to the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) revoking a tenured job offer to him.
Salaita praised South Africa as the ‘global moral leader in the Palestinian people’s struggle’. He also expressed strong support for the campaign at UCT for an academic boycott of Israel. ‘When the UCT Senate passed a motion against Israeli universities violating human rights, there was a flurry of discontent. Most of them cited academic freedom, and exercised their power to shut down the motion.’
Therefore, opponents of an academic boycott of Israel ‘themselves, in so doing, violate academic freedom’, Salaita claimed.
In tweets in 2014 — posted when he was a professor of English at Virginia Tech — Salaita declared ‘You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f***ing West Bank settlers would go missing’ after Hamas operatives kidnapped three Jewish teenagers and murdered them.
Salaita also claimed that there was a ‘sexual…Zionist pleasure w/ #Israel’s aggression’, and that Zionism had transformed antisemitism from ‘something horrible into something honourable since 1948’, the year of Israel’s creation.
UCT Professor of Philosophy David Benatar questioned in an article on Politicsweb whether the invitation to Salaita would have been extended had his slurs been aimed at another minority group.
Benatar, noting the fact that the lecture is named in memory of Dr Thomas Benjamin Davie, former UCT Principal, who fought the imposition of Apartheid on UCT in the 1950s, said ahead of Salaita’s address: ‘Whatever [he says], no matter how vile, he has a right to say it and I would oppose any call for him to be disinvited, heckled, or otherwise silenced.’
Benatar said, however, it did not follow that Salaita ‘was a fitting invitee to deliver an academic freedom lecture in memory of Dr Davie, or that anybody should go listen to him’.
The newly established liberal students organization, Progress SA, wrote an open letter urging Salaita to decline the invitation until UCT reversed its disinvitation to Flemming Rose, and set two other conditions; that ‘the Academic Freedom Committee that invites you publicly affirms its commitment to real academic freedom, not some politicised version of the concept distorted to suit a narrow ideological viewpoint’ and that ‘you change the topic of your lecture so that — with due respect for the memory of TB Davie — it promotes academic freedom, rather than trashing it.’
Progress SA secretary Scott Roberts wrote in his letter to Salaita that TB Davie ‘is remembered by UCT as a fearless defender of the principles of academic freedom’ and that the lecture in his name ‘aims to continue his legacy by promoting the themes of academic freedom and freedom more generally’.
Secretary Scott said: ‘Moreover, since 2017, the Academic Freedom Committee has been captured by people who have no regard for academic freedom at all. Many of its members are single-issue activists who wish to use their position on the Committee to try to enforce a University-wide academic boycott of Israeli scholars and institutions, while maintaining a chilling indifference not only to the behaviour of any other state, but also to the rights of the members of UCT to associate with, or learn from, whomever they like. The Academic Freedom Committee’s commitment to academic freedom has become dubious, to say the least.’
Roberts urged Salaita not to condone the declining protection for academic freedom at UCT.
Concern was also raised over the thrust of Salaita’s lecture, that in his view academic freedom is a ‘myth’ and that some ‘political movements’ should be prioritised over this principle.
While Progress SA ‘believe wholeheartedly in your right to say and think whatever you like about academic freedom, including trashing it or calling it a myth … this is not in line with the spirit of the TB Davie lecture, the premise of which is that academic freedom is important and should be protected. Your using the TB Davie lecture as a platform to denigrate the principle of academic freedom is akin to someone using a lecture in memory of a prominent feminist activist to promote the idea that men are inherently superior to women. It will be a travesty.’
An online petition addressed to UCT urged the university authorities to organize ‘alternative programming to ensure that opposing views are heard’ and that ‘Salaita’s lecture can be used as a teachable moment to educate the community about the consequences of following his advice’.
The petition of over 60 000 signatures was initiated by Professor Cary R. Nelson, Chair of the Alliance for Academic Freedom and former president of the American Association of University Professors (2006 to 2012). Nelson told UCT: ‘It is particularly critical to do so because Cape Town is presently considering a proposal to support an academic boycott of Israeli universities. It would be unwise and unprofessional to make that decision without a full airing of competing views.’
Nelson asserted that there was ‘more than one painful irony at stake in selecting Salaita as a spokesperson for academic freedom’.
Salaita’s ‘long-term support for an academic boycott of Israeli universities puts him in conflict with the fundamental values that define the academy, foremost among those being the principle that faculty members worldwide be free to communicate their research and analysis with one another without restraint or inhibition’, Nelson wrote.
The South African Zionist Federation charged that UCT’s Academic Freedom Committee had ‘now simply become a vehicle to steamroll a boycott of Israeli academia at the expense of UCT’s reputation and international standing’. National Chairman Rowan Polovin called on UCT to ‘disband the current committee and demonstrate its commitment to academic freedom at the University’.
A significant figure on the Academic Freedom Committee and the Senate at UCT, propelling the movement to boycott Israeli academia, is Dr Shuaib Manjra of Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions – South Africa.
We understand that there was no attempt by any persons or groups to oppose Salaita’s delivering the lecture. The liberal principle is that everyone is entitled to express his or her view notwithstanding the extent to which people disagree with or disapprove of the content.
Sara Gon is the head of strategic engagement at the IRR.
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