Steven Salaita (born September 15, 1975) is an American scholar, author and public speaker. He became the center of a controversy when the University of Illinois did not hire him as a professor of American Indian Studies [2][3][4] following objections to a series of tweets critical of Israel's bombardment of Gaza in 2014. [5]

Arab Americans are facing vicious pushback for refusing to abandon Palestine, but people interested in a better world should follow our lead instead of mourning the neoliberal order. The depth and scope of racism now directed at Arab Americans is staggering.

The Steven Salaita hiring controversy was a 2010s controversy about an American professor who was un-hired [fn 1] by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign following a campaign by pro-Israel students, faculty and donors who contended that his tweets protesting Israel's bombardment of Gaza were antisemitic. [1]

Mar 5, 2024 · In the summer of 2014, Steven Salaita was fired from a tenured position in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois for his unwavering stance on Palestinian human rights and other political controversies. A year later, he landed a job in Lebanon, but that, too, ended badly.

Professor Salaita sued UIUC, the university Board of Trustees and high-level administrators for violating his First Amendment right to free speech and for breach of contract. Salaita’s firing became a flashpoint for debates over academic freedom, free speech, and the repression of Palestinian rights advocacy.

Sep 9, 2014 · A lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for firing Professor Steven Salaita from a tenured position over his tweets critical of Israel’s summer 2014 attack on Gaza.

Steven Salaita is the author of eight books and is currently finishing a memoir about leaving and returning to academe. His book An Honest Living is to be published by Fordham University Press.

Aug 11, 2015 · Dr. Salaita’s Complaint alleges facts showing that he was fired or not hired because of the University’s disagreement with his personal speech in a public forum on a matter of public concern.

Steven Salaita is a Palestinian-American scholar and author of several books, including Israel’s Dead Soul, Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom, and Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine.

Mar 5, 2024 · In moments of immense honesty and searing personal remembrance Steven Salaita takes the reader through his academic life into the moments of being blacklisted from U.S. academe and what it has meant to find a new way of being and working in the world.