Ali, I admire your ability as an interviewer to stay on point and quickly respond to the evasive tactics of those you are questioning. I've been reading electronic intifada but had not until now heard or seen you in action. I am grateful for your work.

Dear Prof. Salatia

I realize this is a difficult time for you and your family. I ask you NOT to forget what the board of trusties has caused your family when it comes to negotiating their way out of this mess. Be mindful that any agreement they offer you, will include an article to silence you. When that time comes, remember what your family has gone through because of their un-American behavior.

Therefore, I urge you NOT to negotiate a settlement that would allow them to weasel their way out. Insist on going to court and have each member of the board of trusties brought to the witness stand to be cross-examined. Under oath, they will expose the fact that they acted in a discriminatory fashion towards you if compared to other recent hires. Let the Court find the university guilty of discrimination in order to show that the board of trusties did not have the best interest of the university in mind; rather, that they were driven by discrimination and personal politics to deny you an equal and fair consideration like other recent hires.

Furthermore, in addition to suing the university and its board of trusties for discrimination, I urge you to sue Mr. Steve Miller for defamation. His intervention in the process of your hire caused you hardship. It seems that the faculty works for Mr. Steve Miller and not for UIUC. For that reason, there are about 5000 academics, foreign and domestic, that are boycotting this university for their board's disregard of the university's faculty decision to hire you. For myself, and colleagues of mine, we are also boycotting UIUC activities. What they did is anti-American to say the least. Since when are Americans persecuted for expressing their opinions about a 'foreign' country? I am speechless! We will continue to follow these developments thanks to the excellent reporting of the Electronic Intifada.

Kind Regards

UI IS LUCKY TO HAVE YOU ON ITS BOARD, MR. MONTGOMERY

Dear Mr. James D. Montgomery, Trustee (james@jdmlaw.com):
Cc: uibot <uibot-BOT@mx.uillinois.edu>

I am not sure if you read any of my many e-mails addressed to Chancellor Wise and then to the members of the Board in my capacity as the organizer of the petition in support of Professor Salaita, which has now garnered 18,502 signatories from all over the world. But if you have, you would know that I am a Palestinian-American citizen, like Professor Steven Salaita, currently teaching at Al-Quds University in the West Bank (the campus is just behind Israel's illegal apartheid/annexation wall, east of illegally annexed Jerusalem).

Last night, I sat eagerly by my laptop in anticipation of watching the live-stream of the events surrounding the Board meeting at UIUC. Unfortunately, I was unable to connect (perhaps because the online stream was confined to the United States). But I did watch the videos that Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada posted the following day - this morning, my time. When I listened to what you had to say, I was so moved by the unexpected forthrightness of your answers amidst the general fog of dissimulation and callous "realpolitik" blanketing that hall, I couldn't help crying.

At the end of the short interview, you were asked what you expected Salaita's next move might be. You seemed confident he would go on fighting - now through the legal system. What I’d like to tell you is that you can be sure his supporters will go on fighting as well, taking action that might hurt your beloved University by way of putting pressure on the administration. As you might know, our struggle for justice in Palestine (Salaita's fight in its most basic elements being but an extension) has run into adversity upon adversity throughout the decades, but we, like you and your people, Mr. Montgomery, are resilient and famous for our “#sumoud” - steadfastness - in the face of that adversity ..

Rima Najjar

Since I became aware of Dr. Salaita's firing, I have learned of many others who have been fired or not hired for "non-mainsteam views." I agree with those who say if academia is not the place to hash out difficult and controversial issues what place is appropriate? If a university does not think students are smart enough to hear various views and make up their own minds, then that university is accepting a very dull bunch of applicants.

I want to endorse the comments here commending Ali Abunimah for this excellent report. The material assembled in this post could well form the basis for an outstanding documentary film. I urge him to consider such a project. The Electronic Intifada has distinguished itself in coverage of this case, and a film for general release would reach many who as yet are unaware- thanks to mainstream news' ongoing silence- of the seriousness and implications of Wise and the board's actions. The fact that the board has now chosen to publicly support such a blatant process of discrimination means that the matter will surely be the subject of a high profile lawsuit. Be there with your camera, Ali, and thanks again for today's insightful and comprehensive report.

Christopher Kennedy certainly lacks any of the courage his martyred father came to display in his last months. The trustees' servility to money and the Zionist racism that determined over 120 years ago to forcibly remove the 90 plus per cent Palestinian Arab majority from Palestine to create the world's first and only colonial ethnocracy and has pursued that objective relentlessly for over a century, with increasing murderous brutality, even after the bloodiest display of that racism in Gaza this summer, illustrate how irresponsible and, in their own bigotry, unworthy those given responsibility to oversee supposed citadels of open pursuit of truth and justice can be. Although it may have no import in coming weeks of legal and public contention, they will be remembered, all of them, when they are gone, only for their role in this atrocity, a stain on their familys' escutcheona.