At the heart of the recent controversy over Professor Steven Salaita, whose job offer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was rescinded after dozens of his virulently anti-Zionist tweets came to light, is whether a professor’s speech outside of the university should impact his or her university employment. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has argued that basing Salaita’s employment decision on his extramural tweets violates his right as a citizen of constitutionally protected freedom of speech. The assumption underlying the AAUP’s argument is that what a faculty member does or says outside the university is independent of what he does or says in carrying out his academic responsibilities inside the university. In other words, according to AAUP there is no good reason to believe that Salaita would bring the anti-Zionist sentiments expressed in his extramural tweets into the university. But what if there is good reason to...(Read Full Article)