Steve Cicala, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, says he has canceled the lecture he was scheduled to deliver to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s College of Business next month. In a letter to Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise, Cicala calls Wise’s stated reasons for pulling controversial scholar Steven Salaita’s tenured job offer in the American Indian studies program weeks before the start of school -- namely that Salaita’s anti-Israel remarks on Twitter were “uncivil” -- a “fig leaf” for other concerns. Cicala says he can’t support the fact that Wise’s decision may have been influenced by donors who emailed herabout their concerns about Salaita before she made her decision to revoke his offer.
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