Well, they did it. eLife fired Michael Eisen. Absolutely outrageous. The bounds of allowed thought tighten. Any criticism of Israel is out of bounds. A new McCarthyism, except instead of communists under the bed, it's people who think it matters both when Israelis are slaughtered AND when Palestinians are slaughtered. And many, many in the academic community, seeing this, are afraid to speak, especially those without tenure, & even w/ tenure especially those from Middle Eastern countries other than Israel. How easily they can be slandered as anti-semitic should they speak.
Please sign our petition calling for this *not* to happen, and to defend academic freedom: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfdJyIQzIsTypmmZXIi-RfSjbe4Psp1RIvjXz-DxWJKA5hHIQ/viewform
@kendmiller Sorry, I find it hard to believe someone gets fired for simply retweeting The Onion. There has to be more to the story.
@MiriShuli You can see the eLife Board's statement here: https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/495baf34/statement-of-the-elife-board-of-directors
Even if there were other problematic social media engagements as they claim, this one wasn't problematic, it was just ferociously attacked and needed free speech defense. And if they wanted to fire him for other things, they should have done so entirely separately from this. But they were succombing to intense pressure pushing against this tweet and what it expressed, and I suspect the Board was susceptable to the arguments that suppress criticism of Israel in so many contexts. One of the six Board members has resigned over this, his statement will be coming out tomorrow. See also https://twitter.com/drdevangm/status/1716585826992181488?t=cbO2tzwpn_ztnNlcdehx3g&s=19
@kendmiller Thanks Ken