In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “controversy in which the university of illinois urbana-champaign conditionally offered a faculty position to st”. Today it says “a 2010s controversy about an american professor who was un-hired by the university of illinois urbana-champaign”. 1 section present on 6 October 2023 is absent today.
Found by software in Wikipedia's own edit history. Not yet read by hand. The quoted words are Wikipedia's.
Compared with the live article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2020 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2020
Steven Salaita Controversy is a controversy in which the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign conditionally offered a faculty position to Steven Salaita , only to have Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise withdraw the offer. Wise cited several controversial tweets by Salaita as the basis for withdrawing the offer. While the university's board of trustees initially supported this decision, Salaita fought it, claiming that his academic freedom had been infringed. Salaita insisted that the university reinstate his offer rather than search for a financial settlement. During the long process of litigation, Chancellor Phyllis Wise resigned from her position in August 2015, after she was implicated in hiding e-mails, including some that were relevant to the rescinding of the job offer. The fight between Salaita and the university received national attention as it sparked a debate on the role of academic freedom at universities, including an open letter written by various leaders at the university.1
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 953675830.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 7 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Academic freedom controversy in the U.S.The Steven Salaita hiring controversy was a 2010s controversy about an American professor who was un-hired following a campaign by pro-Israel students, faculty and donors who contended that his tweets protesting Israel's bombardment of Gaza were antisemitic.The un-hiring sparked a debate about academic freedom in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict , social media, and the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups on American universities.The professor who was denied the job successfully litigated against the university and was awarded a settlement of $875,000, while the university's Chancellor Phyllis Wise resigned.There are <ref group=fn> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page ).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1170655458.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Academic freedom controversy in the U.S. The Steven Salaita hiring controversy was a 2010s controversy about an American professor who was un-hired 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. The un-hiring sparked a debate about academic freedom in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict , social media, and the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups on American universities. The professor who was denied the job successfully litigated against the university and was awarded a settlement of $875,000, while the university's Chancellor Phyllis Wise resigned. There are <ref group=fn> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page ).
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1294995207. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “controversy in which the university of illinois urbana-champaign conditionally offered a faculty position to st”. Today it says “a 2010s controversy about an american professor who was un-hired by the university of illinois urbana-champaign”. 1 section present on 6 October 2023 is absent today. Read the current article and compare.
2020
Oct '23
2025
antisemitism
0
1
1
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2020, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
controversy in which the university of illinois urbana-champaign conditionally offered a faculty position to st
Now
a 2010s controversy about an american professor who was un-hired by the university of illinois urbana-champaign
Sections that no longer exist
This section existed on October 6, 2023. It is gone today. The current article has no similar heading in its place, and the article is shorter overall. So this is not a heading that got renamed, and it is not a topic that got folded into a bigger section. 1 section of 400 characters or more gone since October 6 2023, with the article 3,011 characters shorter.
Email revelations
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.