Because searches are perhaps the most opaque aspect of the academic process, the only way that the public will learn the identities of the other semi-finalists and finalists for the Illinois job is if the applicants themselves reveal it publicly. (The chances of that occurring are about zero: who would want to admit they were beaten out for a job by someone like Salaita?) But defenders of academic freedom should be as critical of the Indian Studies program as they are of the Illinois chancellor.
As Glenn notes, the primary function of such departments is as sinecures for otherwise talentless leftists. It’s all part and parcel of the huge publicly financed scam that much of academia has become.
It’s also worth noting that a suborbit can be accurately defined as an orbit that intersects the earth or its atmosphere. So even if you have orbital speed, if there’s not a sufficient horizontal component to it, you’ll still end up back on the earth before you go around.
As he notes, this is really about the Left’s resentment of anything that requires actual effort. The people who can least afford (in more than one sense of the word) to eat out is poor people. But it’s a bad deal for everyone, in terms of both fiscal and physical health.