Via Legal Insurrection: As pressure mounts, academic boycotters play victim.

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has been taking the lead at exposing the agenda of the American Studies Association boycott of Israeli academic institutions, and has served as an inspiration in orchestrating a response.

Anti-Israel academic boycotters complain criticism violates their academic freedom to boycott

The anti-Israel academic boycott launched by the American Studies Association and two smaller groups has been denounced by several dozen universities and colleges, among others, as a grievous attack on the academic freedom of everyone. The rebukes have been stunning in their severity.
Here are just three examples from dozens of University statements rejecting the academic boycott of Israel :

• Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, now President of Purdue University: ”This is as clear a violation of academic freedom as one can imagine.  We (Purdue) do not appear to have any institutional relationship with the American Studies Association, but are checking to see whether any of our departments do.”
• Ron Liebowitz, President of Middlebury College: “the vote is a sad reflection of an extreme and hateful ideology of some members of the academy ….  I urge others in the academic community to condemn the ASA boycott and reaffirm their support for academic freedom.”
• James F. Jones, Jr., President of Trinity College (CT) writing to the President of ASA: “Trinity once years back was an institutional member… Were we still an institutional member, we would not be any longer after the misguided and unprincipled announcement of the boycott of the only democracy in the Middle East…. As President of the ASA, you have tarnished a once distinguished association”

The accumulation of similar statements from University Presidents and others — including people who are critical of Israeli policies — surely must sting the academic boycotters, who are under the misconception that the American world is run by the “Israel Lobby.”

To the contrary, there is near universal condemnation from a wide range of American civil society — that condemnation is heartfelt, willingly given, and reflects the best traditions of American academic life.

 The refusal of American civil society to acquiesce in the anti-Israel boycotters’ attack on academic freedom is not itself an attack on academic freedom.

 In full on panic mode as their delegitimization strategy  crumbles to pieces, the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) is scrabbling to provide a response. Their current campaign focuses on their inevitable fallback position,  "Wait! We're the victims! Really, we are", with an occasional nod to their slightly more introspective rationalization, "the ASA resolution has had tremendous effect on starting debate on Palestine.", segueing into the inevitable "When we lose, we still win".

To the American Studies Association, academic freedom gives them the right to deprive others of academic freedom

Free Speech for me, but not for thee, brought to you by the morally bankrupt gatekeepers of academia- the American Studies Association.