The Hypocrisy of University of Michigan Professor John Cheney-Lippold

This is yet another example of how BDS is anti-peace, and how it hurts Jewish students and pro-Israel students on campus.  BDS seeks to actively prevent students from learning about the conflict first hand.  By stifling opportunities to engage, it limits academic discussion and academic freedom.

Via Club Z:

Abigail, a student at the University of Michigan, asked her Professor, John Cheney-Lippold for a letter of recommendation for her study abroad trip to Israel. Cheney-Lippold agreed initially, then rescinded his original offer, citing the academic boycott of Israel.

Tilly Shames, executive director of the University of Michigan Hillel, sent out this email:

You may be aware of the issue regarding a University professor's refusal to offer a letter of recommendation to a student applying to an Israeli university. Our Hillel has been actively engaged on this issue with the Provost's Office and other University leadership. Like many of you, we expect to hear the University strongly condemn this action and uphold the academic values of the institution by supporting all of our students' rights to the education they choose. This professor's decision is antithetical to the academic values of our University. A professor's political views should not factor into any student's access to learn, including studying in Israel.

We appreciate the University's serious attention to this matter at its highest levels, and support for the student involved. For us, the bottom line is our students and their campus experience. We are making ourselves available to our students as a supportive resource, and are actively engaging with our student leaders on how best to advocate and educate on this issue among our campus community.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to be in touch. Thank you, as always, for your support. 

She was likely disappointed by thie University of Michigan's tepid response

Statement from the  Public Affairs and Internal Communications  University of Michigan statement  Sept. 17, 2018

The University of Michigan has consistently opposed any boycott of Israeli institutions of higher education.

That position has been stated publicly by university leaders, including this statement from the president and provost in 2013 and this statement from members of the university’s governing Board of Regents in 2017.

No academic department or any other unit at the University of Michigan has taken a position that departs from this long-held university position.

There also is no doubt that members of our campus community have a wide range of individual opinions on this topic and many other topics.

The academic goals of our students are of paramount importance. It is the university’s position to take all steps necessary to make sure our students are supported.

It is disappointing that a faculty member would allow their personal political beliefs to limit the support they are willing to otherwise provide for our students.

We will engage our faculty colleagues in deep discussions to clarify how the expression of our shared values plays out in support of all students.

It is not readily apparent from the University's public statement if there will be any disciplinary action taken against  Prof. Cheney-Lippold

For more information see: 

University of Michigan ‘Disappointed’ After Professor Refuses to Write Recommendation Letter for Student Studying Abroad in Israel

Citing BDS, professor refuses to write reference for student to study in Israel

Professor Refuses to Write Letter For Student Wanting To Study Abroad in Israel

Pssst, Professor Cheney-Lippold.  Apple's second largest research and development facility in the world is in Herzilya, Israel.  Shouldn't you be boycotting Apple, too?

John Cheney-Lippold on transcoding the body into the body politic. #DataPowerConf pic.twitter.com/uqqphJrhGy

— Andrew Iliadis 🐞 (@andrewiliadis) June 22, 2017

UPDATE:

Remarks by U-M President Mark Schlissel
Sept. 20, 2018

I want to take a moment to address the recent situation in which a faculty member refused to provide a previously promised letter of recommendation for a student because she was seeking to study abroad in Israel – and to reiterate that this view is not the position of the University of Michigan, nor does it reflect the position of any department or unit on our campus.

I will state again: The University of Michigan strongly opposes a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The academic aspirations of our students – and their academic freedom – are fundamental to the University of Michigan, and our teaching and research missions.

We are committed as an institution to support our students’ academic growth.

We are a large and diverse public university, and the individual opinions of our community range widely on many issues. But personal views and politics should never interfere with our support of students. It is counter to our values and expectations as an institution.

The Regents, Executive Officers and I have been deeply engaged in this matter. We will be taking appropriate steps to address this issue and the broader questions it has raised. 

Omar Barghouti met with protests at UC Berkeley

On Friday, October 18, Omar Barghouti spoke to an audience at UC Berkeley's Dwinelle Hall in an attempt to justify academic boycotts as part of a continued effort to isolate Israel. 

Via Emunah:

UC Berkeley Students meet Omar Barghouti's message of BDS intolerance with their own of academic freedom and free exchanges of ideas between all people.

"Silencing ideas is stiffing progress"

 "Standing Against discrimination Means Academic Freedom for All"

 "Banning the ideas of one nation is Discrimination"

 "UC Berkeley Academic Departments Support Limiting Academia"

This assault on academic freedom was sponsored by several UC Berkeley academic departments, including

The Center for Race and Gender
Asian American Studies
Native American Studies
Ethnic Studies
English
Chicano Studies
Near Eastern Studies

UAW Local 2865 represents approximately 13,000 student workers: teaching assistants, tutors, and readers at the University of California. On December 4, they will be voting on an academic boycott of Israel.

Via the Alliance for Academic Freedom (AAF), a group of over 120 liberal and progressive scholars, affiliated with The Third Narrative, who are dedicated to combating academic boycotts and blacklists, defending freedom of expression and promoting empathy and civility in the debate over Israelis and Palestinians.

Please forward to any graduate students you know at the University of California.

Labor Solidarity Demands a “No” Vote on Israel Boycott

As an association of progressive scholars and academics, many of whom are union members and all of whom support the labor movement, the Alliance for Academic Freedom is deeply disturbed that the Joint Council of UAW Local 2865, representing more than 13,000 student-workers across the University of California system, seeks to lend the local’s support to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. We urge our brothers and sisters in UAW Local 2865 to vote “no” on December 4, 2014, in the membership vote on this question.

The internationalism to which the labor movement has proudly and historically been committed does not mean siding with one nationalism against another; it means supporting the progressive and emancipatory forces and opposing the reactionary forces within each nation. Support for the BDS movement constitutes a betrayal of internationalism properly understood, for it fails to distinguish progressive and reactionary elements within Israeli and Palestinian societies. It is for this reason that U.S. labor leaders issued a joint statement in July 2007 denouncing calls by British trade unions for “divestment from and boycotts of Israel.” The signers of the statement included the presidents of the AFL-CIO and more than two dozen major unions, including the steelworkers, autoworkers, teamsters, mine workers and garment workers, as well as the heads of the two most important black labor organizations, the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. A decision by UAW Local 2865 to support or join the BDS movement would be internally divisive and place it in opposition to other unions, undermining the solidarity upon which the labor movement depends and without which it cannot be effective.

Moreover, a union of student-workers has an especially good reason to reject the BDS movement: it threatens the vital professional interest of the union’s own members in academic freedom and open intellectual exchange. We believe that boycotts of academic institutions cannot be meaningfully separated from the individuals whom those institutions employ and whom such boycotts inevitably harm; that a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is therefore more accurately described as a blacklist; and that individual scholars should not be punished on the basis of their nationality, political views, or the policies of their employers or governments. A blacklist of Israeli academic institutions also harms student-workers in the University of California system by restricting their academic freedom to work with scholars from other institutions around the world. Such freedom is necessary for the fulfillment of their professional responsibilities as current and future educators and researchers. It is for these reasons that the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors have consistently opposed academic blacklists.

We commend and share the desire of many UAW Local 2865 members to aid their Palestinian colleagues and oppose Israeli occupation of the West Bank. However, we believe that BDS will have perverse consequences, doing economic harm to Palestinians and isolating and weakening Israeli progressives. Furthermore, contrary to the claims of BDS proponents, it is hardly the only means to support Palestinian colleagues and oppose Israeli military occupation. For example, unions can promote these goals by supporting progressive movements and organizations within Israel such as Peace Now and the New Israel Fund, and by joining Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP), an organization of unions in countries around the world which in the spirit of genuine internationalism seeks to promote cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.

The labor movement is strongest when working people stand together, not when they are divided by nationality, political views, or the policies of their employers or governments. For these reasons, we appeal to our brothers and sisters in UAW Local 2865 and urge them to vote “no” in the membership vote for joining the BDS movement on December 4, 2014.

 

American Studies Association Academic boycott: The Fallout Continues

The fallout over the American Studies Association academic boycott resolution continues. As of this week, 218 University presidents have denounced the measure, and 6 Universities have dropped their institutional membership.  Individual memberships are also being withdrawn, though the danger is that strategy may further empower the extremist fringe within the Association.   Again, Kol hakavod to both Avi Mayer and Prof. William Jacobson for their efforts in keeping us up to date. And thanks are due as well to the countless bloggers, pundits and non-profits who refused to remain silent in face of this attack on academic freedom.

From Richard Behar's Open letter To NYU's President: Why The American Studies Assn.'s Israel Boycott Makes Me Ashamed To Be An Alumnus
  

A supposedly “democratic” town hall meeting took place the night before the vote. More than 700 ASA members were in the room to hear six panelists supportive of the boycott, with no panelists invited to take a different position. One of the oldest members of the association, Professor Michael Aaron Rockland of Rutgers, went ballistic and rose from his seat. “You don’t know history!” he said....

 Rutger’s professor Rockland was aghast as he watched the ASA’s “open house” in Washington, D.C., in November. “I have never attended a meeting like this in my life,” he says he told the audience. “This was advertised as a town meeting, a round table. Well, as far as I can see, it’s a one-sided table and you made no effort whatsoever to garner different opinions… You’re supposed to be cultural historians, and all you did was find six people who would denounce Israel. And you outdid each other- each one trying to come up with more and more ugly things. This reminds me of what it must be like at a North Korean Politburo meeting where the leader speaks and everybody applauds.”

Rockland told me last week: “It was disgraceful. It was so misguided. Stupid, really. We sometimes make the mistake in thinking that all fascists come from the right. These were fascists from the left. I just couldn’t quite believe it.”

Rockland is the founder of the American Studies department of Rutgers (in 1969), and he’s been a member of the ASA for more than 40 years. Unlike the national council members, he has foreign policy credentials, having served in the diplomatic corps during the 1960s.

A day after the town hall, just before the boycott vote was taken, audience members were allotted all of two minutes to speak. Rockland took to his feet again, this time saying that the founders of ASA, who were his professors at the University of Minnesota, “must be turning over in their graves.” He added: “Regardless of what your feelings might be about Israel and Palestine, what the heck does this have to do with what the ASA is for, which is studying the people, culture and society of the United States?”

There is a tangible level of despair in the social media emanating from the American Studies Association. . J Kehaulani Kauanui of Wesleyan University writes:

WHO WANTS TO JOIN THE ASA? Some previous members have written to say they won't renew their membership until the ASA rescinds its boycott of Israeli institutions.  Therefore new members more welcome than ever and also membership renewals are essential!

Memberships in this organization are offered on a sliding scale,  for as low as $20 per calendar year, giving some insight into how easy and inexpensive it was to transform the ASA agenda.

So now we know.  For as little as $20 anyone can join the fascist left. Academic credentials are not a pre-requisite.

Congress oppossed to academic boycott of Israel

If you haven't already done it, stop by the Legal Insurrection blog and thank the team there for leading the battle charge for academic freedom in America.

via Legal Insurrection

134 House Members sign letter against academic boycott of Israel

 A total of 134 Members of the House of Representatives have signed a letter, organized by the offices of Reps. Peter Roskam (R) and Ted Deutch (D) condemning the academic boycott of Israel passed by the American Studies Association. The effort was truly bipartisan, with 65 Republicans and 69 Democrats signing. The full list of signatories is at the bottom of this post.

Signing the list were

Roskam, Peter J.

Bachmann, Michele

Bachus, Spencer

Bentivolio, Kerry L

Bilirakis, Gus M.

Braley, Bruce L.

Bridenstine, Jim

Broun, Paul C.

Brown, Corrine

Brownley, Julia

Campbell, John

Castor, Kathy

Chabot, Steve

Cicilline, David N.

Coffman, Mike

Cohen, Steve

Collins, Doug

Connolly, Gerald E.

Cook, Paul

Costa, Jim

Crowley, Joseph

Davis, Rodney

Delaney, John K.

DelBene, Suzan K.

Dent, Charles W.

DeSantis, Ron

Deutch, Theodore E.

Duncan, Jeff

Engel, Eliot L.

Fleming, John

Foster, Bill

Frankel, Lois

Franks, Trent

Gabbard, Tulsi

Garcia, Joe

Gardner, Cory

Gerlach, Jim

Gohmert, Louie

Grayson, Alan

Green, Al

Green, Gene

Griffin, Tim

Grimm, Michael G.

Hastings, Alcee L.

Heck, Denny

Higgins, Brian

Holding, George

Holt, Rush

Hudson, Richard

Hultgren, Randy

Israel, Steve

Johnson, Bill

Joyce, David P.

Keating, William R.

Kelly, Mike

Kennedy III, Joseph P.

Kilmer, Derek

King, Peter

Kinzinger, Adam

Kuster, Ann M.

Lamborn, Doug

Lance, Leonard

Langevin, James R.

Lankford, James

Larson, John B.

Latham, Tom

Latta, Robert E.

Levin, Sander M.

Lipinski, Daniel

Loebsack, David

Lowenthal, Alan S.

Lowey, Nita M.

Lynch, Stephen F.

Maloney, Carolyn B.

Marino, Tom

Matsui, Doris O.

McCarthy, Carolyn

McCollum, Betty

McGovern, James P.

Meadows, Mark

Meehan, Patrick

Meeks, Gregory W.

Meng, Grace

Messer, Luke

Murphy, Patrick

Nadler, Jerrold

Nunes, Devin

Nunnelee, Alan

Pascrell Jr., Bill

Pearce, Steve

Peters, Gary C.

Peters, Scott H.

Pierluisi, Pedro R.

Pocan, Mark

Polis, Jared

Pompeo, Mike

Quigley, Mike

Reed, Tom

Rokita, Todd

Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana

Royce, Edward R. Royce

Salmon, Matt

Scalise, Steve

Schakowsky, Janice D.

Schiff, Adam B

Schneider, Bradley S.

Schock, Aaron

Schwartz, Allyson Y.

Schweikert, David

Sensenbrenner, Jim

Sessions, Pete

Shea-Porter, Carol

Sherman, Brad

Shimkus, John

Sires, Albio

Smith, Christopher H.

Stivers, Steve

Swalwell, Eric

Tiberi, Patrick J.

Titus, Dina

Upton, Fred

Van Hollen, Chris

Vargas, Juan

Veasey, Marc A.

Walberg, Tim

Walorski, Jackie

Wasserman Schultz, Debbie

Waxman, Henry A.

Weber Sr., Randy K.

Wilson, Frederica S.

Yarmuth, John A.

Yoder, Kevin

Yoho, Ted S.

Young, Todd. C

If your Congressperson isn't on the list, give them a call and ask why.

And in other Academic Boycott news, according to Avi Mayer, who has been diligently tracking the academic world's repudiation of the fringe ASA resolution, as of today 213 universities have renounced the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Via Camera: Statements from Universities That Withdrew from the ASA

As of today, 54 institutions have rejected the American Studies Association boycott of Israeli institutions.

Camera has a nice summary, current as of Dec. 24th

Statements from Universities That Withdrew from the ASA

Brandeis
American Studies Program

"It is a with deep regret that we in the American Studies Program at Brandeis University have decided to discontinue our institutional affiliation with the American Studies Association. We view the recent vote by the membership to affirm an academic boycott of Israel as a politicization of the discipline and a rebuke to the kind of open inquiry that a scholarly association should foster."

More...

Indiana University
President Michael A. McRobbie

"Indiana University joins other leading research universities in condemning in the strongest possible terms the boycott of institutions of higher education in Israel as proposed by the American Studies Association and other organizations. Boycotts such as these have a profound chilling effect on academic freedom, and universities must be clear and unequivocal in rejecting them...

...Indiana University will contact the ASA immediately to withdraw as an institutional member. We urge the leadership of the ASA and other associations supporting the boycott to rescind this dangerous and ill-conceived action as a matter of urgency."

 

More...

Kenyon CollegePresident Sean Decatur

"Academic freedom – the unfettered exchange of ideas – is a cornerstone of liberal education...I cherish academic freedom and I oppose the ASA boycott of Israel...

...The ASA is, first and foremost, an academic society aimed at the promotion of interdisciplinary studies of American culture and history. This commitment to scholarship, teaching, and learning is what drew Kenyon to participate in ASA activities in the past. But, as the president of a College with an unwavering commitment to the liberal arts and the concept of academic freedom, I reject the notion of a boycott of academic institutions as a geopolitical tool. I concur with the decision of our American Studies program to withdraw as an institutional member of the ASA."

 

More...

Penn State Harrisburg
American Studies Department Chairman Simon J. Bronner

"As a prominent program in American Studies concerned for the welfare of its students and faculty, Penn State Harrisburg is worried that the recent actions by the National Council of the American Studies Association (ASA) do not reflect the longstanding scholarly enterprise American Studies stands for. The withdrawal of institutional membership by our program and others allows us to be independent of the political and ideological resolutions issued by the ASA and concentrate on building American Studies scholarship with our faculty, students, and staff. There might be alternative organizations forming in the future that better represent the field of American Studies. When and if that occurs, we will re-examine our independent position. In the meantime we view this move as one intended to protect students and faculty from opprobrium as a result of the ASA’s claim to represent scholars of American studies."

More...

 Read it all here, at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America

Via Legal Insurrection: The academic boycott of Israel is the hill to fight on

From the Blog Legal Insurrection, and Cornell law professor William Jacobson.

The academic boycott of Israel is the hill to fight on

We will continue to rally support among American civil society.  That support comes willingly, as one of the movers behind the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement in the U.S., who runs the Electronic Intifada website, lamented today on Twitter:

Nobody asked but University of Chicago leaders have also now denounced “academic boycotts” http://t.co/Fej6yh0pcU
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) December 23, 2013

The BDS movement went too far this time.  Its position on academic boycotts is indefensible.
The supporters of academic BDS have exposed themselves as the threat to civil society they are. It’s easy to laugh when they do flash mobs outside coffee shops and in grocery stores and call for the boycott of hummus.  It’s not so easy to laugh when they shout down speakers.
It creates spontaneous outrage when they use academic organizations as political tools and easily cast aside the academic freedom of everyone in their desire to damage Israel.
BDS charged up the wrong hill.
When some of the harshest critics of Israeli policies say an academic boycott of Israel is too much, the academic BDS movement has no ground to stand on.
This is not, as Electronic Intifada claims, a counterattack by the Israel Lobby. It’s a counterattack by American civil society, and soon political society, against the attack on our core freedoms.
Don’t let this pass with just denunciations.
This is the hill to fight BDS on.

Prof. William Jacobson has been among those taking the lead in this assault against our academic freedom. Please follow Legal Insurrection to keep up to date on this issue.

StandWithUs has also come out with practical steps you can take to fight back.

1.    WRITE TO THE PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITIES/COLLEGES WITH WHICH YOU ARE AFFILIATED AS A STUDENT, PARENT OF STUDENTS, ALUM, FACULTY, OR DONOR.  URGE THE PRESIDENT TO:

•  Withdraw the school from the ASA if it is an institutional member of the organization.

•  Publicly denounce the ASA and the academic boycott. In 2007, over 300 presidents of American universities signed a statement deploring academic boycotts as "utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy," and declared, "Boycott Israeli universities? Boycott ours too!" University leaders should have the same united response today.

•  Not allow university funds to be used for ASA-related activities.  The ASA has demonstrated that it is a politicized organization, no longer one of scholars devoted to research and education.  As former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers, said "My hope would be that responsible university leaders will become very reluctant to see their university funds used to finance faculty membership and faculty travel to an association that is showing itself not to be a scholarly association but really more of a political tool."

• Publicly deplore the ASA`s travesty of scholarship, research and analysis, and reassure the community that the school will uphold scholarly standards.  The resolution is based on distortions, erasure of context, and false or disputed claims, and uses circular reasoning or irrational leaps of logic. It is not based on sober, reasonable analysis or rational analysis of evidence. It is an assault on the most elementary scholarly standards.

•  Publicly denounce the ASA`s assault on Israel.  BDS is an extremist movement that defames the Jewish state and denies the Jewish people`s rights to self-determination, statehood, and security.  This resolution is destructive: it does nothing to further peaceful coexistence and a resolution of the conflict. Furthermore, as former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers noted, singling out Israel for opprobrium is anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent.

• Actively seek more institutional partnerships with Israeli universities: an anti-academic boycott of Israel. Israel`s extraordinary achievements in scholarship and research in multiple fields have benefited the world.  American schools should dramatically increase their partnerships with Israeli academia to further such contributions.

2.    WRITE TO YOUR CONGRESSIONAL AND STATE REPRESENTATIVES, AND URGE THEM TO:

• Publicly denounce the ASA resolution.  This bigoted resolution is an assault on academic freedom, educational standards, and Israel. Public officials should join together to denounce it.

•  Urge schools that are ASA institutional members to sever their association. (The list of 83 schools that are institutional members is below.)  

•  Ensure that public funds are not used to support ASA activities.   Many schools receive federal and/or state funding.  Government officials should not permit public funds designated for education to be used for political activities, and certainly not for political extremism and bigotry.

•  Encourage and facilitate partnerships between Israeli academia and American schools.

 

Universities Standing Strong For Academic Freedom and Against Bigotry

 Thanks to Avi Mayer, whose Tumblr account is keeping a running list of institutions condemning the  ASA boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Universities Standing Strong For Academic Freedom and Against Bigotry (running list)

The following is a list of institutions whose presidents or chancellors have publicly rejected the academic boycott of Israel in recent days. The Executive Committee of the Association of American Universities, which represents 62 top institutions in the U.S. and Canada, has also expressed its strong opposition to the boycott, as has the American Association of University Professors, which counts more than 48,000 members.
(Updated 3:27 p.m. EST, 12/28. Current tally: 78)

• American University (President Cornelius M. Kerwin)
• Amherst College (President Carolyn A. Martin)
• Birmingham Southern College (President Charles C. Krulak)
• Boston University (President Robert A. Brown)
• Bowdoin College (President Barry Mills)
• Brandeis University (President Frederick M. Lawrence)
• Brooklyn College, CUNY (President Karen Gould)
• Brown University (President Christina Hull Paxton)
• Carnegie-Mellon University (President Subra Suresh)
• Case Western Reserve University (President Barbara R. Snyder)
• City University of New York (Interim Chancellor William P. Kelly)
• College of Charleston (President P. George Benson)
• Columbia University (President Lee C. Bollinger)
• Cornell University (President David Skorton)
• Dartmouth College (President Philip J. Hanlon)
• Dickinson College (President Nancy Roseman)
• Drexel University (President John A. Fry)
• Duke University (President Richard H. Brodhead)
• Emory University (President James Wagner)
• Florida Atlantic University (Interim President Dennis J. Crudele)
• Florida International University (President Mark B. Rosenberg)
• Fordham University (President Joseph M. McShane, S.J.)
• Franklin & Marshall College (President Daniel R. Porterfield)
• George Washington University (President Steven Knapp)
• Goucher College (President Sanford J. Ungar)
• Hamilton College (President Joan Hinde Stewart)
• Harvard University (President Drew Gilpin Faust)
• Haverford College (President Daniel Weiss)
• Indiana University (President Michael McRobbie)
• Johns Hopkins University (President Ronald Joel Daniels)
• Kenyon College (President Sean M. Decatur)
• Lehigh University (President Alice P. Gast)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (President L. Rafael Reif)
• Michigan State University (President Lou Anna K. Simon)
• Middlebury College (President Ron Liebowitz)
• New York University (President John Sexton)
• Northwestern University (President Morton O. Schapiro)
• Ohio State University (President Joseph A. Alutto)
• Princeton University (President Christopher L. Eisgruber)
• Purdue University (President Mitch Daniels)
• Ramapo College (President Peter Philip Mercer)
• Rhode Island College (President Nancy Carriuolo)
• Rutgers University (President Robert Barchi)
• Smith College (President Kathleen McCartney)
• Stanford University (President John L. Hennessy)
• State University of New York (Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher)
• Trinity College (President James F. Jones, Jr.)
• Tufts University (President Anthony P. Monaco)
• Tulane University (President Scott S. Cowen)
• University of Alabama (Chancellor Robert E. Witt)
• University of California System (President Janet Napolitano)
• University of California, Berkeley (Chancellor Nicholas Dirks)
• University of California, Irvine (Chancellor Michael V. Drake)
• University of California, San Diego (Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla)
• University of Chicago (President Robert J. Zimmer)
• University of Cincinnati (President Santa J. Ono)
• University of Connecticut (President Susan Herbst)
• University of Delaware (President Patrick T. Harker)
• University of Florida (President J. Bernard Machen)
• University of Illinois System (President Robert A. Easter)
• University of Illinois at Chicago (Chancellor Paula Allen-Meares)
• University of Illinois at Springfield (Chancellor Susan J. Koch)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Chancellor Phyllis Wise)
• University of Kansas (Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little)
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County (President Freeman Hrabowski)
• University of Maryland, College Park (President Wallace D. Loh)
• University of Miami (President Donna E. Shalala)
• University of Michigan (President Mary Sue Coleman)
• University of Minnesota (President Eric Kaler)
• University of Pennsylvania (President Amy Gutmann)
• University of Pittsburgh (Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg)
• University of Southern California (President C. L. Max Nikias)
• University of Texas, Austin (President William C. Powers)
• Washington University in St. Louis (Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton)
• Wesleyan University (President Michael S. Roth)
• Willamette University (President Stephen Thorsett)
• Yale University (President Peter Salovey)
• Yeshiva University (President Richard M. Joel)

In addition, the following institutions’ American Studies programs have withdrawn their membership in the American Studies Association (ASA) following last week’s boycott vote:

• Brandeis University
• Indiana University
• Kenyon College
• Penn State Harrisburg

Furthermore, the following institutions have flatly denied being institutional members of the ASA, though the organization lists them as such:

• Brown University
• Carnegie-Mellon University
• Hamilton College
• Northwestern University
• Temple University
• Trinity College
• Tufts University
• University of Alabama
• University of Mississippi
• University of Southern California
• Willamette University

Keep checking here - as the list is updated frequently

Divest this! via CIF Watch: The ASA's decision to boycott Israel

Recently, the American Studies Association (ASA) voted on and adopted a highly biased and contentious resolution supporting an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions.  The vote represented less than 20 percent of membership and was  rejected by eight former ASA presidents.

The incomparable Divest this! has written some excellent commentary on the American Studies Association vote over at CIF Watch. Check it out

 How ASA Became RASA (Racist American Studies Association)

ASA President Marez told the New York Times that Israel was chosen to be the group’s human rights pariah because “you have to start somewhere.”  But the chances that the organization will continue from this starting point to act on human rights issues regarding other countries is nil since, as noted above, the ASA’s leaders are not human rights activists but anti-Israeli partisans first and last.  And given that they have forced the organization to throw academic freedom on the pyre in the name of their cause, I think it’s fair to say they should no longer even be considered scholars.

Anyway, as night follows day the script will play out.  Anger and recrimination by the 75% of members who didn’t vote on the issue (possibly because they – like a friend of mine who is in the organization – didn’t get the postcard voter reminder from the ASA leadership until a day after the vote had closed) will escalate once people realize that a group of people they have never met with no connection to the field is now speaking in their name.  Resignations will both shrink the organization while concentrating the radicals within it.  Real scholars (like those of AAUP) will continue to pour their scorn on the group which the BDSers will ignore as they travel the globe trying to find the next academic organization to corrupt in the name of ASA.

 Proposed ASA boycott of Israeli academics is a guaranteed moral fail

the BDSers took no chances when they stacked the deck of the committees responsible for the original decision and ensured a lopsided number of voices heard during that debate supported the leadership’s preferred outcome, they then went on to minimize chances that the hoi polloi of the American Studies Association (i.e., the scholars they were elected to represent) get in the way of their political crusade.

Exhibit A: While the ASA leadership gave themselves months to manage discussion of the boycott to ensure their desired results, they have given members just fifteen days to ratify the decision (fifteen days that – by a strange coincidence – coincides with finals period, the busiest time of the year for academics).

Exhibit B: While most normal votes about highly contentious issues would be accompanied by Pro and Anti arguments to give members a sense of the stakes involved and different points of view regarding a charged matter, the leadership decided all the members needed to hear was their own full-throated encouragement of a Yes vote.

 American Studies Association purges their Facebook page of critical comments     

Under normal circumstances, I’d take solace in the notion of hypocrisy being the complement vice pays to virtue.  But what are we to make of an organization that, in attempting to shut down inquiry with their Israeli colleagues is ready to first shut it down among its own members while simultaneously sending out e-mails urging people to participate in “discussion and healthy debate”?

American Studies Association ‘boycott Israel’ motion: The Justification

  ...The people claiming that their role as scholars gives them and their proposed boycott special meaning have chosen to act like garden variety propagandists – hiding facts, substituting gut emotion for rational debate, limiting rather than encouraging inquiry and debate – to get what they want.  And if they manage to eke out a victory, they will immediately try to use the virtues of scholarship they had so recently jettisoned to give their decision extra moral weight.

American Studies Association leaders to members: Dear Mindless Sheep

   ...the BDSers took no chances when they stacked the deck of the committees responsible for the original decision and ensured a lopsided number of voices heard during that debate supported the leadership’s preferred outcome, they then went on to minimize chances that the hoi polloi of the American Studies Association (i.e., the scholars they were elected to represent) get in the way of their political crusade.

    Exhibit A: While the ASA leadership gave themselves months to manage discussion of the boycott to ensure their desired results, they have given members just fifteen days to ratify the decision (fifteen days that – by a strange coincidence – coincides with finals period, the busiest time of the year for academics).

    Exhibit B: While most normal votes about highly contentious issues would be accompanied by Pro and Anti arguments to give members a sense of the stakes involved and different points of view regarding a charged matter, the leadership decided all the members needed to hear was their own full-throated encouragement of a Yes vote.

 Divest This! A modest proposal to the American Studies Association

 Most recently, a vote by the American Studies Association (ASA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions was passed the same way other votes have gone the BDSers way in recent months: by stacking decision-making committees with people who are BDSers first, academics second, whose fanatic devotion to “the cause” means they are ready to pass politicized motions they had no mandate to even discuss.  And like stacked student council votes that passed on a few campuses in the Spring, the notion that these measures represent student or academic opinion is laughable.

Academics against Academic freedom

 23,000 students from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds attend Hebrew University, one of the crown jewels of Israel's higher educational system.  4,600 Arab students are enrolled, along with 1,200 students from over 50 countries.   Hebrew University  is one of the highest ranked universities in the world, and is ranked first in academic excellence by Israel’s Council for Higher Education. Eight Nobel Prize winners are Hebrew University graduates or researchers.

Twenty percent of the student body at Hebrew University is Arab. They do not boycott this academic powerhouse. Yet, this group of academics, disgraced math professors , graduate students,  anti-Israel activists and "independent researchers"  have signed a petition asking people to boycott the June 2014 ‘International Conference on Oral History’ organized by the Oral History Division of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University. Call them the "Academics against Academic freedom"

Academic boycotts are anathema to the free exchange of ideas that characterize a democracy.  The American Association of University Professors, as an organization, stands in opposition to academic boycotts as a matter of principle in keeping with their long-standing commitment to the free exchange of ideas, urging that academics seek alternative means, less inimical to the principle of academic freedom, to pursue their concerns.

 The AAUP especially oppose selective academic boycotts that entail an ideological litmus tests, refusing to endorse the use of political or religious views as a test of eligibility for participation in the academic community.

The undersigned 79 represent a true minority in the academic world, representing those who place a narrow political agenda above the pursuit of liberal ideals and the free exchange of ideas.

1. Professor Ahmed Abbes, Directeur de Recherche au CNRS, Bures-sur-Yvette, France

2. Professor Saleh Abdel Jawad (Hamayel), Birzeit University, Palestine

3. Professor Nadia Abu el Haj, Barnard/Columbia University, USA

4. Professor Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University, New York, USA

5. Professor Ghada Ageel, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

6. Professor Ammiel Alcalay, Queens College, City of New York, USA

7. Dr. Diana Allan, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

8. Professor Lori Allen, University of Cambridge, England

9. Professor Amjad Barham, Hebron University, President of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of     University Professors and Employees, Palestine

10. Ryvka Barnard, Doctoral student, New York University, USA

11. Dr. Samia al-Botmeh, Birzeit University, Palestine

12. Professor Oren Ben-Dor, Southampton University, England

13. Professor Hagit Borer, Queen Mary, University of London, England

14. Dr Robert Boyce, London School of Economics and Political Science, London University, UK

15. Professor Haim Bresheeth, SOAS, University of London, England

16. Professor Michael Chanan, University of Roehampton, England

17. Professor Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, New York, USA

18. Professor Lawrence Davidson, West Chester University, USA

19. Professor (emerita) Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Université Paris, France

20. Professor Ann Douglas, Columbia University, New York, USA

21. Professor Haidar Eid, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza, Palestine

22. Professor Randa Farah, University of Western Ontario, Canada

23. Professor (emeritus), Emmanuel Farjoun, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

24. Arie Finkelstein, Student, Université Paris Est, France

25. Senior Scholar Bill Fletcher, Jr., Institute for Policy Studies; former President, TransAfrica Forum,
Washington, DC, USA

26. Professor Cynthia Franklin, University of Hawaii

27. Professor Candace Fujikane, University of Hawai‘i at Ma-noa, Honolulu

28. Dr Terri Ginsberg, ICMES, New York, USA

29. Professor (emerita) Sherna Berger Gluck, California State University, Long Beach, USA

30. Professor (emeritus) Yerach Gover, City University of New York, USA

31. Professor Michel Gros, CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research, Rennes, France

32. Professor (emerita) Sondra Hale, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

33. Professor Salah D. Hassan, Michigan State University, Lansing, USB

34. Professor Sami Hermez, University of Pittsburgh, USA

35. Shir Hever, Independent Economist/Researcher, Palestine-Israel

36. Tineke E. Jansen, Independent researcher, former IOHA Council member, England

37. Professor Rhoda Kanaaneh, Columbia University, New York, USA

38. Dr. Fatma Kassem, Independent researcher, Israel

39. Professor Robin D. Kelley, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

40. Professor Tarif Khalidi, Center for Arab & Middle Eastern Studies, American University,Beirut Lebanon

41. Dr Laleh Khalili, Reader in Politics, SOAS, University of London, England

42. Professor David Klein, California State University, Northridge, USA

43. Professor Dennis Kortheuer, California State University, Long Beach

44. Professor Ronit Lentin, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

45. Dr Les Levidow, Open University, UK

46. Professor David Colles Lloyd, University of California, Riverside

47. Professor (emeritus) Moshé Machover, Kings College, University of London, England

48. Professor Nur Masalha, SOAS, University of London, England

49. Professor Joseph Massad, Columbia University, New York, USA

50. Professor William Messing, University of Minnesota, USA

51. Jennifer Mogannam, Ph. D. candidate, University of California, San Diego

52. Professor Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University, New York, USA

53. Professor Ahlam Muhtaseb, California State University, San Bernardino, USA

54. Dr Karma Nabulsi, University of Oxford, UK

55. Professor Premilla Nadasen, Queens College, City of New York, USA

56. Dr. Dorothy Naor, Independent researcher, Israel

57. Dr Sonia Nimr, Birzeit University, Palestine

58. Professor Isis Nusair, Denison University, Ohio, USA

59. Professor Gary Y. Okihiro, Columbia University, New York, USA

60. Professor Ilan Pappe, Exeter University, England

61. Professor Willie Van Peer, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany

62. Professor Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA, USA

63. Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, London School of Economics, University of London, UK

64. Dr Rosemary Sayigh, Center for Arab and Middle East Studies Centre, American University of Beirut,
Beirut, Lebanon

65. Professor (emeritus) Pierre Schapira, University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

66. Professor (Emerita) Evalyn F. Segal, PhD, San Diego State University, USA

67. Professor May Seikaly, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA

68. Professor Sherene Seikaly, American University in Cairo, Egypt

69. Professor Anton Shammas, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

70. Professor Sarah Schulman, ACT UP Oral History Project, New York (USA)

71. Professor Andor Skotnes, Chair, Department of History and Society, The Sage Colleges, Troy, NY, USA

72. Dr Kobi Snitz, Weizmann Institute, Israel

73. Professor Ghada Talhami, Lake Forest College, Illinois, USA

74. Professor Lisa Taraki, Birzeit University, Palestine

75. Sibel Taylor, PhD candidate, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England

76. Dr Salim Vally, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

77. Dr. Patrick Wolfe, Trobe University, Australia

78. Dr Hala Yameni, Bethlehem University, Bethlehem, Palestine

79. Professor Mahmoud Zeidan, University of Cairo, Egypt