Academics Who Back Boycott of Israel Practice Activism With Small, Weighty Gestures

When John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, withdrew his offer to write a recommendation for a student who wanted to attend a study-abroad program in Israel, he didn’t expect to uncork a public debate about the bounds of activism in his profession.

U. of Michigan

His university condemned his action, as did part of the faculty legislature. Academics and interest groups on all sides of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which advocates those actions to be taken against the state of Israel, launched a bevy of statements, op-eds, and petitions criticizing and supporting him, some calling for a stronger response from Michigan.

The BDS movement’s call for an academic boycott, premised as it is on nonparticipation, most often takes shape in necessarily limited ways: conversations, email lists, and pledges. It’s rarer for professors to practice that activism in exchanges like the one Cheney-Lippold had with his student. Those actions are small, and often not publicized, said Sunaina Maira, a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of California at Davis and a leader of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, but they are “very powerful.”

Many pro-boycott academics who spoke with The Chronicle were not aware of others who declined to write a letter for a study-abroad program in this way. But some have taken similar steps in the past. Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University, estimates she’s declined requests related to projects funded by Israel about half a dozen times. Some of them ask to review a scholar’s work or a research proposal.

When a request from an Israeli state institution comes, said Franke, “I respectfully decline to do so and write a letter explaining why: that I’ve endorsed the academic boycott, that my refusal to support or cooperate with the institute’s application process does not indicate in any way a negative judgment about the candidate.”

In April 2013, for instance, Franke declined a request from the Israel Science Foundation to review another scholar’s research proposal.

According to her email to the ISF, shared with The Chronicle, Franke thanked the foundation for the invitation and wrote: “I am unable to perform this review for the ISF due to the fact that the ISF receives virtually all of its funding from the Israeli government. I have endorsed the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel on account of Israel’s persistent violations of international law,” citing Israel’s separation barrier, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and discrimination toward Palestinians living in Israel.

“While I applaud important research undertaken by Israeli academics, … I cannot lend my personal or academic resources to the ISF given that it is almost entirely funded by the Israeli government,” the letter continued, asking that the foundation “not draw any negative inference toward” the scholar’s research proposal.

While Franke said she hasn’t been in Cheney-Lippold’s exact situation, she agrees with his decision. “The position he’s taken is principled,” she said. “I regard the writing of letters of recommendation as part of our academic work and protected by both the First Amendment and academic-freedom principles.”

‘Too Many Problematic Issues’

Two years before Franke’s refusal, Joel Beinin, a professor of history at Stanford University, wrote one of his own. He declined an invitation to a conference about democracy at an institute in Jerusalem.

“The event is imbedded in too many problematic issues that are linked to the very specific agendas of Israeli and German academia for me to feel comfortable,” wrote Beinin at the time. “I would not feel comfortable attending an event and speaking about Egypt where no credible Egyptian would attend.” He added that, while he believed the good intentions of an organizer, the premise and form of the conference wouldn’t accurately capture the events of the Arab Spring.

“I don’t think anyone’s rights were harmed by my declining this invitation,” Beinin wrote in an email to The Chronicle. Besides invitations, he’s also received requests to lecture and provide tenure reviews. “On the tenure reviews, I simply decline because I would not want to say anything that would be held against the candidate.”

Beinin said that despite his long history of activism, he’s not a “typical advocate” of BDS. He still travels to Israel on occasion to visit family members who live there. “I choose what I do and don’t do on a case-by-case basis.”

Many supporters of academic boycotts who spoke with The Chronicle insist that their activism is aimed at institutions, not individuals. They say they work with and support Israeli and Palestinian graduates, undergraduates, and colleagues.

To justify their stance, they cite the State Department’s advisories to Palestinian Americans, and to Israel’s denial of entry to some students on study-abroad trips, as well as to figures who support BDS. Franke herself was detained and deported at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport earlier this year.

Cheney-Lippold’s critics don’t buy it. “Would professors then be within their rights to refuse a Muslim student wanting to study in Qatar or Saudi Arabia because it would be difficult for Jewish students to travel there?” asked Cary Nelson, a member of the Alliance for Academic Freedom, a self-identified progressive organization opposed to the boycott, in The Chronicle.

Such a stance “elevates political conviction to the level of religious belief,” wrote Nelson, a former president of the American Association of University Professors. “This alarming claim would create a new faculty ‘right’ in which individual political belief can override university policies and professional standards.”

Freedom and Ethics

To opponents and supporters of the movement alike, these actions, while small, carry weighty consequences.

The battle centers on competing definitions of academic freedom and professionalism. And one’s political understanding of those standards shouldn’t violate one’s obligation to support students, argues the University of Michigan and other critics. They say a professor should not inject personal politics into a professional relationship with a student.

Cheney-Lippold’s decision was “just ethically wrong, and it’s a degradation of faculty professionalism,” said Kenneth Waltzer, a professor emeritus of history at Michigan State University and the executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, an organization that mobilizes faculty members opposed to BDS. It’s also discriminatory to students who want to study in Israel, he said. He’s one of a few who have spoken with Mark S. Schlissel, president of the University of Michigan, he said, and pushed for a tougher response, including investigations of faculty members and students.

But to Cheney-Lippold, it would be disingenuous to divorce his political views from his tasks as an educator. “I’m always confused at the idea that the personal isn’t political, or a syllabus isn’t political, or that power relationship between student and professor isn’t political,” he said. Politics is inherent in every relationship, he said, and “having a world where education works without politics, I think, is a dream where nobody’s learning anything, but more importantly, it’s where nothing can be taught, because all of this information has a political lens to it.”

Cheney-Lippold, for one, says he’s tired of the “horse race” coverage of his situation, and would rather have others focus on the reasoning behind the boycott. For the foreseeable future, however, there’s little escaping the public response to his decision.

“Oh,” he interjected during an interview with The Chronicle. “I just got a death threat.” He swore. “All right.”

Follow Steven Johnson on Twitter at @stetyjohn, or email him at steve.johnson@chronicle.com.