Members of the American Studies Association, meeting over the weekend, vigorously debated a resolution that would endorse a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions, but the group’s national council, which met separately on Sunday, took no immediate action on whether to accept or reject the resolution.
The resolution, proposed by the association’s Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, says that the boycott is necessary given Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, in which it finds universities both directly and indirectly complicit. “Palestinian universities and schools have been periodically forced to close as a result of actions related to the occupation, or have been destroyed by Israeli military strikes,” the resolution reads, “and Palestinian students and scholars face restrictions on movement and travel that limit their ability to attend and work at universities, travel to conferences and to study abroad, and thereby obstruct their right to education.”
A largely supportive crowd attended a discussion of the resolution on Saturday. Of the 44 speakers, just seven opposed the boycott, and lively applause followed each statement in support of the resolution. Members of the association’s national council sat scattered around the room, which was lined by standing listeners.
Throughout the event, supporters emphasized that the boycott resolution rejects involvement with Israeli institutions, not individuals. Israeli universities, deeply tied to the government, are barring the academic freedom of Palestinian students, some said.
People or Institutions?
“Boycott for me is a form of cultural divestment,” said Neferti X.M. Tadiar, a professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Barnard College. “It is in keeping with the way we intervene in the world.”
But other scholars expressed concern that the line between boycotting institutions and boycotting individual Israeli scholars would be difficult to navigate in practice. Anna Pegler-Gordon, an associate professor of social relations and policy at the James Madison College at Michigan State University, told listeners about an Israeli-artists series at her institution. She wondered if similar collaborations would be discouraged.
“These are much less significant than the issues that Palestinians face, but I’m really unsure how we would protect all peoples’ academic freedoms with the resolution as it is currently written,” she said.
Sunaina Maira, a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of California at Davis and a coordinator of the caucus, said in an interview that supporters hoped the petition would “affirm the academic freedom of scholars” to talk openly about Israeli-Palestinian issues without harassment or stigmatization. “This is the single issue most academics feel most anxious in speaking about,” she said.
Indeed, several speakers on Saturday said that the consistently pro-Israel stance of American academic institutions had shut down those conversations, so passing the resolution would lessen a stigma on campuses nationwide.
“It’s essential that in a place like this, where we understand what colonialism is, what imperialism is, that we take a moment to follow the boycott,” said Dean Spade, an associate professor at the Seattle University School of Law.
Counterarguments
Not surprisingly, the petition generated intense online debate and led to an anti-boycott petition, which argues that adoption of the boycott resolution would “do violence” to the principle of academic freedom.
Claire B. Potter, a professor of history at the New School for Public Engagement, called on those who oppose the boycott to speak out against the resolution. On her blog, Tenured Radical, Ms. Potter wrote that she found the distinction between boycotting institutions and boycotting individuals “utterly meaningless in practice.”
That’s troubling, she said, because Israelis who oppose their government’s treatment of Palestinians would probably be hurt by a boycott.
Steven G. Salaita, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, disagreed. “Working with any individual Israeli would be completely fine, but the boycott draws the line at accepting funding that derives from the Israeli government,” said Mr. Salaita, a member of the association.
Simon J. Bronner, a professor of American studies and folklore at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg who began the anti-boycott petition, complained that many members of the association, including past presidents, had been unaware of the boycott proposal until last week. He said he had wanted to organize the many people who oppose academic boycotts, regardless of where they stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I was hearing a lot of outrage from colleagues about the resolution,” said Mr. Bronner, a member of the association’s governing council. “But there was no organized counter-campaign.”
Many of those who spoke against the boycott on Saturday wanted more time to deliberate. They said that the national council should not decide on Sunday, instead recommending that the council either open the vote to the association’s membership or vote at a later date.
At Saturday’s discussion, the moderator, Avery F. Gordon, a member of the council, said that the governing body could take one of several steps at its Sunday meeting—including accepting, rejecting, or rewriting the resolution—but that it did not have to make a decision at that time. In fact, the council did meet on Sunday and did not make an immediate decision.
Supporters said that the resolution should not have come as a surprise because discussion of an academic boycott began at last year’s annual meeting.
At the discussion on Saturday, several members called the request for more time a delaying tactic that sought to ultimately defeat the resolution.
Wider Debate
The campaign for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions has gained momentum among American scholars in the past year. In April the Association for Asian American Studies voted at its annual meeting in favor of a boycott, making it the first scholarly association based in the United States to support such a measure, according to the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel.
In May the American Association of University Professors, which has long opposed academic boycotts, released a statement calling on academic associations to “seek alternative means, less inimical to the principle of academic freedom, to pursue their concerns.”
“While the association supports the right of individuals not to cooperate with people or institutions with whom they disagree,” the statement says, “when such noncooperation takes the form of a systematic academic boycott, it threatens the principles of free expression and communication on which we collectively depend.”
Beth McMurtrie contributed to this article.
Correction (12/2/2013, 2:13 p.m.): This article originally reported that “many dozens of people” had attended the session at which the boycott resolution was debated. But organizers believe the crowd was larger. Because we cannot verify precise attendance figures, we have removed the reference to a crowd estimate.
