It’s been nearly a year since the American Studies Association passed a controversial resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions, but the group is still trying to set the record straight on what exactly that resolution means.
On Tuesday, two weeks ahead of its annual conference, in Los Angeles, the association circulated a news release dispelling rumors that it planned to bar Israeli academics from participating in the gathering. While the group hasn’t budged on the institutional boycott, it says, it never intended to alienate individual scholars.
“There will not be discrimination of any sort against anyone,” the release states. “We welcome Israeli academics to attend, and in fact, several are already scheduled to participate in the conference program.”
That the association felt the need to clarify its policy points to a broader question about the resolution. It’s clear that the boycott was intended to make a strong statement on Israeli policy, but there’s still quite a bit of confusion about how the boycott actually works. So it’s worth examining the nuts and bolts. Here’s what you need to know:
Rewind for a bit. Who is boycotting Israeli academic institutions?
Piggybacking on the global BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, individual scholars and academic associations have opted to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions, which are closely associated—"imbricated,” in the words of one scholarly organization’s president—with the nation’s government.
In April 2013 the Association for Asian American Studies became the first U.S.-based scholarly association to support such a measure, according to the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
It got the ball rolling for other groups. The American-studies group was the next to adopt a boycott resolution, with language taken nearly verbatim from the AAAS. The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association quickly followed suit.
The Modern Language Association discussed a resolution censuring Israel for actions allegedly taken in the West Bank—a resolution some opponents portrayed as the first step to a boycott—but took no action. And individual scholars, operating outside of their disciplinary groups, signed pledges not to cooperate with Israel’s academic institutions.
So how exactly do the boycotts work?
That’s where things get trickier. The AAAS and ASA resolutions identify the same goal: to “support the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.” But there’s no step-by-step guide on how to carry out a boycott.
Is there any kind of precedent, at least?
There’s the recent boycott of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for rescinding a job offer to Steven G. Salaita after his vulgar tweets about this very issue drew scrutiny. But while some academic associations announced their support for Mr. Salaita, they did not launch all-out protests of the university. It was individual scholars who agreed to bypass the institution by declining to deliver lectures or participate in events on the campus.
A better analogy, then, would be the boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era—the only boycott ever endorsed by the American Association of University Professors. But even that analogy is a stretch: The move against South Africa was viewed as an economic boycott, calling on colleges and universities to divest from companies doing business in South Africa, rather than an academic one.
What’s being done in the current boycotts?
In this case, the associations agree the action is aimed at higher-education institutions, not individuals.
“The thing that’s the most confusing to people is the difference between institutions and individuals,” says Lisa Duggan, president of the American Studies Association. “What it means is that the ASA, as a national organization, will not collaborate officially with any Israeli universities or their official representatives.”
For example, Ms. Duggan says, if an Israeli academic dean wanted to present at the ASA’s annual conference as an official representative of Israel or of an Israeli institution, the association would not allow it. But if that same dean wanted to present as a scholar of 18th-century literature, she would be welcomed.
Have any of the organizations with boycotts in place actually had to make that distinction?
It doesn’t look like it. Neither Ms. Duggan nor Mary Yu Danico, a former president of the Asian-American-studies group, can think of any instances in which their associations outwardly declined to collaborate with an Israeli institution—or turned away an official representative of one—since the resolutions passed. And a number of Israeli scholars were invited to both groups’ conferences this year, they say.
So the value here is mostly symbolic?
The AAUP thinks so. “Academic boycotts,” the group argues, “are usually undertaken as symbolic protests.”
Some advocates say it’s mostly about starting a conversation. Ms. Duggan and Ms. Danico say the boycotts have encouraged other groups to take a stand and have stimulated discussions about the conflict abroad.
“It was interesting to be the first association to do this,” says Ms. Danico. “We’ve seen the trickle-down effect. It has also, for a large segment of our membership, pushed people to look at social-justice issues and human-rights issues more.”
Ms. Duggan agrees, saying the ASA never anticipated its resolution would draw as much attention—or backlash—as it did. “We got into the mainstream press and triggered a number of conversations not visible before about Israel-Palestine,” she says. “In that sense, we had done what we wanted to do.”
That explains the organizational side of the issue. But what about me and my own research?
Another key point: The ASA boycott is meant to apply at the association level. In other words, individual association members aren’t obligated to participate. If a member wanted to collaborate with an Israeli researcher or speak at an Israeli institution, he wouldn’t be reprimanded by the association.
“Our members are free to act according to their own conscience,” Ms. Duggan says. “We don’t have the power to or the desire to police that.”
The boycotts have been on the books since 2013. What do we know about the results?
The real effects are hard to trace, but some people think they’ve seen them.
“The repercussions were felt immediately here at Tel Aviv University,” wrote Michael Zakim in a recent essay in The Chronicle Review. “They clearly point to the boycott’s success. At the same time, they also raise questions about what that success means, both in terms of the Palestinian cause and the future of Israeli policy.”
Mr. Zakim highlighted several examples that demonstrated, he said, the boycott’s deleterious effects on his university and its students—including a Palestinian Ph.D. student whose adviser could not recruit outside reviewers for his doctoral thesis and an on-campus conference that could not attract outside scholars to participate.
But it’s hard to tell if those developments were direct results of the boycott, critics say. As with the Salaita affair, many professors may simply have wanted to avoid Israeli institutions, boycott or no.
Have the boycotts helped Palestinians?
It depends on how much value you ascribe to those public conversations on social justice.
To date, there’s no real indication that they have helped in more concrete ways, says Anita Levy, associate secretary in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance at the AAUP, which has long opposed academic boycotts.
“It may make participants feel good,” she says. “But I’m not sure if it’s accomplished anything in terms of the struggle itself.”
So where do we stand now?
The boycotts have no expiration date, and neither do the conversations about them. Ms. Levy says she expects “vigorous debate” again during the coming conference season.
“At places like the MLA and the American Historical Association, the Salaita case will generate a lot of panels,” she says. As for discussion about the BDS boycotts in particular? “I imagine it will continue.”
Correction (10/30/2014, 6:34 p.m.): An earlier version of this article suggested that the Modern Language Association had considered taking action on a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In fact, the group considered a separate resolution condemning Israel on another matter. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.
