The leadership council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association has voted unanimously to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, joining two other scholarly groups—the American Studies Association and the Association of Asian American Studies—that have endorsed such a boycott this year.
Naisa’s president, Chadwick Allen, wrote in a statement on the association’s website that his group had received a member-generated petition asking that Naisa support the effort taken up by the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. But Mr. Allen, an English professor and coordinator for the program in American Indian studies at Ohio State University, explained that Naisa’s council had decided to write its own statement of support for the boycott instead of linking itself to another group’s language.
The Naisa council’s statement objects to what it says is Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians, and stresses that the boycott is directed against “the Israeli state, not at Israeli individuals.” It urges the group’s membership “to boycott Israeli academic institutions because they are imbricated with the Israeli state, and we wish to place pressure on that state to change its policies.”
Mr. Allen also wrote that Naisa’s membership can discuss the council’s declaration and the boycott at the group’s annual meeting, in May, if the members feel that it is appropriate.
