Awesome: I've been blocked by Steve Salaita UPDATED
I am sure that many of you remember Steven Salaita, the professor whose
offer of a tenured position at the University of Illinois was withdrawn
after
the trustees discovered his Jew-hatred. The University was eventually
censured by the American Association of University Professors, and Salaita landed at the
American University in Beirut.
Earlier today, Salaita tweeted
this (which I can no longer see, but if someone wants to send me a screen cap, I'll add it to this post without disclosing who you are),
and I responded with this:
Gee, I was such a naughty boy today.
Those liberal academics are just so open to criticism.
Now, if only I knew why Jeffrey Goldberg blocked me. Took me over a year to notice.
Labels: academic boycott, anti-Semitism, BDS, Beirut, Hezbullah, Lebanon, liberal academia
Fired again?
When last we left Steven Salaita, he had been hired by the
American University of Beirut to become the 'Edward Said Professor of American Studies,' after the University of Illinois
revoked his tenure track appointment for being a purveyor of
hate speech. Now, it appears that Salaita
won't even last the year in Beirut. This is really rich.
But Salaita’s views, it seems, are too unpalatable even in Lebanon. A petition
circulated today and signed by students of the university argues that
the official search procedure designed to award Salaita his position was
cancelled on March 30 by university president Fadlo Khuri, citing
“procedural irregularities.” Which, the petitioners argue, is just code
for political persecution. “We fear,” the petition continues, “that AUB
is reproducing the trend of persecuting scholars who condemn the
injustices committed in Palestine.”
Even if you ignore for one minute the rich irony of this
statement—given the absolutely abysmal way Lebanon has treated its
sizable Palestinian population, denied access to basic resources like
housing, education, and employment for the past six decades—you have to
savor the thought of Salaita, who fashioned himself into a martyr
wronged by a shady Zionist cabal for criticizing Israel, being now
slammed a second time by a university few can accuse of abundant love
for the Jewish state.
The university was reached for comment, but provided none as of yet. Updates as they come.
Here's betting that Salaita lands at Bir Zeit on the Hudson... or at the Islamic University of Gaza. Heh.
Labels: Beirut, Edward Said, liberal academia
Incredible: Steven Salaita blames Israel for Saudi Arabia crucifying teenager
I am sure many of you remember Steven Salaita, the professor who was
denied a promised position at the University of Illinois when the university discovered he is an anti-Semite. He now holds the Edward Said Chair of American Studies at the
American University in Beirut.
Look what he tweeted about two and a half hours ago.
The 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' have nothing on this guy.
Labels: academic boycott, anti-Semitism, BDS, Beirut, Hezbullah, Lebanon, liberal academia
Steven Salaita moves up in the world
I am sure that many of you remember Steven Salaita, the professor whose offer of a tenured position at the University of Illinois was withdrawn after
the trustees discovered his Jew-hatred. The University was eventually
censured by the American Association of University Professors.
Now, Salaita, who has become a hero to the Arab-Muslim world, is leaving the United States for at least a year. He has accepted a position occupying the
Edward Said chair of American Studies (How's that for an oxymoron? Said was at Bir Zeit on the Hudson when I was there and was an America hater) at the American University in Beirut.
Steven Salaita announced on Twitter that he will be the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB) for the 2015-16 academic year.
I'm sure his friends at Hezbullah will prepare a welcome befitting of a king.
The Israel Academia Monitor
notes:
Steven
Salaita's academic trajectory is on the uptake. From a virtually
unknown academic in a modest college, he is headed to Beirut to assume
the Said chair at the American University of Beirut. Clearly this is an award for Salaita who became a celebrity in Middle East studies.
The
fact that the once respectable the American University in Beirut would
hire Salaita is troubling, as the article below indicates. But the
American University is by no means unique in this regard. To the
contrary, there is a larger trend at work here that rewards anti-Israel
scholars and scholarship. As IAM indicated, a number of Israeli academics found prestigious positions in British and other universities.
Having
continued now for more than three decades, this trend has led to the
delegimization of Israel and provided the justification for BDS.
I hear that there are a lot of suicide bombers in Lebanon.
Labels: academic boycott, anti-Semitism, BDS, Beirut, Hezbullah, Lebanon, liberal academia
Michael Oren: 'Non-Orthodox' intermarried Jews in Obama administration don't understand Israeli character
Michael Oren continues to pound away at Barack Obama and his administration.
In an appearance at New York City's uber-Leftist 92nd Street Y on Sunday, Oren explained that his book was directed at American Jews (and here I thought it was directed at Israelis who still don't get that Obama is not our friend) and that he
pushed to have it published now because of the critical juncture of the Iran negotiations.
Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren
says he pressured Random House to publish his controversial new book
“Ally” now, rather than during book season in September or October,
because “Israel is at a fateful juncture” before the deadline of the
Iran talks and the vote on the French initiative on Palestine in the
Security Council. He said that one of his main objectives was to
“motivate, animate and inspire my readers” in advance of these
challenges “to do more than just stand there”.
“It’s about saying no” to an Iran deal that
“everybody in the Knesset agrees is emphatically bad,” Oren said. He
compared “this critical moment” to the Holocaust era, when American Jews
had an opportunity to “intercede and perhaps save millions of Jews”.
Oren received a surprisingly warm reception from the 92nd Street Y, where he made remarks that might be read by some as an indictment of American Jewry.
Oren discussed what he described as the unprecedented predominance of
American Jews in the Obama administration – “there were discussions in
the White House in which there were six Jews – 3 Americans and 3
Israelis, discussing a Palestinian state - and the only non-Jewish
person in the room was the President or the Vice President.” He said
that the non-Orthodox and the intermarried American Jews in the
administration – “have a hard time understanding the Israeli character.”
Well, yes, but that's not just the administration. That's true of American Jews in general. For years now, there's been a split between American Jewry and Israeli Jewry, but that split has been virtually non-existent among Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews also consistently vote Republican (or have since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980), and the more Orthodox, the more consistent they are about that. And Orthodox Jews and most Israelis would disagree with Oren's statement that Obama is not anti-Israel. He most definitely is anti-Israel.
As I said once before:
Oren doesn't go far enough. His claim that Obama was 'never anti-Israel' doesn't square with the facts that we knew long before Obama was elected President.
The fact that the one example Oren gives of 'significantly strengthened
security cooperation' under Obama relates to a natural disaster and not
to a military action is telling.
And Oren ties the Obama White House in with the anti-Israel bent of American academia.
Recounting his academic experience in America, Oren said that “1968
revolutionaries” had taken over the Middle East and international
relations departments of American universities and that unless one
published their “neo-Marxist ideas”, one would not get tenured or
published. When he came to Washington in 2009, he encountered the same
ideas in his talks with Obama administration officials in the White
House and the State Department: “I could tell what professors they had.”
Oren went on to claim that the term “Israel Lobby”,
which was condemned when it was used by Professor Stephen Walt and John
Mearsheimer, is now an accepted term in Washington discourse.
Maybe that's why Oren made aliya.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Jimmy Carter, liberal academia, Michael Oren, Orthodox Jews, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, self-hating Jews
University of Illinois censured for withdrawing Jew hater's appointment
The University of Illinois has been
censured by the American Association of University Professors for
withdrawing the appointment of Jew-hater Steven Salaita after the discovery of anti-Semitic tweets in his Twitter account last year. This is from the first link.
The vote hinged on the principle of academic freedom, said Anita
Levy, an association staff member involved with the group’s
investigation of the matter. A report by the group described Salaita’s
tweets as expressions of “outrage in strong language over the war in
Gaza”.
Rejecting the professor’s appointment “violated
Professor Salaita’s academic freedom and cast a pall of uncertainty over
the degree to which academic freedom is understood and respected” at
the school, Levy said, reading from a statement after Saturday’s vote.
The academic association currently has 56 institutions on its censure list.
A university spokeswoman, Robin Kaler, said the school had an “unyielding commitment to the principles of academic freedom”.
And, in an email sent to faculty on Saturday,
university chancellor Phyllis Wise said the decision was “disappointing,
but not unexpected”.
“We take this decision by the AAUP seriously,” Wise
said in the email. “We understand that it will have repercussions on the
scholarly activities of many in our community, and we intend to address
both the censure and the underlying concerns through our established
processes of shared governance.”
And for those who have forgotten, here are some samples of his tweets from the second link.
One of his posts that has garnered much attention was from June 20,
soon after three Israeli teens were kidnapped and later found dead. “You
may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the (expletive)
West Bank settlers would go missing.”
On July 31, he wrote: “Next
time a Zionist asks you to ‘dialogue,’ remind him that you heard
everything he had to say when #Israel was murdering children in #Gaza.”
It
was that kind of language that U. of I. President Robert Easter and
Wise alluded to when asking the board not to approve Salaita’s
appointment.
Here are some more recent sample tweets:
The retweets are worse.
Labels: academic boycott, anti-Semitism, BDS, liberal academia
Which flag makes Berserkeley students go berserk
I'm back in Israel.
I couldn't view this on the plane last night (airline WiFi doesn't allow streaming video), and I wasn't able to post either from London (way too little time) or on the plane back from there (British Airways doesn't hold from WiFi and besides - the flight was so cramped I barely had room for my knees, let alone to open a laptop).
But watch this video. Someone shows an ISIS flag to students at Berserkeley and that doesn't get them too excited. Watch what does.
Let's go to the videotape (via
Weasel Zippers).
The American Left.... Aren't they something?
Labels: leftists, liberal academia, radical Left, University of California at Berkeley
It's come to this: 'Jewish' university slammed for anti-Israel bias by Fox
Mr. Justice Brandeis has just taken another turn over in his grave. The 'Jewish' university that bears his name has just been
slammed for anti-Israel bias by Fox News, and justifiably so.
Boston's Brandeis University may have been founded by American Jews, but
it has become a hothouse of anti-Israel sentiment, according to Fox
News.
The TV news channel was referring to thousands of
electronic messages from Brandeis faculty that were obtained and
published by conservative students.
The messages, which were
distributed to academics on a closed mailing list known as a ListServ,
"reveal a long-standing and vehement anti-Israel bias and anger at Fox
News and a human rights advocate who renounced her Muslim faith,"
according to Fox.
The messages, Fox continues, "were hyperbolic
in their condemnation of Israel, regarding the recent fighting in Gaza
and prior conflicts with the Palestinians." They also include
"accusations that Israel has committed war crimes and 'holocaustic
ethnic cleansing' against Palestinians," Fox says.
...
Fox comments that the "one-sided view of the Middle East is not new
at the school, founded in 1948, the same year Israel was established,
with funding from the American Jewish community."
The ListServ in
question, titled “Concerned,” was started by faculty members in 2002
“out of concern about possible war with Iraq.” It has more than 90
subscribers and is used to correspond about current news, Israel, Jewish
people, America and world affairs in general.The messages also
include attacks on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a human rights activist who survived
genital mutilation as a child in Somalia, renounced her Muslim faith
and now crusades against radical Islam, Fox writes. Ali was slated to
receive an honorary doctorate at Brandeis in April before the ceremony
was canceled amid campus protests.
Fox quotes a message from
Brandeis Professor of English Mary Baine Campbell, who apparently
described Ali as “an ignorant, ultra-right-wing extremist, abusively,
shockingly vocal in her hatred for Muslim culture and Muslims, a
purveyor of the dangerous and imaginary concept, born of European
distaste for the influx of immigrants from its former colonies… To call
her a ‘woman’s rights activist’ is like calling Squeaky Fromm an
environmentalist.’”
Brandeis president Frederick Lawrence
commented: “While we maintain our staunch support of freedom of
expression and academic inquiry, some remarks by an extremely small
cohort of Brandeis faculty members are abhorrent. Such statements, which
include anti-Semitic epithets, personal attacks, denigration of the
Catholic faith and the use of crude and vulgar terms in discussions
about Israel, do not represent the Brandeis community,” he wrote. “I
condemn these statements under no uncertain terms.”
Ah, but will Lawrence bring them up on disciplinary charges? Is there anyone to whom he could bring them up if he wanted to? Just yesterday, the University of Illinois voted to
deny a faculty position to someone who expressed similar sentiments. Is there any hope of this 'Jewish university' doing the same?
Read the whole thing. Shabbat Shalom everyone.
Labels: anti-Israel obsession, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brandeis University, Fox News, liberal academia, Louis Brandeis
U of Illinois trustees vote 8-1 to reject hate speech purveyor
The trustees of the University of Illinois have voted 8-1 not to hire Native American studies professor Steven Salaita because of his
hate speech.
The 8-1 decision came after top university administrators said they
could not recommend hiring Salaita. His job offer was pulled last month
after he wrote contentious social media posts about Israeli military
action in Gaza, some of which contained profane and inflammatory
language.
The rare, if not unprecedented, board decision to reject a faculty
hire set the stage for either a lawsuit or a financial settlement in a
case that already has led to a difficult fall semester at the
Urbana-Champaign campus of the state’s flagship public university.
Students have held protests on campus while faculty have argued the
decision is an affront to free speech and academic freedom — the
principle that protects faculty who have unpopular and controversial
views.
Salaita’s attorney, Anand Swaminathan, said after the vote
that “the only real route available at this point is to pursue
litigation.” Salaita was scheduled to start Aug. 16 with a tenured
position in the American Indian studies department, but Chancellor
Phyllis Wise told him Aug. 1 that she was rescinding the job offer.
...
Salaita had resigned from his position on the faculty at Virginia
Tech University after accepting the U. of I. job in October, but Wise
began raising concerns about his Twitter posts after getting feedback
from donors, students and parents in July.
Over the summer,
Salaita posted prolifically about the Israeli government and its
military actions in Gaza, sometimes dozens of times a day. He often
focused on the number of children killed in the conflict. His academic
interests are colonialism and the Middle East, and the last book he
published was titled “Israel’s Dead Soul.”
Salaita has described
his Twitter language as “passionate and unfiltered,” and has said his
approach in the classroom is different, one where he encourages debate.
One of his posts that has garnered much attention was from June 20,
soon after three Israeli teens were kidnapped and later found dead. “You
may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the (expletive)
West Bank settlers would go missing.”
On July 31, he wrote: “Next
time a Zionist asks you to ‘dialogue,’ remind him that you heard
everything he had to say when #Israel was murdering children in #Gaza.”
It
was that kind of language that U. of I. President Robert Easter and
Wise alluded to when asking the board not to approve Salaita’s
appointment.
Read the whole thing. He sounds like the perfect candidate for a position at
Bir Zeit on the Hudson.
Earlier, the Chicago Tribune, which leans pretty far left,
came out against Salaita's appointment.
[Referring to the first tweet quoted above] If
that one doesn't strike you as reprehensible, substitute
"African-American" or "gay" or "women" for "West Bank settlers" and
imagine sitting in a classroom run by the author of that remark.. . .
Salaita
was supposed to teach in the American Indian studies program, but his
social media persona is built around vehement criticism of Israel,
particularly its military operation in Gaza. But it wasn't his political
views that cost him the job. We're sure there are plenty of other U. of
I. professors who have taken sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Salaita
was dumped because his tweets crossed the line from caustic commentary
to hate speech. Some of his remarks come uncomfortably and irresponsibly
close to endorsing violence against individuals or groups of people.
Some are racist. At the very least, they would create a hostile
environment in which others must work or study.
Salaita
has every right to say anything he wants, about Israel or anything
else, but not without consequence. The university can and should weigh
his public statements when deciding whether he'd be a suitable and
productive faculty member. . . .
There's
plenty of room at the U. of I. for passionate intellectual discourse.
There's room for profanity, vitriol and provocative language. But
there's no reason to make room for hate speech.
Indeed. Although the result is still a pleasant surprise.
Labels: liberal academia
'Our war isn't to lift the blockade - it's to liberate Jerusalem'
You have to feel sorry for Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. Even when he says exactly what he means in Arabic (because they just won't say it in English), and it's translated into English, no one believes him. Here's a MEMRI translation of an August 17 speech by Abu Zuhri that's been on its website since yesterday, and which doesn't seem to have gotten much notice.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
Given how little exposure this speech has gotten, I would argue that most of the world is not taking Sami seriously. And given the domination of the world's media by the Left, that's not surprising.
Professor Richard Landes
explains.
This is our dilemma. We face an implacable enemy who wants to destroy and subject us. The enemy openly proclaims his beliefs, even acts savagely on those beliefs, and we don’t want to know that we have enemies like that. Surely, as people say so often to the Israelis, if you sat down with Hamas, I’m sure you could work something out.
We want to be nice; we don’t want to be mean. And we end up being nice to the mean and mean to the nice. If we understand that we face an apocalyptic enemy who views the “other,” the infidel, as evil that must be destroyed, then we can’t keep telling ourselves that money and economic programs will solve the problem.
As a colleague said to me once about Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, “I wouldn’t have that on my shelf.”
Academia, which tells us how to think, and the media, which tells us what to think, are both dominated by liberals.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, Jerusalem, liberal academia, liberalism, mainstream media
Krauthammer: Boycott the boycotters
Charles Krauthammer has the best answer I've heard for the BDS'ers:
Boycott the boycotters.
Former Harvard president Larry Summers called the ASA actions
“anti-Semitic in their effect if not necessarily in their intent.” I
choose to be less polite. The intent is clear: to incite hatred for the
largest — and only sovereign — Jewish community on Earth.
What to do? Facing a similar (British) academic boycott of Israelis seven years ago, Alan Dershowitz and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg wrote an open letter declaring that, for the purposes of any anti-Israel boycott, they are to be considered Israelis.
Meaning: You discriminate against Israelis? Fine. Include us out. We will have nothing to do with you.
Thousands
of other academics added their signatures to the Dershowitz/Weinberg
letter. It was the perfect in-kind response. Boycott the boycotters,
with contempt.
But academia isn’t the only home for such prejudice. Throughout the cultural world, the Israel boycott movement is growing.
It’s become fashionable for musicians, actors, writers and performers
of all kinds to ostentatiously cleanse themselves of Israel and
Israelis.
...
In this sea of easy and open bigotry, an unusual man has made an
unusual statement. Russian by birth, European by residence, Evgeny
Kissin is arguably the world’s greatest piano virtuoso. He is also a Jew
of conviction. Deeply distressed by Israel’s treatment in the cultural
world around him, Kissin went beyond the Dershowitz/Weinberg stance of
asking to be considered an Israeli. On Dec. 7, he became one, defiantly.
Upon taking the oath of citizenship in Jerusalem, he declared: “I am a Jew, Israel is a Jewish state. . . .
Israel’s case is my case, Israel’s enemies are my enemies, and I do not
want to be spared the troubles which Israeli musicians encounter when
they represent the Jewish state beyond its borders.”
Full disclosure: I have a personal connection with Kissin. For
the past two years I’ve worked to bring him to Washington to perform for
Pro Musica Hebraica, a nonprofit organization (founded by my wife and
me) dedicated to reviving lost and forgotten Jewish classical music.
We
succeeded. On Feb. 24, Kissin will perform at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall masterpieces of Eastern European Jewish music, his first U.S. appearance as an Israeli.
Read it all. And any of you who are anywhere near Washington DC on February 24, please consider showing up to show your support.
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, Charles Krauthammer, Evegny Kissin, liberal academia
#BDS_FAIL: American Studies Association turns itself into a pariah
Until last month's vote, I would bet that most of you had never heard of the American Studies Association. Now, you all have, and so have millions of other people. In fact, even the New York Times is reporting today that the group has
turned itself into a pariah.
In sharp contrast to the international campaign for an academic and
cultural boycott of Israel, which had been slow to gain a foothold in
the United States, the campaign to rebuke the American Studies
Association has spread rapidly since the group’s mid-December boycott
vote. The presidents of more than 80 United States colleges have
condemned the vote.
“Such boycotts threaten academic speech and exchange, which it is our
solemn duty as academic institutions to protect,” Carolyn A. Martin,
president of Amherst College, said in a statement posted on the
university’s website. Nearly all of the presidents’ statements have
similarly denounced the boycott as impeding the flow of ideas. Several
have cited specific collaborations or exchanges with Israeli
universities as evidence of their institutional commitment to
maintaining strong relations with Israel.
At least five institutions — Bard College, Brandeis University, Indiana
University, Kenyon College and Pennsylvania State University at
Harrisburg — have withdrawn from A.S.A. membership.
As of last week, the boycott also had been denounced by three of the
United States’ most prominent higher-education organizations: the
American Association of University Professors, the American Council on
Education and the Association of American Universities. “Such actions
are misguided and greatly troubling, as they strike at the heart of
academic freedom,” said the American Council on Education’s president,
Molly Corbett Broad.
The scale and speed of the backlash against the boycott is striking,
considering that the A.S.A. has only about 4,000 members and lacks any
formal ties with Israeli institutions.
“Why anyone should care what the A.S.A. thinks bewilders me. It is not a
very large academic association, and it is not one that
characteristically has a big impact in the academy,” said Stanley N.
Katz, a higher-education policy expert at Princeton University and
president emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies.
...
The A.S.A.’s recent experience clearly shows that boycott resolutions carry a potential price.
After the resolution passed last month, with the support of two-thirds
of the 1,252 association members voting on it, the A.S.A.’s national
office was too deluged with angry phone calls to carry on with business
and ended up having to close for a day, according to John F. Stevens,
the group’s executive director.
Two New York State lawmakers, State Sen. Jeff Klein of the Bronx and
State Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, said they planned to propose
legislation that would cut off state support to any public or private
college that participated in the A.S.A. or any other group involved in a
boycott of Israel. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under
Law, an advocacy group devoted to fighting anti-Semitism on college
campuses, has threatened to challenge the A.S.A.’s tax-exempt status.
Among those who have spoken out against the A.S.A.’s boycott, Lawrence
H. Summers, a former president of Harvard University, has called on
college administrators to deny faculty members funds to attend A.S.A.
meetings. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations has sent the presidents of all universities with ties to
the A.S.A. a letter similarly urging them to dissociate their
institutions from the A.S.A. and deny faculty members funds to
participate in the group or travel to its events.
At least one college president, however, has publicly resisted calls to
crack down on the A.S.A. Christopher L. Eisgruber, president of
Princeton University, has responded to alumni inquiries about the
boycott with a letter saying he opposes it but does “not intend to
denounce the A.S.A., make it unwelcome on campus or inhibit the ability
of faculty members to affiliate with it.” The better approach, he said,
is to engage with the association and hope “more thoughtful and
reasonable members will eventually bring the organization to its
senses.”
Read the whole thing. It will be really interesting to see what happens to the ASA's funding in the next 6-12 months. Maybe they can get a gift from the Saudis?
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, liberal academia
Stop supporting the ASA or give up your government funding
Two New York legislators plan to introduce a bill that would
cut off government funding from any university that supports the American Studies Association or any other organization that boycotts Israel.
Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) and Assemblyman Dov Hikind
(D-Brooklyn) plan to introduce a bill that would give colleges and
universities in New York 30 days to withdraw their support from groups
like the American Studies Association, which recently voted for such an
academic boycott.
New York University, Cornell, Columbia, SUNY Buffalo and SUNY Stony
Brook are among the institutions affiliated with the ASA, made up of
5,000 professors. The group overwhelmingly voted to bar Israeli academic
institutions from collaborations with their campuses over the country’s
treatment of Palestinians.
“Make no mistake: the ASA’s boycott is targeted discrimination against
Israel that betrays the values of academic freedom that we hold dear,”
Klein and Hikind said in a joint statement.
The legislation would also prohibit employees of New York State’s
public universities from participating in conferences sponsored by
groups that participate in discriminatory boycotts.
New York University President John Sexton and Provost David McLaughlin
on Dec. 20 sent a letter expressing “disappointment, disagreement and
opposition” to the boycott vote. An NYU professor, Lisa Duggan, is the
president-elect of the American Studies Association.
But NYU does not support the Klein-Hikind bill.
Of course not....
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, liberal academia
Indiana University withdraws from American Studies Association
Indiana University has become the fourth academic institution to
withdraw from the American Studies Association over the latter's boycott of Israel.
Indiana University
is the latest academic institution to announce its withdrawal from the
ASA in protest of the boycott decision. Indiana University President
Michael McRobbie noted the chilling effect such boycotts have on
academic freedom.
The university joins Kenyon College, Penn State Harrisburg, and Brandeis University, which already announced their withdrawal from the ASA.
Other prominent institutions of higher learning, including Harvard and
Brown, have spoken against the boycott but refrained from moving against
it formally.
Perhaps the biggest blow against the ASA, however, came this week in a strongly-worded condemnation from the Executive Committee of the Association of American Universities:
“Any such boycott of academic
institutions directly violates academic freedom, which is a fundamental
principle of AAU universities and of American higher education in
general,” the statement read.
American colleges and universities, as
well as like institutions elsewhere, must stand as the first line of
defense against attacks on academic freedom.”
The statement also asserted that the boycott “clearly violates the academic freedom not only of Israeli scholars but also of American scholars who might be pressured to comply with it.”
This is quickly becoming a trend.....
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, liberal academia
Interview with Professor Yisrael Aumann on BDS
This is an interview with Professor Yisrael Aumann, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics a few years ago for his contributions to game theory. The main subject of the interview is the attempt by various academic groups to boycott Israeli institutions, but toward the end (starting at about 6:20) he also relates - hilariously - to the recent decision by the U of Haifa to not award him an honorary doctorate because of his political views.
Sorry - Hebrew only.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip:
Dan F).
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, Israeli Nobel prizes, liberal academia, University of Haifa, Yisrael Aumann
WaPo editorial slams American Studies Association Israel boycott
We definitely live in interesting times. The Washington Post publishes an editorial in Monday's editions in which they
slam the American Studies Association for its boycott of Israel.
The most difficult thing to swallow about the resolution is how utterly
narrow-minded it seems. Was the resolution written on a computer
manufactured in China, one of the most repressive regimes on the planet?
Did its authors pause to consider China’s incarceration of writers and
scholars who dare to think and speak out for freedom, or the ethnic
groups in China persecuted for refusing to heel to the Beijing masters?
Did they give any thought to what’s happened lately to freedom in
Russia, won at enormous cost in a Cold War that lasted more than four
decades? Does it disturb the scholars that in today’s Russia, members of
a girl band
performing a protest against the Kremlin could be thrown into a cold
and miserable prison for two years, or that civil society organizations
are being systematically shuttered?
Have the scholars overlooked the cries for help from Cuban dissidents
bravely standing up to the Castro brothers, demanding freedoms — and
suffering beatings and arrest almost every week? Do they condone the
decision of a judge in Saudi Arabia who has just sentenced a political activist to 300 lashes and four years in prison for calling for a constitutional monarchy?
To focus a resolution on Israel and ignore these injustices is puzzling
at best. It is also fundamentally wrong. For all of its difficulties,
including the wrenching, long conflict with the Palestinians, Israel has
become a lively and durable democracy. There is more freedom to speak
one’s mind and criticize the government in front of the Knesset than
will be found in either Tiananmen Square or Red Square today — and far
more in Israeli universities than in academia elsewhere in the Middle
East.
Indeed.
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, boycott Israel, liberal academia, Washington Post
For once, Mr. Justice Brandeis should be pleased
For a
change, Mr. Justice Brandeis can be proud of the actions taken by the university that bears his name with respect to Israel. Brandeis has followed
Penn State Harrisburg and become the second American university to
suspend institutional support for the American Studies Association after the latter decided to boycott Israel.
"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," a message on the
university's American Studies program said.
The program views the ASA vote to affirm the 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."
"We
remain committed to the discipline of American Studies but we can no
longer support an organization that has rejected two of the core
principles of American culture - freedom of association and expression,"
the Brandeis statement continued.
...
The leadership of the much larger and more influential American
Association of University Professors wrote an open letter earlier this
month saying it was disappointed by the ASA decision and that it
rejected boycotts.
The Native American and Indigenous Studies
Association (NAISA) also decided to join the academic boycott against
Israel earlier this week.
Ohio State English Prof. Chadwick Allen,
president of the association and coordinator of American Indian studies
at the university, wrote on the association’s website that the move
followed a “member- generated” petition asking that the group “formally
support the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural Institutions that
was initiated by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel.”
The Association for Asian American Studies adopted the boycott in April.
But at least two universities have come out against the ASA boycott. Have the BDS'ers finally overstepped enough that people are noticing?
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, Brandeis University, liberal academia, Louis Brandeis
'We had to start somewhere'
What a moronic thing to say.... (found
here). And you thought professors were smart, didn't you?
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, liberal academia, morons
Boycott Israel, boycott you?
Will its endorsement of BDS and
boycott of Israeli universities cause the American Studies Association to find itself the subject of a boycott? I wouldn't call it a trend yet, but Professor Jacobson reports that Penn State Harrisburg has decided to
drop its institutional membership in the ASA, and former Harvard President Lawrence Summers has called for an end to university funding for participation in the ASA's events.
Penn State Harrisburg will be dropping its institutional membership.
That message was conveyed to me by Dr. Simon J. Bronner, who Chairs the American Studies Department, which has the only Ph.D program in American Studies in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Bronner is a prominent member of the ASA, in 2011 becoming Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of American Studies, a publication sponsored by the ASA.
Dr. Bronner has been an opponent of the resolution, having signed a letter in November
opposing the resolution along with many other members including 7 Past
Presidents of the ASA. Dr. Bronner has spoken out about the damage the
resolution would do to academic freedom.
Dr. Bronner provided me with the following statement:
In the wake of the passage of the resolution by the ASA
to boycott Israeli institutions, which programs and departments such as
Penn State Harrisburg’s program in American Studies consider to curtail
academic freedom and undermine the reputation of American Studies as a
scholarly enterprise, the chair of the American Studies program at Penn
State Harrisburg plans to drop its institutional membership and will
encourage others to do so.
...
A much tougher fight may be to convince University Presidents to heed the call of former Harvard President Lawrence Summers to curtail financial support for participation in ASA events.
Maybe the
University of Haifa would like to
join the ASA.... They'd fit right in with the
zeitgeist. But they can't join because they're still in Israel.....
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, Israel's suicidal Left, liberal academia, University of Haifa
Some people the American Studies Association isn't boycotting
As you all know, over the weekend, the American Studies Association became the first US academic group to
decide to boycott Israel. Just to show you how outrageous this decision is, here's a chart that shows some of the
countries that the ASA has decided not to boycott.
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, Israel's suicidal Left, liberal academia
