San Diego Jewish World~June 11

to see AAUP stand up for its traditional commitment ‘to preserving and advancing the free exchange of ideas among academics irrespective of governmental policies and however unpalatable those policies may be viewed.’”

(Gordon said that the AAUP statement “will make an important contribution to the struggle for academic freedom and underscores one of the important aspects of the struggle against boycotts of Israel.”

(“We will continue to fight every time Israel gets singled out as a pariah,” Gordon said.)
Committee A’s report on academic boycotts appears in the September-October 2006 issue of Academe, pp. 39-43. It is reprinted below. (Jump to continuation)

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International and National

Lauder succeeds Bronfman as WJC president

NEW YORK (Press Release)—The Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) has elected Ronald S. Lauder as president of the organization. At a meeting Sunday, June 10, delegates representing the affiliates of the WJC elected Lauder, 63, by an overwhelming majority as successor to Edgar M. Bronfman, who led the organization since 1979.

Governing Board delegates followed the recommendation of the Executive Committee, which had met earlier Sunday in New York and nominated Lauder. Businessman Matthew Bronfman, who has chaired the WJC Budget and Finance Commission, was elected as new Chairman of the Governing Board. Lauder and Bronfman took office immediately, and their terms will last until the WJC Plenary meets in 2009.

Matthew Bronfman, Edgar Bronfman and Ronald Lauder*

Addressing delegates in New York, WJC President Lauder said: "This is such an important organization. Let's do everything we can to make this what it was, glorious."

Ronald S. Lauder has successfully created and managed investments in the real estate and the media sectors, notably with Central European Media Enterprises, which operates in a number of central and eastern European countries. In 1987, Lauder established the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to rebuild Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe.

He has also been actively involved in numerous civic organizations, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish National Fund, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Brandeis University, and the Abraham Fund. From 1986 to 1987 Lauder served as US ambassador to Austria.

*Photo credit: David Karp
The preceding story was provided by the World Jewish Congress

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Smith seeks worldwide education campaign on Shoah

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (Press Release)—U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey) called on governments around the world—including the U.S.—to expand Holocaust education and renew their commitments to eradicating anti-Semitism in the remarks he delivered Sunday, June 10, at the closing session of an anti-Semitism conference in Bucharest, Romania this weekend.

“Each of us knows we can and must do better. For our part, let me assure you that the members of the U.S. delegation will return home with fresh enthusiasm, commitment and resolve to eradicate the scourge of hate,” Smith, co-chair of the US delegation, said
Rep. Smith
during his closing remarks to the conference. “We return with an urgent mission to expand Holocaust education and remembrance so that the words, ‘never again’ finally have meaning and to educate both young and old alike that human rights and tolerance are not fanciful words, but the only way a civilized, compassionate and caring society can survive and prosper.”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Conference on Combating Discrimination and Promoting Mutual Respect and Understanding was a follow-up to the OSCE’s previous conferences on anti-Semitism and reflects the organization’s continued commitment to eradicate anti-Semitism. It was attended by legislators from a number of the OSCE’s 56 member nations, which includes the US.

Smith and the U.S. delegation, which included delegation chairman U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Julie Finley, returned to the States on Sunday.
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ADL asks Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka
to withdraw praise for NOI's Louis Farrakhan

NEW YORK (Press Release)—The Anti Defamation League (ADL) today called on internationally known Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka to repudiate his praise of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan as an exemplary human being.

In a keynote address to the national conference of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) on June 8 at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Mr. Soyinka praised the anti-Semitic and racist leader of the Nation of Islam, and suggested that others should follow in his footsteps.

"It is sad and disturbing that a man of Soyinka's stature and respectability in the arts world would lionize a man like Farrakhan, who is certainly no positive role model," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "We hope that Soyinka was speaking out of lack of knowledge, that he didn't know of Minister Farrakhan's long record of Jew-baiting and racism. Perhaps he simply wants to ignore it as insignificant. Whatever the reason, we hope that he would reconsider his words and repudiate his praise of Farrakhan."

Farrakhan, who recently ceded the day-to-day leadership of the NOI, has refused to apologize for his long record of anti-Semitic remarks and racist rhetoric and has continued to engage in Jew-baiting. In a March 2007 interview with Al Jazeera, Farrakhan accused Jews of anti-Semitism, charging that, "The real anti-Semites are those who came out of Europe and settled in Palestine, and now they call themselves the true Jews, when in fact, they converted to Judaism." In a 2006 speech, Farrakhan blamed "the wicked Jews, the false Jews" for pushing the war in Iraq, for controlling Hollywood and for "promoting Lesbianism, homosexuality."

The preceding story was provided by the Anti-Defamation League.

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JINSA applauds resignation of Larry Talent from
U.S.-funded Arab language television news staff

By Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, DC—JINSA Report readers were horrified in March to find former CNN news director Larry Register running unedited interviews with terrorists on Alhurra, the U.S. taxpayer-financed Arabic language television station (See JINSA Report #654). It got worse when Register hired Yasser Thabet, former broadcast editor of al-Jazeera, whose personal blog carried paeans to terrorists. Thabet was fired fairly quickly; it took longer to get Register.

It took a combination of news reporting by Joel Mowbray and Congressional interest sparked in part by JINSA. In May, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) chaired a well-attended hearing and Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) authored a letter calling on Secretary of State Rice to urge the Broadcasting Board of Governors to fire Register. But in Washington, it is money that talks. On June 5, the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Foreign Operations (Rothman and Kirk) zeroed out Alhurra's expected $14 million increase for 2008.

On June 8, Larry Register resigned.

Mr. Register claims he was hounded out just for producing "balanced" television. No, he had to leave because he didn't understand the mandate. Reps. Rothman and Kirk wrote, "Alhurra was launched in 2004 to be a bridge between the U.S. and the Arab world, promoting American values such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law. To achieve this mandate, Alhurra aims to provide 'responsible coverage of breaking news in the Middle East'... It goes against everything our country stands for to literally hand terrorists a microphone ... to spread their vitriolic, hate-filled, anti-American, anti-Israel remarks. This is neither in America's best interest nor is it in the best interests of the Arab viewers who are turning in to Alhurra."

The United States doesn't need to produce "balanced" Arab language television - half for the friends of democracy and half for the enemies; half for history and half for the Holocaust deniers; half for the builders and half for the wreckers. Enemies, Holocaust deniers and wreckers have the overwhelming majority of the Arab language media at their disposal. Alhurra is the balance.

We believe in a strong and secure United States. We believe that our American story is a great one and one that should be told abroad - and told by Americans. We are not afraid of controversy - Alhurra should certainly tell about the President's policies and the opposition to those policies. It shows the Arabic-speaking world that politics are give-and-take. No one, not even the President, is immune from criticism. When we talk about making the world more open to consensual government and increasing civic space, people abroad have to know that for every five Americans, you can have six opinions - and that's OK.

JINSA will continue to work to ensure that Alhurra television is interesting, lively, truthful and controversial- if it is truthful it will be controversial - but never a vehicle for hateful voices that undermine the principles for which our country stands.

The preceding story was provided by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs

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Congressman Adam Schiff introduces legislation
to ban campaign payments to congressional spouses

Washington, DC (Press Release)– In an effort to continue to raise the bar on ethical standards in Congress, Representative Adam Schiff (Democrat, California) introduced a bipartisan measure to end the potentially corrupt practice of allowing federal office holders and candidates to employ their spouses in their campaign.

The Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act, cosponsored by Rep. Michael Castle (Republican, Delaware), would amend campaign finance laws to prohibit a practice whereby spouses of federal candidates are employed by the candidate’s campaign and would also require the disclosure of all other immediate family members who are employed by the candidate’s campaign.

“The practice of paying family members for work done on campaigns can breed corruption and invites abuse,” Schiff said. “Candidates run for federal office to serve the public, not to financially profit from the campaign.”

“I welcome Congressman Schiff’s legislation to increase transparency in campaigns,”
Rep. Schiff
said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “House Democrats are following through on our pledge to change the way Washington does business – including increasing transparency in election campaigns to prevent the misuse of funds.”

“House Democrats pledged last fall to clean up the culture of corruption,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. “Part of that is ensuring that no Member personally benefits from their official or campaign activities. The ‘Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act’ is a critical part of a larger solution to restore the public's confidence that their elected representatives are working in the people's interests and not their own.”

The practice of paying family members, particularly spouses, has the potential to raise many conflicts of interests, given that the candidate stands to potentially benefit financially from any salary paid to a spouse. This bill halts that practice, and it further ensures that the public is informed of any payment made to an immediate family member from the campaign.

A particularly egregious practice involves the spouse of an elected official earning commissions for fundraising activity. In those situations, the candidate or elected official personally pockets a percentage of all campaign funds raised by their spouse.

Congressman Schiff has a long record of fighting for campaign finance reform. On his first day in Congress, he cosponsored the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform legislation and helped organize freshman members to support its passage.

Original cosponsors include: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip James Clyburn, Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel, Democratic Vice Chair John Larson, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Chris Van Hollen, and Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter. Co-sponsor Mike Castle of Delaware is also joined by Republican Rep. Todd Platts of Pennsylvania.

The preceding article was provided by the office of Congressman Adam Schiff

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Nadler committee to quiz former EPA Administrator Whitman on whether public told of post-9/11 toxins

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release) – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (Democrat, New York), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, will conduct an oversight hearing on Monday, June 25, to examine possible violations of the "substantive due process rights" of individuals living and working in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on, or after, September 11, 2001, by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and other federal agencies.

Former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other key governmental actors in the federal government's World Trade Center response will testify at the hearing. Ms. Whitman's appearance will mark the first time she has testified at a Congressional hearing dedicated solely to the EPA’s response to the World Trade Center attacks in New York and the first time she has testified on these matters since a damning EPA Inspector General’s report was released in August of 2003. This report concluded that the Administration made misleading public statements about post-9/11 air quality, based at least in part on White House interference, and has failed to provide a proper testing and cleaning of indoor spaces contaminated by WTC toxins.

Thousands of individuals exposed to World Trade Center environmental contamination are sick with respiratory illnesses and cancers, according to peer-reviewed, published medical reports. A number of deaths have also been positively linked, via government medical examiners, to exposure to these contaminants.

"At long-last, the American people will finally have their first opportunity to hear directly from former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other former government officials -- on the record," said Rep. Nadler. "Too many questions remain about the federal government’s response to post 9/11 air-quality, why certain decisions were made,
Rep. Nadler
and who was ultimately responsible for them. For the thousands that have since become sick, and the several who have died, we owe it to them to determine the absolute truth about what happened."

This hearing, and its companion Senate hearing to be conducted on June 20, 2007, by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, represent the first comprehensive Congressional oversight investigations into the federal government’s handling of post-9/11 air quality since the immediate aftermath of the attacks. While in the Majority, Republican House leadership steadfastly refused to hold a single House hearing on these matters, or even respond to a written request made in September 2003 by Nadler, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and then-Ranking Members John Conyers, John Dingell, George Miller, and Henry Waxman.

The preceding article was provided by the office of Congressman Jerrold Nadler
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Rep. Susan Davis, Senators Boxer and Lieberman
team up for service personnel's mental health

WASHINGTON (Press Release) – As the Department of Defense faces significant challenges in meeting the health care needs of servicemembers, Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-CA) introduced legislation to address those needs.

The Mental Health Care for our Wounded Warriors Act (H.R. 2612) creates centralized facilities on mental health within the defense department and addresses the shortage of mental health personnel.

“This critical legislation will address the significant mental health care issues faced by our brave service men and women,” said Rep. Davis, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “The battle against combat-related mental health injuries will be an ongoing issue.”

Currently, the defense department does not have any facilities dedicated to the understanding and treatment of mental health. Davis’s bill would establish at least two Centers of Excellence in Military Mental Health. The purpose of the facilities
Susan Davis
is to develop and implement long-term, comprehensive strategies to prevent, identify, and treat combat-related mental health conditions.

The bill would also require the defense department to report back to Congress on ways it can increase the number of mental health care professionals to meet the needs of servicemembers.

“It is our obligation to provide the resources necessary to address the absence of a designated center to study the mental health care needs of servicemembers and to provide a solution to the shortage of mental health professionals,” added Davis.

In the Senate, Senators Joseph Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) and Barbara Boxer (Democrat, California) have introduced companion legislation.

The preceding release was provided by the office of Congresswoman Susan Davis, a San Diego Democrat.

*Pitcher Jason Hirsch won his first game in nine starts and completed the first full nine-inning game in his career as the Colorado Rockies defeated the Baltimore Orioles 6-1. The box score is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune. A story on the jocular way his teammates responded is in today's Denver Post.

*Arnold Lappert, who as an Army Signal Corps radio operator received the first news of the fall of Corregidor, ironically from another Jewish serviceman, Irving Strobing, has died at 86. The New York Times News Service obituary by Richard Goldstein is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.

*Publicist Peter Levine says if Paris Hilton were his client he'd advise her to stop the bad-girl behavior and donate time after completing her jail sentence to an important and good cause. The story is in the Public Eye section of today's San Diego Union-Tribune.

*Columnist Bob Novak says Republican insiders believe President George W. Bush is on the wrong side of two controversies. He should pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and should sack U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The column is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.

*U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) said on the CBS Face the Nation news interview show that the U.S. should consider aggressive action against Iran. The item is at he end of a story in today's Los Angeles Times.

*Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with British Minister for Higher Education Bill Rammell, who announced his opposition at Hebrew University to the proposed British boycott of Israel's universities and colleges. The story by Barak Ravid is in Ha'aretz.

*U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York) was lowering expectations before today's expected no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He said if people voted their consciences, the tally would go unanimously against Gonzales, but on the other hand, President George W. Bush was exerting a lot of pressure in behalf of his nominee. A story by Richard B. Schmitt is in today's Los Angeles Times.
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The Jewish Grapevine

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CYBER-REFERRALS—This morning, Bruce Kesler spotted the story in the Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch about U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (Republican, Virginia) being one of the first bloggers in the Congress... Israel's Consulate-General in Los Angeles passes on this video responding to a charge from Islamic websites that Israel is the "neighborhood bully." And while we were surfing we found this version of Hava Nagila played on a temple lyre.

Music recipe: Jazz sextet + klezmer quintet = once in lifetime opportunity to hear the two in jam session

Yale Strom, the world’s leading klezmer artist, has been hailed as “a commanding bandleader and composer” (Pulse!), “one of the best klezmer musicians in the country” (Houston Public News), and “an all-around musical visionary” (Seth Rogovoy). Time Magazine wrote “Through his art, Strom has brought back his spiritual klezmer ancestors.” (jump to continuation)

Holocaust education...

Smith was invited to serve as co-chair of the U.S. delegation as a result of his extensive work to combat anti-Semitism and promote human rights around the globe.

“We can’t allow human rights fatigue and indifference to set in,” Smith said.
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American Association of University Professors...
(continued from above)

AAUP On Academic Boycotts (2006)

In spring 2005, the Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, in response to a controversy that was roiling the British academic community, approved a statement condemning academic boycotts. The statement declared that

since its founding in 1915, the AAUP has been committed to preserving and advancing the free exchange of ideas among academics irrespective of governmental policies and however unpalatable those policies may be viewed. We reject proposals that curtail the freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues, and we reaffirm the paramount importance of the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas.1

We affirm these core principles but provide further comment on the complexities of academic boycotts and the rationale for opposing them, and we recommend responses to future proposals to participate in them.

The Controversy

In April 2005, the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) announced a boycott of two Israeli institutions: Bar-Ilan and Haifa universities.2 The AUT asked its members to respond to the following call from some sixty Palestinian academic, cultural, and professional associations and trade unions:

In the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency, and resistance to injustice and oppression, we, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon our colleagues in the international community to comprehensively and consistently/boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization, and system of apartheid, by applying the following: (i) refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration, or joint projects with Israeli institutions; (ii) advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions; (iii) promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions; (iv) exclude from the above actions against Israeli institutions any conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state’s colonial and racist policies; (v) work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional, and cultural associations and organizations; (vi) support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

The targeting of the two universities by the AUT reflected specific and different events at each of them. It was argued that these separate events were together representative of the ways in which these institutions were acting to further a state policy likened to apartheid and therefore in violation of the academic freedom of dissenting faculty and of Palestinians.

According to its Web site, under a section titled “Boycotts,Greylisting,” the AUT “imposes or considers imposing an academic boycott on a university or college when we conclude that the actions of an institution pose a fundamental threat to the interests of members. . . . In publicly describing an institution as unfit to receive job applications, to engage in academic cooperation or host academic events, we recognize that it will cause significant damage to the university in its sphere of influence. In taking such a step, we would have to conclude that it was justified in the sense that it would be worse not to do so in the light of the circumstances.” The AUT describes an academic boycott as a weapon of last resort, its use to be approved by a meeting of the association’s full national executive committee. In recent years, the AUT called for boycotts of Nottingham University, for its refusal to honor a commitment to negotiate a pay and grading settlement; of Brunel University, because it threatened to dismiss thirty members of the academic staff and eventually dismissed two of them; and of higher education institutions in Fiji, following a coup in that country in 2000 and in response to requests for assistance from faculty in Fiji and academic unions in New Zealand and Australia.

When the AAUP learned of the 2005 call for a boycott, the Association’s staff promptly drafted, and Committee A approved, a statement that condemned any such boycotts as prima facie violations of academic freedom. The statement, cited at the beginning of this report, singled out item four of the call (which exempted dissenting Israeli faculty) as an ideological test repugnant to our principles. 3 While a meeting of an AUT Special Council voted to drop its call for the boycott within a month’s time of the initial decision and, therefore, no Israeli university was boycotted, we have been urged to give fuller consideration to the broad and unconditional nature of our condemnation of academic boycotts. We are reminded that our own complex history includes support for campus strikes, support for divestiture during the antiapartheid campaigns in South Africa, and a questioning of the requirement of institutional neutrality during the Vietnam War. In what follows we engage with the tensions that exist within some of our own policies as well as with the larger tension between a principled defense of academic freedom and the practical requirements for action.Finally, we offer a set of guidelines to address those tensions.

AAUP Policies

The Association’s defense of academic freedom, as explained in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, rests on the principle that “institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good . . . [which] depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.” Although the statement says nothing about academic boycotts, plainly the search for truth and its free expression suffer if a boycott is in place. Legitimate protest against violations of academic freedom might, of course, entail action that could be construed as contradicting our principled defense of academic freedom. One such action is the Association’s practice of censuring college or university administrations, which dates back to the early 1930s. The Association is careful to distinguish censure—which brings public attention to an administration that has violated the organization’s principles and standards—from a boycott, by leaving it to individuals to decide how to act on the information they have been given. The AAUP engages in no formal effort to discourage faculty from working at these institutions or to ostracize the institution and its members from academic exchanges, as is the case in AUT “greylisting”; but moral suasion could have such results if faculty members were to decide to have no contact with an institution on the censure list.

AAUP censure differs from the AUT boycott in other important respects. Censure is preceded by an often lengthy effort to correct, and an investigation to document, violations of AAUP policies essential to academic freedom and tenure. Censure does not rest on a finding in regard to “member interests.” Indeed, it is not required that faculty be AAUP members in order to have their complaints pursued by the organization. This is not to say, however, that the AAUP supports no practices that correspond to the AUT boycott undertaken in the interests of its members. Under AAUP policy, chapters that engage in collective bargaining can participate in a strike. Moreover, while AAUP policy states that strikes and other such actions are “not desirable for the resolution of conflicts within institutions of higher education,” it also states that in certain cases “resort to economic pressure through strikes or other work actions may be a necessary and unavoidable means of dispute resolution.”4 A strike is an economic boycott (we will distinguish among types of boycotts below), but it often involves pressures that are not exclusively economic, such as the local faculty union’s asking outside speakers not to come to a campus during a strike or the refusal of faculty elsewhere to attend conferences held on a campus where a strike is in process. So, while the AAUP insists on action that conforms to its principles, practical issues sometimes produce dilemmas that must be addressed.

AAUP History

In 1970, the AAUP published two conflicting commentaries on institutional neutrality; there followed an intense debate on the subject.5 The context was the war in Vietnam, and the question was whether universities should take a position on the war. One side, by far the majority, argued that all ideas had to be tolerated within the academy, lest the university “become an instrument of indoctrination,” and that therefore a university should not take a position on disputed public issues. The other side asked whether “perilous situations” called for extraordinary action: “It might be worthwhile to debate just how bad things would have to get before the principle of academic neutrality were no longer absolute.” While this discussion about institutional neutrality led to no policy recommendation, it raised issues that have since surfaced in discussions about academic boycotts. Are there extraordinary situations in which extraordinary actions are necessary, and, if so, how does one recognize them? How should supporters of academic freedom have treated German universities under the Nazis? Should scholarly exchange have been encouraged with Hitler’s collaborators in those universities? Can one plausibly maintain that academic freedom is inviolate when the civil freedoms of the larger society have been abrogated? If there is no objective test for determining what constitutes an extraordinary situation, as there surely is not, then what criteria should guide decisions about whether a boycott should be supported?

In 1985, the AAUP’s Seventy-first Annual Meeting called on colleges and universities “as investors to oppose apartheid,” to “decline to hold securities in banks which provide loans to the government of South Africa,” and to favor divestiture of holdings in companies that did not adhere to the Sullivan principles. The meeting also urged similar action on the part of public and private pension funds serving higher education faculty.6 Three years later, the Association’s Seventyfourth Annual Meeting urged TIAA-CREF to divest itself “of all companies doing business” in South Africa.7 Although the resolutions did not apply to exchanges among faculty and, in this sense, did not constitute an academic boycott, some argued at the time that the indirect effect of disinvestment would be harmful to university teachers and researchers. Some individuals, publishers (University Microfilms), and organizations (the American Library Association, for example) did engage in an academic boycott, but the AAUP limited its protests against apartheid to resolutions of condemnation and to divestment, because it was considered wiser to keep open lines of communication among scholars in accordance with principles of academic freedom.

Throughout its history, the AAUP has approved numerous resolutions condemning regimes and institutions that limit the freedoms of citizens and faculty, but South Africa is the only instance in which the organization endorsed some form of boycott. Indeed, the Association has often called for greater freedom of exchange among teachers and researchers at the very time that the U.S. government has imposed restrictions on these exchanges, as occurred with the Soviet Union and is still occurring with Cuba. The Association has also disputed arguments of various administrations in Washington that the requirements of national security justify halting academic travel for bona fide academic reasons or scholarly communications.

Boycotts

Though often based on assertions of fundamental principle, boycotts are not in themselves matters of principle but tactical weapons in political struggles. Different kinds of boycotts can have different results. Economic boycotts can have a direct effect on a nation’s economy; other forms of boycott are usually more symbolic. This is the case with sports boycotts, such as the exclusion from international competitions (the Olympics, for example) of a team that carries the flag of a nation whose policies members of the international community consider abhorrent. Cultural boycotts have a similar status, though they can affect the earning capacity of artists and writers who are banned from international events. Academic boycotts, too, although they certainly have material effects, are usually undertaken as symbolic protests.

In protesting against apartheid in South Africa, the AAUP carefully distinguished between economic and academic boycotts largely on matters of principle. Economic boycotts seek to bring pressure to bear on the regime responsible for violations of rights. They are not meant to impair the ability of scholars to write, teach, and pursue research, although they may have that result. Academic boycotts, in contrast, strike directly at the free exchange of ideas even as they are aimed at university administrations or, in the case of the AUT call for a boycott of Israeli universities, political parties in power. The form that noncooperation with an academic institution takes inevitably involves a refusal to engage in academic discourse with teachers and researchers, not all of whom are complicit in the policies that are being protested. Moreover, an academic boycott can compound a regime’s suppression of freedoms by cutting off contacts with an institution’s or a country’s academics. In addition, the academic boycott is usually at least once removed from the real target. Rarely are individuals or even individual institutions the issue. What is being sought is a change in state policy. The issue, then, is whether those faculty or ideas that could contribute to changing state policy are harmed when communication with outside academic institutions is cut off and how to weigh that harm against the possible political gains the pressure of an academic boycott might secure.

This issue divided opponents of apartheid within South Africa. There, in the 1980s, many liberal academics argued against the academic boycott on principled grounds (it could not be reconciled with principles of academic freedom and university autonomy) and also on practical ones (it was vital to maintain channels of international communication). Even more radical groups opposed a total boycott and urged instead a selective boycott, one that would target supporters of apartheid but not its challengers. This position, like the Palestinian call for an academic boycott that the AUT initially endorsed,introduced a political test for participation in the academy.

The Academic Boycott as a Tactic

Addressing the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela stressed the need to choose tactics carefully. “In some cases,” he wrote, “it might be correct to boycott, and in others it might be unwise and dangerous. In still other cases another weapon of political struggle might be preferred. A demonstration, a protest march, a strike, or civil disobedience might be resorted to, all depending on the actual conditions at the given time.”8

Even from a tactical standpoint, as a way of protesting against what some see as the Israeli occupation’s denial of rights to Palestinians, the academic boycott seems a weak or even a dangerous tool. It undermines exactly the freedoms one wants to defend, and it takes aim at the wrong target. Defenders of the Palestinian call for an academic boycott have argued that, as in South Africa, “the march to freedom [may] temporarily restrict a subset of freedom enjoyed by only a portion of the population.”9 But this argument assumes that the ranking of freedoms as primary and secondary is the only way to accomplish the goals of “freedom, justice, and peace” and that the academic boycott is the best or the only tool to employ. Some argue that it is appropriate to boycott those institutions that violate academic freedom. But would we wish, for example, to recommend a boycott of Chinese universities that we know constrain academic freedom, or would we not insist that the continued exchange of faculty, students, and ideas is more conducive to academic freedom in the long run? Other kinds of sanctions and protests ought to be considered. Some of them are listed in the Palestinian call we cited at the beginning of this report, such as resolutions by higher education organizations condemning violations of academic freedom whether they occur directly by state or administrative suppression of opposing points of view or indirectly by creating material conditions, such as blockades, checkpoints, and insufficient funding of Palestinian universities, that make the realization of academic freedom impossible. These and similar actions may be more effective in obtaining better conditions for academic freedom. But if boycotts are to be used at all, economic boycotts seem a preferable choice, both tactically and as a matter of principle.

Colleges and universities should be what they purport to be: institutions committed to the search for truth and its free expression. Members of the academic community should feel no obligation to support or contribute to institutions that are not free or that sail under false colors, that is, claim to be free but in fact suppress freedom. Such institutions should not be boycotted. Rather, they should be exposed for what they are, and, wherever possible, the continued exchange of ideas should be actively encouraged. The need is always for more academic freedom, not less.

Summary and Recommendations

1. In view of the Association’s long-standing commitment to the free exchange of ideas, we oppose academic boycotts.

2. On the same grounds, we recommend that other academic associations oppose academic boycotts. We urge that they seek alternative means, less inimical to the principle of academic freedom, to pursue their concerns.

3. We especially oppose selective academic boycotts that entail an ideological litmus test. We understand that such selective boycotts may be intended to preserve academic exchange with those more open to the views of boycott proponents, but we cannot endorse the use of political or religious views as a test of eligibility for participation in the academic community.

4. The Association recognizes the right of individual faculty members or groups of academics not to cooperate with other individual faculty members or academic institutions with whom or with which they disagree. We believe, however, that 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.

5. Consistent with our long-standing principles and practice, we consider other forms of protest, such as the adoption of resolutions of condemnation by higher education groups intended to publicize documented threats to or violations of academic freedom at offending institutions, to be entirely appropriate.

6. Recognizing the existence of shared concerns, higher education groups should collaborate as fully as possible with each other to advance the interests of the entire academic community in addressing academic freedom issues. Such collaboration might include joint statements to bring to the attention of the academic community and the public at large grave threats to academic freedom.

7. The Association recognizes the right of faculty members to conduct economic strikes and to urge others to support their cause. We believe, however, that in each instance those engaged in a strike at an academic institution should seek to minimize the impact of the strike on academic freedom.

8. We understand that threats to or infringements of academic freedom may occasionally seem so dire as to require compromising basic precepts of academic freedom, but we resist the argument that extraordinary circumstances should be the basis for limiting our fundamental commitment to the free exchange of ideas and their free expression.¨

JOAN WALLACH SCOTT (History), Institute for Advanced Study, chair
ERNST BENJAMIN (Political Science), Washington, D.C.
ROBERT M. O’NEIL (Law), University of Virginia
JONATHAN KNIGHT, staff
Subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure