Cary Nelson
SPME, Aug. 13, 2024
“It would be perhaps the first time in history that reflective philosopher kings alone have organized mass action.”
Last week, the American Association of University Professors set aside its hundred-year defence of academic freedom by opening the door to any number of individually initiated academic boycotts. Individual students and faculty have always had the right to advocate for academic boycotts, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. But an unqualified right “to make their own choices regarding their participation in them” and not face discipline for doing so validates “rights” that have not previously existed.
That will include the right to refuse to write letters of recommendation for highly qualified students who wish to study at Israeli universities, an action that will be defended as only boycotting Israeli institutions. Not that any affected student will accept the distinction.
I predict that hundreds of those and other individual micro-boycotts of Jewish and Israeli students and faculty will be initiated during the 2024-25 academic year as a consequence of the AAUP policy change. There will also be dedicated group efforts to criminalize collaborative research projects between faculty in America and Israel, projects that often entail institutional endorsement and support.. … [To read the full article, click here]