“One responded, actually calling for a boycott of Professor Jacobson”
on May 11, 2014
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On May 5, 2014, I gave a lecture at Vassar College against the academic boycott of Israel. Originally I had challenged the 39 professors who signed a letter defending the academic boycott of Israel to debate, but none accepted the challenge.
During the Q&A, I learned for the first time from student organizer Luka Ladan that one of the professors had called for a boycott of my lecture.
The full video is here. The two anti-Israel speakers I referenced were Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah, who appeared in an event sponsored by several academic departments, the week before. Those same academic departments were asked to sponsor my appearance, but none did.
I had not made a big deal about it, although it troubled me that a professor would call for a boycott of a lecture simply because of a difference of opinion.
When I saw a Wall Street Journal column posted late this afternoon, I remembered that statement about boycotting me. Ruth Wisse, professor at Harvard, writes, The Closing of the Collegiate Mind:
There was a time when people looking for intellectual debate turned away from politics to the university. Political backrooms bred slogans and bagmen; universities fostered educated discussion. But when students in the 1960s began occupying university property like the thugs of regimes America was fighting abroad, the venues gradually reversed. Open debate is now protected only in the polity: In universities, muggers prevail....
