BDS Bully: U. Michigan Prof discriminates against student wanting to study in Israel
John Cheney-Lippold agreed to write student recommendation, but pulled it after learning student would study in Israel. So far the university is doing nothing to protect students’ academic freedom.
One of the most important developments in the academic boycott of Israel took place a couple of weeks ago.
A professor at the University of Michigan, John Cheney-Lippold, agreed to write a recommendation letter for a student, Abigail Engber, but later refused when he found out the letter would be used for the student to apply to a study abroad program in Israel.
The BDS Academic Boycott is a Violation of Academic Freedom
The professor adheres to the Academic boycott of Israel, which is part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
BDS has its roots going back over a century in anti-Jewish boycotts led by Arabs in the then British Mandate for Palestine, and then the Arab League Boycott. BDS was launched at the Tehran and Durban conferences in 2001, though BDS peddles the myth that it was launched in 2005 as a response to a call from Palestinian civil society. See my post and lecture, The REAL history of the BDS movement.
The academic boycott includes sweeping primary and secondary boycotts of Israeli academic institutions, which necessarily ends up with the boycott of individuals. The academic boycott also rejects “normalization” activities (i.e., activities that bring Arab and Jewish students together. Study abroad programs in Israel are subject to boycott.
The American Association of University Professors considers systematic academic boycotts to be a violation of academic freedom:
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.
When the American Studies Association passed a boycott resolution in December 2013, over 250 university presidents and numerous university associations rejected the boycott.
Academic BDS has been formally endorsed by over 1000 U.S. faculty. Cheney-Lippold is not a formal endorser, which reflects that there are even more faculty who adhere to the boycott even if they have not signed the BDS endorsement.
Cheney-Lippold Revokes Student Recommendation
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the basics on what Cheney-Lippold did:
Last month a student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor asked a professor for a letter of recommendation. They haggled over deadlines, and on September 5, the professor agreed. But minutes later, he withdrew his offer, for an unusual reason: The student wanted to study in Israel.
“As you may know, many university departments have pledged an academic boycott against Israel in support of Palestinians living in Palestine,” wrote John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor in the department of American culture, to the student. “This boycott includes writing letters of recommendation for students planning to study there.”
“I should have let you know earlier,” he continued, “and for that I apologize. But for reasons of these politics, I must rescind my offer to write your letter.” …
No department at Michigan supports such an academic boycott of Israel, said Rick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the university, in a statement to The Chronicle. “Injecting personal politics into a decision regarding support for our students is counter to our values and expectations as an institution,” the statement read. The University of Michigan “has consistently opposed” any academic boycott of Israel, Fitzgerald said.
The screenshot of the message from Cheney-Lippold makes clear that prior to learning that the student would be studying in Israel, he agreed to write the recommendation.
Cheney-Lippold’s actions were a clear violation of the student’s academic freedom. He can boycott Israel, if he wants, and he can endorse the anti-Semitic BDS movement too.
But when a professor forces the academic boycott on a student, the professor crosses a line. It is an unethical use of the power professors hold over students.
Cheney-Lippold’s actions pretty clearly violates the Statement on Professional Ethics of the American Association of University Professors, which provides in relevant part:
As teachers, professors encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline. Professors demonstrate respect for students as individuals and adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors. Professors make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student’s true merit. They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student. They avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from them. They protect their academic freedom.
All of this could be predicted. I’ve covered the academic boycott for years, and repeatedly pointed out that the academic boycott inevitably would be used to deprive students of educational opportunities.
I have little doubt that there is a de facto boycott imposed on students, and that pro-BDS professors like Cheney-Lippold regularly deprive students of educational opportunities. Cheney-Lippold simply stated explicitly what others do surreptitiously.
Demand for Disciplinary Action
The U. Michigan reaction has been muted, refusing to take any action against Cheney-Lippold so far.
A coalition of groups has demanded that U. Michigan take action to protect students from BDS professors who seek to deprive students of educational opportunities:
September 21, 2018
Dear President Schlissel,
We are 58 religious, civil rights and education advocacy groups writing to you about an incident of grave concern to our organizations and our hundreds of thousands of members and supporters.
Earlier this month a University of Michigan faculty member in the department of American Culture, Prof. John Cheney-Lippold, refused to write a letter of recommendation for one of his students applying to study abroad at Tel Aviv University. Cheney-Lippold unabashedly disclosed that the sole reason for his refusal is that the academic boycott guidelines forbid “writing letters of recommendation for students planning to study” in Israel.
Impeding a student’s ability to participate in a university-approved educational program in order to carry out political activism is reprehensible. Individual faculty members have the right to express public support for an academic boycott of Israel. But when faculty like Prof. Cheney-Lippold go as far as implementing the boycott’s guidelines by taking action to suppress students’ ability to travel to or study about Israel, they have abrogated the most basic professorial responsibility of promoting the academic welfare of their students. Such discriminatory behavior that impedes the rights of students must be sanctioned to the fullest extent of university policy.
We are aware that on 9/18/18 your office issued a public statement reiterating the university’s opposition to the academic boycott of Israel and stating that the academic goals of U-M students “are of paramount importance” and that the university will “take all steps necessary to make sure our students are supported.” With all due respect, this statement is simply insufficient to assure students, their parents, and all other U-M stakeholders that you recognize the egregiousness of this incident. Of particular concern are the omission in your statement of any condemnation of Cheney-Lippold’s behavior and your statement acknowledging that “members of the University of Michigan community have a wide range of ‘individual’ opinions on this and many other topics.” Both your omission and inclusion give the impression that individual U-M professors will be permitted by your administration to discriminate against students wanting to study about and in Israel. This is deeply alarming, given that there are at least two dozen U-M faculty members in a number of departments who have expressed public support for the academic boycott of Israel, including seven faculty members currently serving as chairs and directors of U-M academic departments and programs. Left unaddressed, this isolated incident could lead to unchecked discrimination, and the denial to students of their fundamental rights.
And while we appreciate your own remarks that were posted yesterday, in which you acknowledge that “personal views and politics should never interfere with our support of students,” these remarks, too, do not go far enough.
We therefore call on you to make a public statement specifically stating that this behavior will not be permitted, affirming your commitment to ensuring that no U-M student will be impeded from studying about or in Israel, and detailing the steps you will take to ensure that faculty do not implement an academic boycott of Israel at the University of Michigan.
Alan Dershowitz, writing in The Hill, explained Refusing study in Israel is a bitter lesson in discrimination:
Academic freedom may permit a professor to advocate a boycott against Israeli (or any other) universities, misguided as that may be. But it does not permit a professor to actually discriminate against one of his students based on invidious factors. A teacher must treat all of his students fairly and equally, without regard to their religious, political or ethnic views or identities. Just as academic freedom would permit a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Muslim or anti-Jewish professor to express his bigoted views outside the classroom, so too academic freedom would protect Professor Cheney-Lippold for expressing anti-Israeli views — but it does not protect him from discriminating against a student who has different views.
Detroit Free-Press columnist Mitch Albom had one of the better op-eds exposing Cheney-Lippold’s breach of duty, Michigan professor let politics dictate student’s education:
“Everybody has the right to withhold something,” Cheney-Lippold told the Washington Post, “and I chose to exercise that right based on what the movement needs from me as a solidarity activist.”
The “movement” he refers to is BDS, which stands for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions, a campaign that promotes various boycotts against Israel. And while Cheney-Lippold has every right to be a follower, when he says he’s doing what “the movement needs from me as a solidarity activist,” I might suggest U-M ask him, “What about what we need from you as a teacher?”
Which, unlike BDS, they pay him for.
Since when does a professor get to inject his politics ahead of a student’s academics? No, he is not required to write a recommendation letter, but the reasons should be that the student doesn’t warrant it or hasn’t earned it. Not because, despite the student’s apparent merit, he has got an issue with the location.
When Cheney-Lippold says, “everybody has the right to withhold something,” he’s conveniently ignoring his actual job. Would he be tolerated if he decided to withhold office hours, or marking a paper, because he didn’t like the politics of where a particular student came from?
Of course not. He’d be gone in a minute. So where is any U-M action on this blatantly capricious act — not to mention what some feel is his not-so-subtle antisemitism, a charge the teacher denies? You wonder if Cheney-Lippold refused to write a recommendation for a Muslim student wanting to study at the University of Damascus, citing Syria’s human rights record, would everyone be so quiet?
To date, while U-M has said it does not support boycotts of Israel, it has done nothing to Cheney-Lippold except issue a general statement that didn’t mention his name. It included this sentence:
“Injecting personal politics into a decision regarding support for our students is counter to our values and expectations as an institution.”
Well, OK. Do something about it.
A faculty body also has rejected Cheney-Lippold’s actions:
An executive faculty body at the University of Michigan on Monday urged professors to base their letters of recommendations on “student’s merit,” after a professor refused to write one due to his support for academic boycotts of Israel….
In affirming its opposition to such conduct, SACUA pointed to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), whose guidelines call on professors to “avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students,” and to “encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students.”
Per these directives by the AAUP — which has in the past rejected academic boycotts, including of Israel — “faculty should let a student’s merit be the primary guide for determining how and whether to provide such a letter,” the SACUA resolution noted.
Anti-Israel Professors Come To Cheney-Lippold’s Defense
Despite all this criticism, Cheney-Lippold is not backing down, and he is finding plenty of support from anti-Israel groups:
The Arab-American Civil Rights League has issued a statement in response to the University of Michigan professor John Cheney-Lippold’s rescinded offer to write a recommendation letter for LSA junior Abigail Ingber, who hoped to study abroad in Israel….
The ACRL expressed support for the BDS movement in their statement, stating its roots in civil rights. ACRL also says the University infringed on professors’ rights to free speech and expression of public support for the academic boycott of Israel.
“The ACRL will always stand by any effort to deter and prohibit discrimination, but it does take a firm stance against efforts to suppress free speech,” the statement reads. “And while we understand your position acknowledging that ‘personal views and politics should never interfere with our support of students,’ individual faculty members have the right to express public support for an academic boycott of Israel, and that right is no less important than a student’s preference in education.”
The ACRL urged the University to reconsider its stance on the BDS movement and support students and faculty who agree with the movement.
Some of the most noxious and notorious academic BDS professors have rallied around Cheney-Lippold, Standing with John Cheney-Lippold:
As educators, we have the ethical responsibility to stand by our political convictions, to advance social justice, and to expose falsehoods and partial truths. Given the United States’ extraordinary financial and military aid to Israel, Americans have a particular responsibility to put pressure on Israel. People of conscience, like Cheney-Lippold, have the responsibility to defend the equal treatment of all members of society and to take peaceful steps to oppose oppression.
Trump appointees Betsy DeVos, head of the Department of Education, and former Brandeis Center President Kenneth Marcus, head of the Civil Rights Division of that department, have advanced a policy that aims to limit advocacy of Palestinian human rights on US university campuses. DeVos and Marcus have made it clear that the current US administration will ignore principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech in order to repress all criticism of Israeli state policies. In this context, Cheney-Lippold’s decision is an exemplary expression of his professional and political rights. Rather than malign Professor Cheney-Lippold, scholars should applaud his courage, which will inspire others to take a stand and oppose Israel study abroad programs. We join him in affirming that we, also, do not write letters of recommendations in support of student participation in Israel study abroad programs. We also call on our colleagues to refuse to participate in Study Abroad in Israel programs by endorsing our pledge at http://usacbi.org/boycott-study-abroad-in-israel/#pledge
The letter was signed by:
Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University.
Cynthia Franklin, Professor of English, University of Hawaii
Terri Ginsberg, The American University in Cairo
Salah Hassan, Michigan State University
David Klein, Professor of Mathematics, California State University Northridge
Adam Miyashiro, Stockton University
Bill V. Mullen, Professor of American Studies Purdue University
David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Stanford University
Andrew Ross, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University
Snehal Shingavi, Professor of English, University of Texas
As of this writing, over 800 people have signed a petition in support of Cheney-Lippold.
Not surprisingly, the anti-Semitic group misleadingly named “Jewish Voice for Peace” has come to Cheney-Lippold’s defense:
This Unethical Bully Must Be Disciplined To Protect Students
John Cheney-Lippold is an unethical bully who does not deserve the position of trust he holds. He abused that trust to damage a student’s academic freedom and education, and must be held to account.
This is not a First Amendment issue, it’s an issue of conduct on the job that violated U. Michigan policy rejecting the academic boycott of Israel. This also is not a matter of Cheney-Lippold’s academic freedom. He could refuse to write recommendation letters for anyone, but once he takes on that responsibility in his capacity of a faculty member, he cannot discriminate and cannot impose his own politics on students.
What form that discipline takes will depend on U. Michigan policies and procedures. But if U. Michigan does nothing, it is opening the door to dozens of other professors forcing their political choices on students.
Repeatedly over the last several years I’ve made the point that BDS will destroy academia long before it destroys Israel. That’s playing out at U. Michigan right now, where a pro-BDS professor has launched what amounts to an academic war on a student.
[Note to readers: This is a story that, under normal circumstances, I would have reached soon after it happened, not two weeks later. Due to personal and work commitments, and the crush of Kavanaugh news, I was not able to find the time until now.]
[Featured Image: John Cheney-Lippold at Chicago Humanities Festival, 2015]
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Comments
The professor has the discretion on whether or not to submit a recommendation. We have the discretion to note his actions and condemn them. It’s unfortunate for the student that he is being a political dick, but he does have that freedom. Would you prefer universities start telling professors when they have to make recommendations?
PS he looks like Dwight from the walking dead.
Given that he admitted he would have given her the recommendation but for his politics, no he does not have that freedom as an employee to discriminate on the basis of politics when his employer says he does not. But it appears UM administration doesn’t have the balls to rectify the situation.
OTOH, destruction of the university as presently constituted I would generally consider a good thing. Not the hard sciences, Math and Engineering Departments but the rest can be restructured and some eliminated. Fewer Sociology type grads and more plumbers would be a boon to the country and eliminate a lot of student debt.
Yes he does…he’s not the student’s employer.
You are conflating the workplace environment with the academic one. Professors have leeway in where they submit their recommendations and for whom. I would not work somewhere that forced me to write a recommendation for any student for any reason, no matter the cause. It would cease to be a genuine recommendation at that point.
Replace Jew with gay and I guarantee you every transgender liberal tree hugging pinko commie fuck this side of the Volga would be agitating for the removal of the professor without delay.
Its just that some racism is acceptable, especially if it involves Jews.
Nice strawman hypothetical. Elegantly unconvincing.
Uh, no. In this case the “workplace environment” for the professor is the academic one and in any case he still must obey federal and state laws, and the university’s regulations. One can’t claim the “academic freedom” to violate state and federal laws.
He needs to be sued and so does the university.
The transparent, self-congratulatory egotism and preening vanity that accompanies this odious and unabashed anti-Semitism is nauseating — bigotry as conformist fashion statement. “Oh, look at me — I’m such an enlightened Leftist intellectual, supporting oppressed peoples, everywhere!!!”
This professor isn’t even aware, apparently, that the entire conceit of “Palestinians” and “Palestine” is a contrived propaganda device, conceived by the PLO, in conjunction with Soviet operatives. Jews lived in “Palestine” centuries before Islam and its adherents arrived on the scene.
Orwellian control of the past to control the future. That is why the battle has to be fought in the present to preserve the past.
Everything after The Prophet (PBUH ..or else) is solely Islam’s be it Israel or North Africa to start with. The professor doesn’t get it that the ground that he stands on is not his but “theirs”.
Its simple: the left is a fascist movement. The enemy of their enemy is their friend.
This is how genocide begins.
I like how the coward implies that it is the “department” that is making him do it.
Sue the bigot. Sue his ass off. Sue the school’s ass off.
Let’s make sure we show up, wherever we have to show up, and if you see Cheney-Lippold in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome, anymore, anywhere.
“Jewish Voice for Peace” is about as phony as “American Civil Liberties Union,” the “Southern Christian Poverty Center,” “Media Matters,” “NBC News,” “Republican Leadership,” “Attorney General Jeff Sessions,” “Barack Hussein Obama,” and the like.
Brand them as such.
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the ultra-Left outfit which the Clinton administration made mainstream by using them as “experts” on “domestic terrorism” (the so-called Militia Movement). The SPLC has raked in so much in donations and government contracts as “experts” that the organization has off-shore bank accounts.
Most faculty members try to help their students achieve their goals regardless of their political viewpoints. I once represented two of my students (who were SDS members) before Harvard’s notorious CRR, the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities, in the early 1970s. They were erroneously accused of shouting down a South Vietnamese speaker (currently called de-platforming), together with other SDS members.
I firmly opposed the goals and tactics of the SDS, but the videos backed my students’ claim that they did not participate in the shouting down of the speaker. I represented my students, not because I agreed with them, but because they were innocent. I hope that most faculty members (and maybe Senators, too) would do the same.
I could never see myself refusing to write a recommendation because my political beliefs are different from my student’s. I have written many recommendations for my students to work in left-leaning businesses and non-profit organizations. If that’s what they want to do, that’s their business, not mine.
I agree with this 100%.
And yet you support an Associate Professor’s “right” to refuse to write a recommendation for one of his students after he had committed to writing the recommendation. His change of heart had nothing to do with the student’s qualifications or work which earned her the recommendation, he denied her the promised recommendation because he found his political ideology was more important than supporting his otherwise deserving student.
Enough talk, it’s time for action! One of the Jewish defense organizations that signed the letter to the UM president should provide Abigail with legal counsel to explore what legal remedies are available to her. At the very least, it seems that the UM professor’s conduct in first agreeing and then declining to write the letter of recommendation breached UM’s contract with Abigail. She paid for the course. Implied in every contract is the duty of fair-dealing.
There may also be national origin discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A complaint should be lodged with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.
The professor supports the people who have one objective: to kill every Jew in Israel. He denies the right of Jews to defend themselves. Treat him like the piece of dirt that he is.
Sorry, but I don’t understand how the professor can throw stones while he subjects the rest of us to a bully like Rags.
How can you criticize the university for not doing anything when you can’t even police your own blog?
Jordan Petterson tells us to clean our own room before we try to change the world.
Does anyone take rags seriously? All he-she-it does is project a sourpuss persona, while tossing around juvenile insults. I find it hard to imagine anyone of less significance than Rags.
Agreed, but is that really relevant? Should we ignore the BDS movement against Israel because no one takes them seriously?
I’m sure that neither of you has any idea of how stupid you look as you chatter about how irrelevant my comments are when one of you is lobbying to silence me via direct insults to the Prof. and the other is aping it with additional lies.
Rags any proof that you use wikipedia makes you the one without intelligence haven’t you ever googled the RDA resource description and access or resource data alliance. Metadata cataloging the anglo-American for the last 30 years wiki is corrupted as was muslim obama. Google Alexander Street Press and ignorant obama’s CIE advancing the study of modern Israel with his http://www.israeled.com trying to change Israel’s education or obama’s http://www.quadcitieschambers.com and obama’s http://www.topisraelinterns.com; and the “new arab” latest news analysis from palestine http://www.alaraby.co.uk/palestine http://www.alarby.co.uk/palestine obama’s http://www.militarydefense.com lol murrah saudi arabia like murrah Oklahoma
And I’m not going to even get the courtesy of a response, am I?
Oh, I think you did. Just the one you deserve.
Heh…!!!
Just as Rags got one he deserved.
I didn’t ask for a response, as I was attacked out of nowhere.
I keep looking for any suggestion of intelligence from you. So far…nada.
Hi, Fen. You’re welcome.
The retraction of the offer and any subsequent disciplinary action of the professor is of greater value to the student than the original offer of the letter.
Interesting. Presumably the Israeli university will have the issue of refusal to impact the application. The only loss she will apparently have is whatever specific academics related comments he might have otherwise provided in a letter of recommendation.
That might work well for her.
What would be interesting would be to see which universities this professor has written student recommendation for them to attend. Does he have the same “concerns” about the University of Beijing or Moscow or Pakistan?
That aside, The Professor can refuse to write a recommendation for a student to study at ny any university that he objects to. On the other hand, the student can take her money to an educational institution which has her best interests at heart. The U of M has a long history of Muslim extremist appeasement. Any non-Muslim who voluntarily attends that university is simply throwing their money away, as they are automatically a second class citizen.
The University of Michigan has long been a left-wing sewer. Just recently the Court of Appeals has found it in violation of student’s rights in a sex abuse case. What is needed nationally is a shake=up of the university and college system. No society can long survive if it places control over education in the hands of those who hate that society. As a first step, the Michigan legislature should withhold any funding from the University of Michigan until takes firm action in this case–i.e., dismisses the scumbag.