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American Studies Association Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 10, 2015 3 Comments
On November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed the infamous "Zionism Is Racism" Resolution 3379. The Resolution was revoked in 1991, but the theme remains the same among those who want to destroy Israel. You can attend just about any Boycott Divestment and Sanctions rally, "Jewish Voice for Peace" protest, "Campaign to End the Occupation" conference, and you will here vile rhetoric similar to that of Resolution 3379. You'll also hear it at some faculty associations where BDS resolutions have passed, such as the American Studies Association, and other associations where it is under consideration, such as the American Anthropological Association. "Zionism is Racism" in words or concept is the rallying cry of Students for Justice in Palestine and a host of other anti-Israel campus groups, as well. The oldest hate endures, taking new forms but never changing its tune. So it's worth considering the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan in opposition to that Resolution, which we covered before in my December 15, 2013 post, American Studies Association about to pass odious equivalent of Zionism is Racism resolution. Here is an excerpt from his speech could just as easily be given today, tomorrow or any other day:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 28, 2015 5 Comments
Last year we highlighted a debate within the American Anthropological Association as to whether to boycott Israel, and how the anti-Israel activists had stacked the deck, Anti-Israel academic boycotters rig debate at American Anthropological Association. That stacked deck recently resulted in a one-sided report calling for action against Israel, though a full boycott similar to what the American Studies Association adopted was only one of the potential actions discussed. The ideological nature of the boycott push is clear in the Report, in which the authors explicitly applied a "settler colonialism" construct (see Report, starting at page 11), which is the prism through which boycott advocates view Israel itself (not just the "occupation" of the West Bank) as illegitimate:
... We found the “settler colonialism” frame suggested by many of our interlocutors to capture some aspects of the relationship of the Israeli government to Palestinians that concerned us and we present that frame first....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 30, 2015 10 Comments
This is really rich. The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is extremely aggressive on campus, something we have documented hundreds of times. That aggressiveness is carried out on the streets and campus areas by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), whose aggressive actions are meant to and do intimidate other students. Here is how SJP acted at Cornell when pro-Israel students silently held pro-Israel signs:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 05, 2015 10 Comments
In the spring of 2014, a series of ugly incidents rocked the campus of Vassar College, a small liberal arts college just north of New York City. It started with a boycott protest against a course that involved travel to Israel and the West Bank, including forcing a professor and students to walk a gauntlet of people ululating (audio example here). It culminated in the posting on social media of a Nazi cartoon portraying Jewish control of the U.S. The group mounting the protest and posting the plainly anti-Semitic cartoon was Vassar Students for Justice in Palestine. The series of events was ignited by passage of an academic boycott of Israel by the American Studies Association, a rejection of the boycott by Vassar's president (along with 250 other university presidents), and a counter-reaction by 39 Vassar professors who defended the boycott.  SJP took it from there. It's all detailed in my post Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar and a series of follow up posts, including about my debate challenge to the 39 professors (which was not accepted): With everything happening on the anti-Israel boycott front, both good and bad, Vassar had faded a little from memory, until I saw a July 3, 2015 Op-Ed in The Washington Post by Jill Schneiderman, one of the two Vassar professors teaching the boycotted course. For Schneiderman, the memories obviously haven't faded, and remain raw. The Op-Ed is How academic efforts to boycott Israel harm our students. Read the whole thing. Here is an excerpt:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 24, 2015 5 Comments
The anti-Israel activists employed as professors who led the fight at the American Studies Association to pass the academic boycott of Israel in December 2013, have been patting themselves on the back ever since. Forget that over 250 university presidents and the major academic organizations condemned the move as a gross violation of academic freedom.  Even the NY Times called the ASA a "pariah." The ASA humiliatingly had to back down from its plan to bar representatives of Israeli academic institutions from its annual meeting, eventually promising that even Bibi Netanyahu could attend. The profs seething with hatred of Israel, and anti-Zionist websites which promoted their academic boycott agenda, saw it differently. In their own minds, they were on the cusp of a historic anti-Israel paradigm change. The future belonged to the boycotters, in their minds. The reality has not worked out that way.  Other than some very small faculty organizations, no major academic group has adopted the boycott. No university in the U.S. is even considering a boycott. But the hyperbolic hateful rhetoric by the profs did have an effect.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 17, 2015 1 Comment
The academic boycott of Israel has generated a lot of attention and noise in the past few weeks, even though it has not generated much actual boycotting. No university in the U.S. is considering a boycott, as far as I know, and in many ways ties are expanding. The American Studies Association and a handful of much smaller faculty professional organizations have adopted the boycott, but even ASA had to back down from its key provision excluding most Israeli academics from its annual meeting. There have been, and undoubtedly will be more, attempts to get larger faculty organizations to adopt the boycott, but so far that has not happened. There are complaints from some Israelis also of an undeclared boycott of them personally in the humanities, with some American professors refusing to interact. But beyond the actual results, there is no doubt that the academic boycott movement is a malicious attack not just on Israel, but also on our entire academic system. It is led by some of the most outrageous campus characters, the rhetoric often is abusive, and the environment hostile and threatening. It is no wonder that over 250 university presidents, as well as major academic groups like the American Association of University Professors, condemned the ASA academic boycott. Over 100 members of Congress also signed a letter condemning the ASA. Soon we may be able to add a formal House Resolution to the list.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 15, 2015 4 Comments
We have been tracking the descent of the American Studies Association into an anti-Israel political operation ever since the ASA's boycott of Israel was proposed in late November 2013. Scroll though our American Studies Association Tag for the full history. The ASA move was part of the larger Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel. Most recently, we covered the ASA's discriminatory admission policy at its Annual Meeting in November 2014, which by ASA written policy was to exclude representatives of Israeli academic insitutions and was to apply a discriminatory litmus test to Israeli faculty members. After a threat of legal action against the hosting hotel under California's anti-discrimination laws, the ASA changed its policy and announced that even Bibi Netanyahu was welcome at the annual meeting. There was some small hope that the ASA would reconsider or at least moderate its academic boycott ways, but that seems highly unlikely in light of recent elections of a new president-elect and governing national council. The ASA's 2015 Election Results solidified the grip of the BDS movement on the supposedly educational tax-exempt organization.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 04, 2015 4 Comments
At the American Historical Association annual meeting in New York City, an anti-Israel group called Historians Against the War sought to present two anti-Israel resolutions (here and here). Neither resolution called for a boycott of Israel, because they knew that would not pass (the AHA apparently is not controlled by anti-Israel radical activists, unlike the American Studies Association). So in a strategy we have seen at the Modern Language Association, a resolution condemning alleged Israeli offenses against Palestinian academic freedom was offered. (It failed at MLA, btw.) This is the stepping stone approach -- first get a resolution condemning, then later come back with a boycott resolution. The resolutions were factually inaccurate and engaged in unsubstantiated hyperbole. But the resolution sponsors missed the November 1 deadline for the resolutions to be considered at the business meeting. Only an affirmative vote at the business meeting could send the resolutions to a full membership vote. So the anti-Israel activists sought to have the business meeting rules suspended. That would require at least a 100 person quorum and a two-thirds vote. Based on the Twitter feed, it appears that the motion to suspend the rules met spirited opposition on a variety of grounds, including the lack of good grounds for missing the deadline, the importance of providing adequate time to fact check the resolution, and the merits of the ultimate resolution. The vote at the business meeting was taken just minutes ago.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 07, 2014 1 Comment
The American Studies Association annual meeting, which started yesterday, had a panel of faculty opposed to the ASA's anti-Israel academic boycott. That panel came against the backdrop of ASA being forced to abandon its previous written policy of excluding representatives of Israeli academic institutions under threat of legal action against the hosting hotel. Apparently, the anti-BDS panel's mere existence was upsetting to some boycott supporters, including Micki McGee of Fordham, who was in the spotlight when she filed a university religious discrimination complaint against a fellow professor who objected to the boycott. Fordham rejected the charge. Inside Higher Ed reports:
It was just the first day of the American Studies Association’s annual meeting here Thursday, but tensions surrounding the organization’s year-old academic boycott of Israel were already flaring. The flashpoint was an anti-boycott panel that sought to explore such questions as the role of political ideology in academic debate, whether the Israel-Palestine conflict is within the purview of the ASA, and whether academic boycotts are a legitimate means to political ends. But while some attendees said they appreciated the panelists' thoughts, others accused them of perpetuating a “for” or “against” line of thinking they said has done irreparable damage to the discipline.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 02, 2014 8 Comments
We have covered the academic boycott of Israel extensively, focusing on the American Studies Association. Recently, in connection with the ASA annual meeting this week in Los Angeles, we reported on ASA's discriminatory policy to bar attendance by representatives of Israeli Universities or any Israeli academic holding a representative title such as Dean or Rector. After a letter alerting the hotel hosting the ASA annual meeting, The Westin Bonaventure, to the hotel's legal obligations and potential liability, the ASA changed its position. The legal challenge was that hotels are bound by laws barring anti-discrimination in public accommodation, and therefore have a legal duty not to knowingly permit discrimination on the premises. In reaction, ASA denied that it ever had the discriminatory policy which ASA in fact published multiple times and had on its website. ASA even announced that it welcomed Bibi Netanyahu to the conference. In another development, as reported by Eugene Kontorovich at Volkokh Conspiracy at The Washington Post, The Times of Israel, and JNS, among others, the Rector [Dean] of the University of Haifa is taking up the challenge, and sending an official representative to the ASA conference. As part of my occasional and continuing efforts to access new audiences, I have a column about the ASA conference at the O.C. Register, Unfairly singling out Israelis. In the column, I examine how the public and the hotel would have reacted if the discrimination were directed at any national origin group other than Israelis. OC Register Unfairly Singling Out Israelis Here is an excerpt:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 21, 2014 1 Comment

Ever since I started covering the anti-Israel academic boycott of the American Studies Association in December 2013, I have interacted with some of its members who are reasonable people concerned about the direction the ASA has taken.  But those voices have been drowned out by a shrill and vocal minority.

A little publicized fact is that less than one quarter of the membership voted in favor of the boycott (and depending on which membership numbers you use, perhaps as few as 16%), but it was enough to change the course of the organization due to low overall participation.

Once known as a somewhat obscure but well-regarded organization, ASA now is a pariah (as the NY Times described it) because of the boycott. ASA has become the poster child for how a relatively small group of anti-Israel radicals can take over key committees of a relatively small organization and leverage that power for a political agenda.

In this case, the agenda is the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, conceived of and scripted at the anti-Semitic 2001 Durban conference.  Part of the Durban script was to have Palestinian civil groups issue a call for a boycott.  That took place, and now groups like ASA cite the civil call for a boycott as their justification, ignoring its roots and preplanning.

At a time when the Humanities and Social Sciences are suffering and Ph.D. graduate students in fields like American Studies have few job prospects, the leadership and activists at ASA devote their energies to demonizing and delegitimizing Israel.

During this year's annual meeting, an entire day will be devoted to an offsite program run by ASA's Activism Caucus (yes, there really is such a thing) to teach faculty from around the country how to boycott Israeli universities, faculty, and scholars. ASA in a real sense has become a political activist organization.

The boycott, as applied to ASA's annual meeting, was discriminatory, and the hotel was put on notice that the hotel had potential liability.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 18, 2014 10 Comments
We have covered the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel since inception, and compiled the definitive list and accompanying statements of universities and associations rejecting the boycott.  Scroll through the ASA Tag for the full history. The short version is that the boycott targeted all Israeli academic institutions, and importantly, faculty and scholars acting on behalf of the institutions either as representatives, ambassadors or by virtue of administrative status. From the earliest days of the ASA boycott, ASA tried to make a distinction between individuals and institutions, as if boycotting an institution was not also boycotting the people who worked there. That was a critical charade, because the boycotting of individuals was too odious even for many people supporting the academic boycott.  So ASA could have a boycott of individuals while pretending it was not boycotting individuals. That ASA distinction was set forth in a December 4, 2013 statement of the ASA National Council supporting the boycott and advocating for membership approval:
Our resolution understands boycott as limited to a refusal on the part of the Association in its official capacities to enter into formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions, or on behalf of the Israeli government ....
That is a distinction ASA made throughout its public statements and position papers -- if you were a representative of an Israeli institution, or if you had an administrative title, you were boycotted. For example, a form letter ASA distributed to members to be given to university administrators made the same distinction:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2014 11 Comments
We have covered extensively the anti-Israel academic boycott passed by the American Studies Association, including yesterday when Doron Ben-Atar, a Fordham University History Professor, revealed that he had been subjected to "religious discrimination" charges by the pro-boycott head of Fordham's American Studies Department, Micki McKnee, after he called the boycott anti-Semitic. Ben-Atar was cleared of that charge but faces administrative threats for vowing to "fight" the ASA boycott. The ASA is having its annual meeting in Los Angeles in early November at the Westin Bonaventure. The ASA has stated that it will apply its boycott rules to exclude from the conference Israeli academic institutions and any individual Israeli academics who are there on behalf of their institutions or who hold administrative capacity (e.g. Dean). Only individual Israelis who pass the test of not being there in a representative capacity will be allowed to attend. These rules are unique to Israelis, and constitute national origin discrimination and potentially religious discrimination in violation of California's expansive anti-discrimination and public accommodation laws. That puts the Westin Bonaventure at legal risk, because those discriminatory rules are being applied at a conference on its premises. The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by Jay Sekulow, has sent a letter to the Westin Bonaventure, its owner and operating management, alerting them to the Westin Bonaventure's legal risk and obligations. The letter is posted on the ACLJ website and press release, and reads in part:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 13, 2014 19 Comments
In December 2013, the American Studies Association passed an academic boycott of Israel, the first group of substantial size to do so. That led to a massive outpouring of outrage and rejection by over 250 university presidents and numerous university associations, not to mention the American Association of University Professors. The ASA boycott was passed with less than 20% of the membership voting for it, but so few people participated that it was enough. The anti-Israel political activists who dominated the ASA "activism" caucus and national council used their influence to the utmost, something we have detailed here repeatedly. The opposition to the boycott resulted in the ASA playing victim, claiming that criticism of the boycott and steps by university presidents to reject the boycott somehow was an infringement of the boycotters' academic freedom. As if academic freedom meant freedom from criticism and the ability to politicize an issue only when pro-boycott. But it appears that in the trenches, the attacks on those opposing the boycott have been even more vicious. One such incident involved Fordham professor Doron Ben-Atar, who writes about his experience at The Tablet today, Kafka Was the Rage:
The email arrived on the last Friday afternoon of the spring term shortly before 5:00 p.m. Anastasia Coleman, Fordham’s Director of Institutional Equity and Compliance, and its Title IX Coordinator, wanted to meet with me. “It has been alleged,” she wrote, “that you may have acted in an inappropriate way and possibly discriminated against another person at the University.” ... “Did it have anything to do with a student?” I shot back anxiously, hoping to get a sense of my predicament before the director left for the weekend. I was lucky. Coleman responded immediately. “This does not involve students and is about your behavior regarding American Studies.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2014 2 Comments
We previously mentioned that a pro-Academic Freedom Petition was circulating among faculty and researchers, specifically objecting to the academic boycott of Israel passed by a small number of groups, such as the American Studies Association. The Petition has now passed 1200 signatures, mostly from faculty at universities in the United States, but including some international faculty, researchers and scholars. This is an important development, as some anti-Israel activist groups misleadingly attempt to portray academia as stifling speech hostile to Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there is a pervasive campus climate of hostility to Israel led by pro-boycott faculty, concentrated in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The anti-Israel academic boycott covers  Israeli institutions of higher education, and demands termination of exchange programs, terms abroad programs in Israel,  academic cooperation, and any attempt at normalization of relations among scholars.  The comprehensive boycott of these institutions by its nature includes a boycott of the faculty and staff at such institutions. In practice, the boycott such as that of the ASA, includes refusing attendance at conferences by the individuals representing such institutions or who carry administrative titles.  It is a boycott of individuals. The faculty supporting the academic boycott of Israel disregard calls by over 250 university presidents, numerous university associations, and the American Association of University Professors, that such systematic academic boycotts threaten the academic freedom of all of us. The anti-Israel boycotters have taken over some professional organizations, where a relatively small number of activists can manipulate key committees and national councils. But the academic boycotters do not represent the majority. This Petition is just a first step in the silent majority in the academic community speaking up -- not to take sides in the Middle East dispute, but to speak out against those who bring the war into the classrooms and hallways regardless of the consequences.  Enough already. The Petition remains open, and more signatures are anticipated as the word spreads. [caption id="attachment_100289" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://facultyforacademicfreedom.org/ (Click on Image to go to Petition page)[/caption] You don’t have to be “pro-Israel” to sign — only pro-academic freedom, pro-fairness, pro-intellectual honesty, pro-education and pro-peace. Here’s an excerpt from the Petition:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 05, 2014 3 Comments
We have posted many times about how the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, through faculty and Students for Justice in Palestine branches, has turned campuses and classrooms into political battlefields in the worst way. When Northeastern University SJP marches to the chant of "Long Live the Intifada," they are celebrating the bloody suicide bombing campaign. When Vassar College SJP pickets a class and forces a professor to walk the guantlet just because the course involved a trip to Israel, and anti-Israel students jeer Jewish students who spoke up for Israel, they are sending a message of continued conflict -- so it was no surprise when Vassar SJP tweeted out a Nazi cartoon. When NYU SJP dorm storms and invades the privacy of students in their dorm rooms to leaflet against Israel, they bring the war into bedrooms. When the faculty members of American Studies Association bring the war to campus through an academic boycott of Israel led by people whose explicit goal is the destruction of Israel, it sends a message to students that to be pro-Israel is to be unacceptable in the classroom. When faculty are willing to destroy academic freedom for everyone in order to hurt Israel, yet play victim when their own academic freedom allegedly is impinged, the argument no longer is over principle but pure power. When conspiracy theories involving Jewish control of the media and the money are central to the arguments of BDS supporters who claim not to be anti-Semitic, anti-Semitism flourishes. When a central thesis of the student, faculty and off-campus leadership of the BDS movement on campuses is that Zionism is the cause of anti-Semitism, and even Naziism, anti-Semitism is rationalized. When stoking and exploiting racial tension is a common tactic used to increase hatred of Israel, and BDS refuses to allow Arab and Jewish students to interact for fear of "normalization," BDS tears campuses apart. When making it costly to be pro-Israel on campus is the major achievement of student BDS activists, discussion is impossible. When BDS banners and messages are at the front of Jew-baiting crowds in Europe, Boston and Miami, it's clear what BDS is about.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 28, 2014 3 Comments
The fight over the academic boycott of Israel in the United States mostly is confined to professional associations in the Humanities and Social Sciences, where anti-Israel activist faculty have some ability to rig the system in their favor through control of key committees and programs. Unlike in the real world at universities, the faculty who take control of professional organizations are not counterbalanced by the faculty as a whole, students, administrators, trustees, parents and alumni.  Professional organizations are the perfect vehicle for anti-Israel activists for this reason. The activists have the ability filter the debate and tailor the information provided to membership so as to provide a one-sided view. That's what happened at the American Studies Association, which passed a boycott resolution but refused to distribute to the membership materials requested by the pro-Israel side. The resolution passed with less than 20% of the total membership voting for it, because of low overall participation.  Since then the ASA has turned into a full-time boycott entity, with its executive board calling for a complete boycott of Israel in all aspects, and an entire day of boycott organizing scheduled alongside its Annual Meeting. At the Modern Language Association debate last January on a resolution critical of supposed Israeli travel restrictions on academics, the panel discussion at the annual meeting was limited to anti-Israel activists. At the house of delegates, pro-Israel faculty did get a chance to argue against the resolution, and with that the resolution -- which had been expected to pass easily -- barely passed, and only after the language was watered down. When put to the entire membership, the resolution failed to gain the needed votes, and failed. Rigging the debate appears to be happening now at American Anthropological Association for an upcoming debate, as Haaretz reports, U.S. academics bemoan 'rigged’ fight in battle against BDS:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 21, 2014 7 Comments
We have covered the anti-Israel academic boycott movement so many times, the easiest way to come up to speed is to scroll through the American Studies Association Tag starting at the earliest date. The short version is that anti-Zionist, anti-Israel academic activists for years have maneuvered to take over professional organizations in order to bring the war against Israel home to campuses. Their biggest success to date is the ASA, but they continue their efforts elsewhere. The loudest mouths get all the attention, while the majority of people in academia who do not support academic boycotts (of Israel or any other nation) mostly go about their business and watch from the sidelines. There have been strong institutional expressions against academic BDS, most prominently by over 250 university presidents, the American Association of University Professors, and numerous higher education associations. Now, a Petition is circulating that gives individuals on campus an opportunity to go on record against the academic boycott of Israel.   [caption id="attachment_100289" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://facultyforacademicfreedom.org/ (Click on Image to go to Petition page)[/caption] You don't have to be "pro-Israel" to sign.  You only need to be pro-academic freedom, pro-fairness, pro-intellectual honesty, pro-education and pro-peace. The Petition quietly went live online last week, and already has over 500 signatures, including some very prominent academics from a wide variety of academic disciplines: International Petition to Oppose Boycotts of Israel's Academic Institutions, Scholars and Students. Legal Insurrection reader crowdsourcing was critical in responding to the ASA boycott.  We can do it again by spreading the word as to the Petition on Facebook, Twitter and by personal contacts. Here's an excerpt from the Petition:
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