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Boycott of Israeli Scholar Evokes Protests
A British professor and journal publisher last summer dismissed two Israeli academics from the boards of the scholarly journals under her directorship because of their affiliations with Israeli institutions of higher learning. The dismissals were part of a wider boycott of Israeli institutions organized by a group of academics, primarily European, to protest Israeli policies in Palestine. The boycott petition specifies that signers will not attend conferences in Israel or participate in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions for Israeli institutions, but leaves the question of collaborating with and hosting Israeli colleagues up to individuals' discretion. Joan Wallach Scott, chair of the Association's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, wrote an open letter protesting the dismissals. The letter is reprinted in its entirety below.
I write as chair of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors to protest your recent action in dismissing two Israeli scholars from the board of the scholarly journals under your directorship on the basis of their Israeli citizenship and their work within Israeli institutions of higher learning.
In failing to distinguish between the actions of a state and the rights of its individual citizens, you perpetuate the very policy you claim to oppose—one that eliminates the possibility of dissent by denying that it exists. Contact among academics is vital for the protection of dissenters at any time (as the experiences in South Africa and in the countries of the former Soviet Union have shown). Particularly in times of crisis this freedom is all the more precious, for it guarantees a continuation of that vigorous argumentation and discussion that are hallmarks of democracy. Far from making the actions of academics more relevant in political affairs, the silencing of some of them by others diminishes any claim for the benefits of reasoned debate in solving real problems. It leaves the resolution of conflict to the mindless ministrations of violence.
The American Association of University Professors was founded in 1915 to promulgate academic freedom on the assumption that "The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition." Since that time, and through periods of intense opposition, academic freedom has survived as an essential foundation for the kind of education that can lead to social progress as well as a respect for the dignity of individuals. Not only in the United States, but around the world, intellectuals have come to agree that the silencing of individual scholars for their beliefs, associations, ethnicity, or national identity is a grievous offence against the common good. In 1997, UNESCO adopted a definition of academic freedom that lists as its components: "the right . . . to freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express freely, . . . freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in professional or representative bodies. . . ."
The AAUP has censured institutions that violate academic freedom in the United States; we are concerned when collective reprisals are taken against academic institutions and their faculty. Criticism of a nation's policies or actions may well be a legitimate exercise of academic freedom, but closing down the possibilities for relationships among scholars merely because of their national citizenship is inimical to academic freedom everywhere-in the United States, in Great Britain, in Egypt, or in Israel.
We urge you to acknowledge this principle, to reconsider your present action, and to reinstate your Israeli colleagues to their former posts.
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