Corey Robin is the political science professor at Brooklyn College who has spearheaded the free speech effort to have boycott discussed at the campus on Thursday evening. At his website, he has reported on the political pushback against the event. Two posts follow. First the threat by the City Council to withdraw funding from Brooklyn College. The letter, signed by ten City Council members, says that speakers at the event have likened Israelis to Nazis. But the Oscar-nominated film, The Gatekeepers, likens Israelis to Nazis! Oh but in that instance Israelis are doing it. Americans are not allowed to have their own discussion of these matters. Corey Robin:
We have the document. Lewis Fidler, Assistant Majority Leader of the NYC Council, and several other members of the City Council, write in a letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould that if the BDS event is not canceled—or the political science department’s co-sponsorship of it is not withdrawn—the City Council will withdraw its financial support from the College and/or CUNY. The letter is here.
An excerpt:
A significant portion of the funding for CUNY schools comes directly from the tax dollars of the people of the State and City of New York. Every year, we legislators are asked for additional funding to support programs and initiatives at these schools and we fight hard to secure those funds. Every one of those dollars given to CUNY, and Brooklyn College, means one less dollar going to some other worthy purpose. We do not believe this program is what the taxpayers of our City—many of who would feel targeted and demonized by this program—want their tax money to be spent on.
We believe in the principle of academic freedom. However, we also believe in the principle of not supporting schools whose programs we, and our constituents, find to be odious and wrong. So, should this event occur, we must strongly oppose it and ask you to reconsider any official support or sponsorship.
The following post at Corey Robin’s site also describes political pressure, and resistance by important figures who want the discussion to go forward:
My department at Brooklyn College—political science—is Ground Zero of a controversy over Israel/Palestine, academic freedom, and free speech. Early in January, we were asked by a student group, Students for Justice in Palestine, to co-sponsor a panel discussion on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). The panel features Omar Barghouti and world-renowned philosopher Judith Butler. We agreed to co-sponsor.
Since then, things have exploded. The usual suspects—people like Alan Dershowitz and Dov Hikind—have weighed in; we’re being called anti-Semites, comparisons to the Holocaust are being made, and I got this lovely bit of hate mail: “Just writing to wish you and your family the worst…You are being a piece of f*cking trash, and you’re on the side of the antisemites and Islamic jihadists now.”
What’s different in this case is that progressive elected officials, including all three top mayoral candidates and four members of Congress, are also weighing in, trying to get the president of Brooklyn College to force my department to withdraw our co-sponsorship of this discussion. We’re talking people who control the purse strings of CUNY and people with real state power. This is straightforward political coercion.
Rather than give my account of the story, I’m going to give you some good links to catch yourself up. I also want to post here some letters from various supporters.
Glenn Greenwald probably has the most exhaustive treatment, including exposes of Dershowitz’s hypocrisy that will take your breath away. Make sure to read his update; it’s, well, I don’t even know how to describe it.
Erika Eichelberger at Mother Jones goes after the members of Congress, who claim that any speaker on a college campus should be balanced with another speaker of opposite views. (Will be curious whether next time the senior senator of NY speaks at Brooklyn College commencement, as Charles Schumer does virtually every year, they ask the College president to put someone on stage to offer the opposing view.)
Amy Schiller at Daily Beast gathers these unbelievable nuggets from Dov Hikind:
Hikind called for the department vote on sponsoring the panel to be public: “Is someone hiding behind someone’s skirt? Release the vote to the public! Those who want to sponsor the event, put your names down!” He noted just prior to the press conference that the college president Gould has cancelled her upcoming trip to Albany to request increased funds for the university. Hikind added that he was disappointed that she would not be able to advocate for additional funding: “You don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that I said I would make her life a little miserable?”
Finally, I myself had an interesting exchange with New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who issued a public letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould, in which he asked for her “intervention with [Political Science] Chair Paisley Currah in an effort to allow both sides of this hot-button matter to be discussed with equity, preferably in the same forum. If that cannot be accomplished, I urge the removal of the department’s sponsorship of this event.” Here’s the kicker: Williams is a former student of mine. The class he took with me? Civil liberties.
Our department, whose policy on co-sponsoring talks and panels you can find here, has had an outpouring of public support. Here are just a few of the many letters that have been sent to President Gould on our behalf.
Dear President Gould,
My name is Keith Gessen; I’m an editor at the Brooklyn-based literary and political magazine n+1, as well as a writer and translator here in Brooklyn.
As a fan of Brooklyn College, I’m writing to express my support for the Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti event, and to say how disturbing I find all the political pressure that’s being brought to bear on the College. I was particularly concerned by the letter from “progressive politicians” proposing to instruct you on the meaning of academic freedom. That Brooklyn’s politicians do not know who Judith Butler is does not mean that people in the community do not know that she is one of the most admired, subtle, and interesting philosophers in our country, and that having her speak in Brooklyn on such a vexed and painful issue as divestment in Israel is a significant intellectual and political event.
In short, I hope you’ll continue to hold fast, and will let us in the community know if there’s anything we can do to be helpful in our support. I look forward to attending the event.
Best,
Keith
Dear President Gould,
I write to applaud the courageous statement you issued last week in defense of academic freedom at Brooklyn College. As a former chair of the AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, I can say I haven’t seen a finer defense of the right of students and faculty to engage in critical examination of difficult issues. On this question, the supporters of Israel have been notoriously remiss, being willing to violate deeply held principles of academic freedom in order to cynically support their political cause. Only their views, it seems, have the right to free expression; those they disagree with they would ban from any public hearing. You have said it more eloquently than I can–this is not a situation universities should countenance. I urge you to stand fast, to reiterate what you’ve said on this question, and to permit the meeting on BDS to go forward as planned. Too many university administrators have been cowed by the thuggish tactics of these lobbyists on behalf of the current right-wing Israeli government. I hope you will provide the leadership we need to prevent that from happening at Brooklyn College.
Sincerely,
Joan W. Scott
Dear President Gould,
As a writer and an admirer of Brooklyn College and its remarkable faculty, I’m contacting you to urge you not to submit to pressure from local politicians and encourage or compel the political science department to rescind its co-sponsorship of the upcoming panel on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Clearly such co-sponsorship does not constitute the endorsement of a political position that deserves to be aired without eliciting threats of financial or political reprisal.
The attempted political bullying of committed researchers and serious thinkers is of course beyond your control. But it rests with administrators like you to resist such tactics and take a stand for academic freedom. I don’t doubt you will do just that. But encouragement in the right course can be useful in situations like the one you face, and please know that you have mine.
Yours sincerely,
Benjamin Kunkel
Dear President Gould,
I am writing in my capacity as President of the American Studies Association to urge you to stand up against the pressure to force the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College to withdraw their co-sponsorship of the upcoming event on BDS. Though couched in the language of “academic freedom,” much of the opposition to this event–including the recent letter from a group of New York office-holders–is odious in its conflation of the department’s merely co-sponsoring a discussion on the one hand with the university’s “officially endorsing” certain views on the other. This proposition corrodes the spirit and the very mission of a university, whose raison d’être is to create space for expressions without having to worry about the appearance of “officially endorsing” them. It is especially disturbing when voiced by elected officials in direct violation of the intellectual autonomy of a university in their jurisdiction. Surely these office-holders know that their constituents, including New Yorkers in general and Brooklyn College students in particular, have easy access to the strong arguments, views, analyses, and passions arrayed against BDS. Their “equal time” argument is itself a familiar tactic for shutting down discussion; their attention to “academic freedom,” disingenuous at best, a ruse at worst.
Neither I nor the American Studies Association are concerned here with a position on BDS; but we do know the dangers in elected officials trying to dictate the content of university centered discussions, courses, or events. BDS represents precisely the sort of minoritarian speech that academic freedom is meant to protect, and I urge you to reject the specious arguments to the contrary.
Sincerely,
Matthew Frye Jacobson
William Robertson Coe Professor of American Studies and History
Yale University
If you wish to contact the Brooklyn College administration, contact info is here. As always, be polite, civil, and firm.
This is now a clearly-set-forth political battle. It is fruitless to suppose that the BDS crowd can dis-elect EVERY city council member who threatened BC. The CC folks are politicians, they feel they MUST talk this way and they might very well carry out their threats.
So much for “freedom of speech” in a public college supported (as they all are) by politically-controlled money. That might be why UC-Berkeley seems to have caved in to the California assembly or whoever did the equivalent legislation there.
There was similar uproar in the matter of Brooklyn Museum and artwork involving Jesus and Virgin Mary.
Religious attacks appear to reside in the eye of the beholder, not in the intention of the alleged attacker. The present BDS matter is wholly, wholly unconnected with religion, and entirely connected with politics and human rights.
The city council of New York City has decided that a political controversy that touches on Israel (but not in any way whatever on NYC) is nevertheless “political” for them — they apparently fear that if they do not join The Dersh and others in trying to shut-down this event, they will themselves suffer politically. Hmmm. Might be right!
So much for freedom of speech when it bumps into the politics of money.
MY BET? The BC department of poli-sci will (prudently) remove its sponsorship and the event will go on anyhow. Be very sad if another “venus” had to be found on short notice.
Glenn Greenwald has a follow up this morning, about the political blackmail. Note that he is invited to give the Konefsky Lecture at Brooklyn College, and has promised to withdraw if BC gives in in this one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/04/brooklyn-college-bds-official-threats
This is ironic and instructive on several levels.
(1) This kind of politicization of academia is very common in Israel. In fact, it is an intrinsic part of the Israeli system.
(2) It is unfortunate that those who continue to defend Israel’s criminal and immoral behavior are bringing the so-called fight to the United States. It is no different than the Israelization of U.S. law enforcement, airport security and military. How far will the Israel Lobby go in polluting the American landscape with Israeli policies, tactics, deception, lies, hypocrisy and hate?
(3) If Israel were truly a democracy, why is it that its defenders in the U.S. are using tactics common in oppressive countries like China and Saudi Arabia? There is a glaring contradiction here. Is the average American to believe that those who criticize Israel are doing so because they are predisposed to hating Jews? And if the US is rife with anti-Semites, how is it that Israel — the ‘Jewish state’ — has such clout in Congress, the White House, the media and academic institutions?
Zionists are interested only in hasbara and Brand Israel campaigns.
They censored a Palestinian children’s art exhibit. That is how low they are.
During the Iraq War, Iraqi children were permitted to showcase their art in the same museum. This artwork similarly depicted the American army unfavorably.
Yet, no one was able to censor the Iraqi children. I don’t believe any tried. But Zionists have no shame and simply want to control the narrative in every single venue.
There was also another case where a Zionist student at a high school protested including Edward Said on an exam.
Any mention of the Palestinian perspective. Any recognition of Palestinian resistance (and for our purposes, non-violent) as legitimate – then the Zionists go into berserker mode.
The BDS debate at this college is not unique to the Zionists. They censor everything and anything that will humanize and empower the Palestinian people.
They want to attach Jewish identity as they see it to every aspect of Palestinian agency that will seem positive to the non-tribe member.
So if we have a debate about BDS, it is a debate about what can be done to help the Palestinians in their struggle.
A Zionist observes this and thinks, ‘WHAT ABOUT ME, ME ME ME’.
It is an absolutely disgusting sense of entitlement, selfishness and narcissism.
It also presupposes that Zionists are victimized and as powerless as the Palestinian people being kicked off their land and homes and shot to death in the fish barrel that is Gaza.
There is not parity. There is no parallel. Hence, the only conclusion is that Zionist objection to ALL these initiatives on behalf of Palestinian agency (a child traumatized by Israeli war machines and expressing him or herself in art/a Palestinian being mentioned in a high school exam/a Palestinian winning a prestigious art prize only to have it taken away because Lacoste is a Zionist-connected organization and owner/etc. etc. etc.) is an attempt to CONTROL the narrative.
Zionism is all about control and hammering Jewish victimhood into non-tribe member’s heads (as well as impressionable young Jews) to keep their prized status whilst they drive out the indigenous population from their homeland.
The students are brave.