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Senior faculty have ‘intimidated’ junior faculty who supported boycott measure, ASA caucus says

ASA logo tiff (1) copyIt has now been six days since the American Studies Association membership voted for academic boycott of Israel. In reporting the vote as a turning point, Inside Higher Ed has the temerity to ask why the academics voted as they did, and lifts the curtain on Palestinian conditions. That piece also quotes a letter by eight past presidents of the ASA opposing the boycott move, and this statement from Bill Mullen, a Purdue professor and a member of the ASA’s Caucus on Academic and Community Activism:

“I think what the vote indicates is that people recognize the illegal occupation of Palestine as one of the major civil rights issues of our time globally… American scholars now understand the physical violence that’s part of the Israeli occupation; they understand the massive restrictions on academic freedom for Palestinian scholars that is part of living under an illegal occupation. These facts are now irrefutable to so many people that the vote indicates a kind of coming to consensus around the illegitimacy of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.”

More than the New York Times would tell us.

Meantime, Mullen’s Caucus on Academic and Community Activism has released a statement decrying intimidation of the ASA members who voted for the measure.

For Immediate Release: The Time for Intimidation is Over

It has come to our attention that members of the American Studies Association are getting hate mail or threatening mail following the ASA membership vote in favor of a resolution calling for boycott of Israeli universities. The ASA Facebook page has been subject to an avalanche of abusive postings for almost two weeks. In other cases, the intimidation has been less public as senior faculty have explicitly and implicitly intimidated junior faculty who support the boycott. More generally within the academy, some are threatening to cut funds for faculty who want to attend the ASA in the future. We are also learning that individuals and groups outside the academy are threatening legal action against the ASA.
Expressions of hate and intimidation, even if they come from isolated individuals, constitute part of a larger pattern of attack on anyone who criticizes Israel or Zionism. These disturbing messages can take the form of threats. As such, they should not be dismissed or discarded.

If you are subject to a privately delivered expression of hate or intimidation in person, in emails or over the telephone, we recommend that you neither respond to, nor discard these messages. Instead, we suggest you document the incident (when, who, where, what format, content, etc) and report it to the ASA Academic and Community Caucus at asaactcaucus@gmail.com so that we can address the incident via legal channels, and in a way that is least burdensome to you.
If you receive a threatening message or are subject to intimidation at your university, you should also report it to your university administrators and to the local police. If our university administrators are non-responsive or indeed further intimidate you, please let us know that, too.
Intimidation and frivolous legal arguments against boycott are part of a long-standing history of repression of Palestinian human rights activism in the United States. The ASA resolution for boycott is legal. Tactics of intimidation may be illegal. We will try to address any academics and administrators who participate in undemocratic, unethical, and illegal behavior, and if necessary we will take legal action with the support of our legal team.
We are at a turning point when tactics of bullying and intimidation will no longer work to silence those of us who recognize the injustice of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. There is a growing number of students, junior faculty, senior faculty, and prominent scholars advocating for Palestinian rights in the US, and we are working together, around the country and internationally, in the interest of addressing a social justice issue, one which has been endorsed by the majority of ASA members and the national leadership.
With the vote to boycott Israeli universities, ASA has embraced a legitimate means of addressing Israel’s human rights violations and challenging the US government’s unconditional support for Israel. As we move forward, threats and insults will not silence our voices or undermine the growing support for the academic boycott.

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I’m glad ASA and others are finally acting on Palestine. Cannot say I’m surprised there is push-back.

The universities all want to build that new Chemistry or Medical Building, need the $Z from the wealthy donors who are (thought to be) offended by the ASA move and the universities are applying pressure via senior faculty (who may independently be Zionists! and all of whom have white-skinned “Jewish Friends” to whom they owe politeness, at whatever cost to dark-skinned Palestinians).

You all have heard my hobby horses: Global Warming wiping out all humanity in 20-50 years (so who needs chemistry buildings? or young professors either?) — people’s time scales are skewed because their attentions are skewed. Daily concerns skew our attention from ultimate destruction. “Cognitive dissonance” is a near universal psychological disease of humanity which prevents us (so happy in our modern civilization, our many-faceted dependence on fossil fuels) from being really aware of how it is killing us all.

We think that Zionism skews attention away from human rights for Palestinians — and indeed it does. And all concerns for ordinary civilized stuff (including Zionism and anti-Zionism, democracy and tyranny, etc., whatever turns you on) are skewing attention away from Climate Change.

Anyway, SAS should now resolve to disapprove of Climate change and recommend that we all think long and earnestly about that very difficult subject which we’ve been (effectively, and especially as to action) ignoring.

So happy to see this response from activists in the ASA. Finally finally, principled people are standing up against Zio pressure. Thanks to the board and general membership for giving them the chance!

I think that the ASA must expect intimidation and an avalanche of legal actions. In the UK the Universities and Colleges Union, thinking itself threatened after a conference vote for a boycott with legal action supported by bottomless funding, sought legal advice from a senior lawyer who advised that it would be illegal, as well as I remember because it involved some kind of discrimination against a nationality. (The ironic, perhaps true, presupposition was that the kind of boycott we practised against South Afica was legal only because our anti-discrimination laws were then somewhat lacking.) This advice has been observed ‘scrupulously’ to this day, as far as I know. In spite of that we were dramatically and expensively sued because of an endless, though somewhat minor, stream of expressions of sympathy for the Palestinian cause, often organised by our most honourable Jewish members, which caused irritation to some. That action failed, but then we are not made of money. The word ‘scrupulously’ comes from the Tribunal judgement in that case. I was much involved in the UCU at the early stages. Initially, with my lifelong excessive love of moderation, I thought the boycott was going too far. The massively intimidating response was a mind-changer and eye-opener for me. Why was the response all threat no argument? What could be thought of someone who behaved like that? My long-lasting moral failure to appreciate the scandal of what is happening in the ME makes me somewhat ashamed now.
So let’s wish luck to the ASA. Attempts will be made to pulverise them. If they still exist in a couple of years that will be a very significant triumph. If ‘the time for intimidation is over’ in good earnest that will be very good news, though we can’t be sure as yet.

Most of these activists have never gone up against groups that can or will punch back. They may get ignored in their activism but they aren’t used to a counter attack. Generally in left politics you have to be further up, more mainstream, to get a counter attack.

The ASA signed up for a rough decade. Two schools have dropped out of the ASA over this. Two more have denied the ASA claims they are members universities at all and have denounced the organization. BU is scheduling a vote on this. My guess is that something like 50 schools are out in some sense by then end of 2014.

Yesterday the President of Princeton, while refusing to drop out of the ASA
I share your dismay at the American Studies Association’s misguided boycott. Academic boycotts are almost always bad policy–scholarly engagement helps to sustain and build liberal democratic values. For that reason, among others, I believe that Princeton should continue to work constructively with scholars and institutions throughout the world, whether one admires or dislikes the government under which they operate. And, whatever one thinks of boycotts in general, to single out Israel alone is indefensible.

My personal support for scholarly engagement with Israel is enthusiastic and unequivocal. Indeed, my latest article (currently in page proofs) emerges from a conference in Jerusalem sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute, and it will appear in a volume published by that organization.

That said, I do not intend to denounce the ASA, make it unwelcome on campus, or inhibit the ability of faculty members to affiliate with it. My hope is that the ASA’s more thoughtful and reasonable members will eventually bring the organization to its senses–here, too, engagement may be better than a boycott. That is for individual faculty members to decide. In any event, I look forward to continued interaction with the wonderful scholars and universities in Israel. (President Christopher L. Eisgrube)

It is nice to see the show of solidarity with Israel.