The College Fix

The international movement to institute an academic boycott of Israel gained momentum on Wednesday when the The National Council of the American Studies Association endorsed the boycott.

Inside Higher Ed reports:

The move by the council, even if awaiting approval by the membership, is seen as a major victory for the movement for an academic boycott of Israel. The academic movement to boycott Israel has considerable support in Europe, but has been largely opposed by major academic associations in the United States, citing longstanding objections to countrywide boycotts as antithetical to academic freedom. But in April, the Association for Asian American Studies became the first disciplinary group to endorse the academic boycott of Israel, and the American Studies Association now appears to be the second.

Interesting how the academic left is in love with academic freedom except when it comes to Israel. That’s the one place where many of them start to embrace the idea of discrimination. Wonder why?

Well, not everyone is on board with the idea. American Studies professor Mark Rice of John Fischer College published a dissent in The Huffington Post:

I believe that the American Studies Association should be devoting its energies to supporting and advancing the careers of its members by, for example, advocating for improved working conditions for adjunct faculty members, articulating the strengths of interdisciplinary scholarship to skeptical audiences, and providing material and moral support when American Studies programs are at risk of being eliminated at colleges and universities. Second, I don’t believe that academic boycotts advance the cause of academic freedom, and I believe that defending academic freedom should be a paramount concern of any academic organization…

I made a similar argument back in May (also in the HuffPo, incidentally):

If it is has become acceptable to support an academic boycott of an entire nationality (all Israelis), we aren’t far off from a future in which it will be acceptable to back an academic boycott of an entire ethnicity (all Jews). Liberals who oppose the politics of Israel should think very hard before they decide to support an academic boycott of Israel. To do so makes a mockery of the very idea of academic freedom…

Perhaps the best argument against this foolish display of hubris on the part of the American Studies Association is that made by professor Rice. This ignorant display of sanctimony on an issue of international relations has nothing to do with the mission and purpose of an American Studies professional association anyway. It’s as pointless as it is wrong.

Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix and author of the book SEX & GOD AT YALE: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.

Follow Nathan on Twitter @NathanHarden

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter