With
its recent vote to boycott Israel’s higher-education institutions to
protest the country’s treatment of Palestinians, the American Studies
Association has itself become the target of widespread criticism and
ostracism. It has gone from relative obscurity to prominence as a pariah
of the United States higher-education establishment, its experience
serving as a cautionary tale for other scholarly groups that might
consider taking a similar stand on the Middle East. In sharp contrast to the international campaign for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, which had been slow to gain a foothold in the United States, the campaign to rebuke the American Studies Association has spread rapidly since the group’s mid-December boycott vote. The presidents of more than 80 United States colleges have condemned the vote.
“Such boycotts threaten academic speech and exchange, which it is our solemn duty as academic institutions to protect,” Carolyn A. Martin, president of Amherst College, said in a statement posted on the university’s website. Nearly all of the presidents’ statements have similarly denounced the boycott as impeding the flow of ideas. Several have cited specific collaborations or exchanges with Israeli universities as evidence of their institutional commitment to maintaining strong relations with Israel.
At least five institutions — Bard College, Brandeis University, Indiana University, Kenyon College and Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg — have withdrawn from A.S.A. membership.
As of last week, the boycott also had been denounced by three of the United States’ most prominent higher-education organizations: the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities. “Such actions are misguided and greatly troubling, as they strike at the heart of academic freedom,” said the American Council on Education’s president, Molly Corbett Broad.
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