Petition Opposing Academic Boycotts [UPDATED]

UPDATE: Over 3000 signatories as of 10:00 AM ET 8/22

Please consider signing this petition opposing the AAUP’s recent endorsement of academic boycotts. As you may know, the AAUP has just reversed its two-decades long opposition to academic boycotts, effectively abandoning a core principle of academic freedom.

The AAUP’s new position is wrong-headed and dangerous. The normalization of academic boycotts poses a profound threat to academic freedom. As the AAUP itself stated in 2005:

“We reject proposals that curtail the freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues, and we reaffirm the paramount importance of the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas.” 

Recent events have not diminished the importance of this principle. However directed, academic boycotts inevitably undermine scholarly exchanges, joint research programs, and instructional collaborations, thereby violating individual scholars’ and students’ academic freedom.

You can read the entire petition here. You can sign it here.

Please note: the petition does not extend to economic boycotts, sanctions, or weapons embargoes. Its sole objective is to endorse the broadest possible freedom of academic study, exchange, and publication.

Also, I am an AAUP member, but the petition is open to all academics, whether members or not.