A Stunning Reversal on Academic Boycotts Is All about Israel

My new essay in The Hill explains how the AAUP’s new position – legitimizing academic boycotts – is a threat to the principle of academic freedom. Here is the gist:

A stunning reversal on academic boycotts is all about Israel

There was a time when the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) deserved its self-description as the “most prominent guardian of academic freedom” for faculty and students in the U.S., but not any longer. 

Last month, the organization rescinded its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts, which it had previously recognized as aiming “directly at the free exchange of ideas,” in favor of a new policy declaring that such boycotts “can legitimately seek to protect and advance . . . academic freedom and fundamental rights.” 

The turnaround is a betrayal of academic values, which ideally comprise the “freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues” and “the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas,” without political restraints. 

You can read the entire essay in The Hill.