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Opinion/Editorial
The Electronic Intifada, 25 July 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7124.shtml
In the last few weeks, university presidents across the US and Canada
have rushed to issue statements about the proposed boycott of Israeli
academic institutions by the British University and College Union. They
view this boycott as a serious violation of academic freedom. Yet, given
the general failure of these leaders to comment on any number of
infringements of academic freedom that have occurred in recent years,
including those close to home in the form of the politically-motivated
denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein and the colleague, Mehrene
Larudee, who very publicly supported him, the harassment of Columbia
University professors Joseph Massad and Rashid Khalidi, and the
intimidation of faculty by Campuswatch, one might be excused for
concluding that university presidents prefer to remain above the
political fray and reserve their office for grave and important but
non-controversial pronouncements on tsunamis. But now, even in the midst
of the hot and hazy summer recess, university presidents have mobilized
their most imposing academic rhetoric in expressing solidarity with
Israeli academics and upholding the rights of all to engage in "an open
exchange of ideas" and "freedom of association."
What is perhaps most perplexing about this trend is its entirely virtual
nature, for in fact no one's freedom has been violated by the boycott
yet under discussion. Nevertheless, university presidents are preparing
in advance for what could be an "attack ... [on] all universities at
their core mission" (Gilles Patry, University of Ottawa) and a
"threat
... [to] the moral foundation of each and every university" (Amy Guttman,
University of Pennsylvania). [1] University of Virginia President John Casteen compares the proposed boycott to
"the conduct of the most
vicious political movements and governments of the 20th century." Yet,
surely they must realize that Palestinians have for many decades
suffered a multitude of assaults on their universities and schools by
the Israeli occupying forces. Surely if university presidents are up in
arms over a proposed boycott of Israeli academics, they must have
something to say about the shutting down of universities, jailing and
shooting of students and faculty, daily impeding of students and faculty
from getting to classes, denial of student permits to attend
universities, and revoking of visas to visiting scholars and researchers
that characterizes academic life in Palestine. If a boycott of academic
institutions is considered unfair, what does one call the methodical
destruction of an educational system? If Patry warns about potential
"acts of exclusion" against Israeli academics, isn't he concerned that
right now, as we speak, all but a handful of Palestinian students are
excluded from Israeli institutions and that even within Palestine, the
Israelis exclude Palestinian students from their own universities by
refusing to issue them the necessary travel permits? Might he not see the
deportation and nineteen-year exile of his colleague, Birzeit University
president Hanna Nasir, as an "act of exclusion"? My own university
principal, Karen Hitchcock, is committed to "defend the freedom of
individuals to study, teach and carry out research without fear of
harassment, intimidation, or discrimination." Do these "individuals"
include Palestinians, one wonders? If so, is she prepared to address the
erection of checkpoints outside of universities, such as the one outside
of Birzeit that resulted in a 20-40 percent reduction in class
attendance in 2001 according to Human Rights Watch? The philosopher and
critic Judith Butler argues, "If the exercise of academic freedom ceases
or is actively thwarted, that freedom is lost, which is why checkpoints
are and should be an issue for anyone who defends a notion of academic
freedom." [2]
It is important to realize that the British UCU is targeting Israeli
academic institutions (and not individuals) not only because they are
linked to the same profession but also because of the place of
universities in Israeli society. Israeli universities, far from being
sites of dissidence and resistance to their government's discriminatory
and violent policies, are themselves guilty of human rights abuses. Bar-Ilan
University founded a branch in Ariel, an illegal settlement in the West
Bank, making it directly complicit in a continued colonialist expansion
project. Hebrew University has a long and deleterious history of
appropriating Palestinian land. In 1968, in opposition to a UN
resolution, the university evicted hundreds of Palestinian families to
expand their campus in East Jerusalem. This history of confiscation
continues, as October 2004 saw more evictions of Palestinian families
and destruction of their homes for another campus expansion. Israeli
faculties collaborate with intelligence services, using their academic
expertise to devise sophisticated "interrogation" methods for the
Israeli military. And Israeli academics themselves serve in the military
as reservists, often in the occupied territories. The British UCU's
position is ultimately designed to encourage Israeli academics to do
something about the complicity of their universities in the illegal
occupation.
Rather than merely showcase inflated rhetoric and verbally denounce the
British UCU's boycott, a few university presidents are prepared to go
further. In her statement, Karen Hitchcock threatens to add Queen's to
the UCU's "boycott list." Modeling her position after Columbia
University President Lee Bollinger, ironically a First Amendment
scholar, Hitchcock is referring to the petition initiated by Harvard law
professor Alan Dershowitz that enjoins academics to sign on to consider
themselves as honorary Israelis and ask also to be boycotted by the UCU.
University of California-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and McGill
University Principal Heather Munroe-Blum express similar sentiments in
their statements, declaring that should the British UCU choose to
boycott Israeli institutions, they should also boycott Berkeley and
McGill as well.
When these university presidents challenge the UCU to boycott them in
their statements, they indicate that Columbia, Berkeley, McGill and
Queen's academics wish to be boycotted along with their Israeli
counterparts because they think that such boycotts are wrong. One
suspects that there may be faculty, staff, and students at these schools
who do not want to be considered honorary Israelis and be boycotted by
British universities. Is it within the proper purview of a university's
president to make unilateral pronouncements that have such potentially
significant consequences for the intellectual welfare of its members?
What sort of academic freedom is this if a president has the power to
make such decisions for his/her faculty, students, and staff? While
there may be many at these universities who welcome such a position, in
principle one cannot and should not support it. I believe that it is
itself an infringement of academic freedom.
Indeed, for all their professed commitment to "the exchange of knowledge
and ideas" (Munroe-Blum) "scholarly understanding and free academic
exchange and expression" (Patry), "open inquiry and exchange of ideas"
(John Casteen, University of Virginia), "free and unfettered debate"
(David Skorton, Cornell University), none amongst this cadre of
university presidents seems the least bit concerned with providing the
type of open debate on this issue that is purportedly the very hallmark
of their institutions. Sadly, it seems that these presidents in fact are
rushing to issue statements precisely in order to pre-empt such debate
on their campuses. Were these university presidents really committed to
their stated positions on intellectual exchange, would they not organize
or at least foster a discussion of the issues amongst their
constituencies that would examine the motivations behind the proposed
boycott? Or are they rushing to stifle debate because they are afraid to
be involved in a potentially controversial set of issues? When there has
been no open discussion of these issues on campus, what sort of example
is set by these statements from on high? I do hope that they will have a
"free and unfettered debate" at Cornell. Let the fetters fly!
I suspect, however, that this spate of statements does not bode well for
what Casteen calls the university's "unique capacity to serve the public
good." It seems that a dangerous precedent has been set in which
university presidents recently have taken on the customary role of
politicians and accepted politically organized and motivated tours to
Israel. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that seven university
presidents from the US visited Israel in early July in a campaign
designed "to explain Israel's policies to the leaders of US academic
institutions and to strengthen scientific collaboration between the two
countries."[ 3] In addition to meeting with the educational minister and
academic leaders, the university presidents also met with "military
experts." Presumably they did not exchange views on Aristotle with the
Israeli generals. While we are now accustomed to our elected officials
participating in such tours, the university is, I agree with Casteen (a
member of the delegation to Israel), supposed to serve the public in a
unique way. While I'm not saying that some educational purpose and "free
exchange of ideas" did not occur during the presidents' visit, I remain
stumped by the meeting with the Israeli military. The Haaretz
correspondent, Tamara Traubmann, pinpoints a political agenda in the
timing of the trip, writing that "The visit takes place amid attempts to
impose an academic boycott of Israel and controversy over Israel on US
campuses between the right and the left." If this trip was designed to
target university presidents in an attempt to pre-empt debate on campus,
then we must ask whether the universities have succumbed, in Bollinger's
ominous phrase, to "politically biased attempts to hijack the central
mission of higher education."
The university presidents might argue that they are prepared to defend
the rights of any group, not just Israelis, to academic freedom. As Tom
Traves, President of Dalhousie writes in his statement, "Universities do
not have foreign policies and they must assert their right always to be
independent of government dictates in the name of short-term political
agendas." Yet, when university presidents have allowed numerous
violations of academic freedom to Palestinians to pass without comment,
they must realize that their statements, rather than "defending the
freedom of individuals" as they claim, function precisely as politicized
pronouncements in support of the Israeli regime. You cannot let decades
of gross injustices to one side pass and then suddenly leap to the
defense of the other side without implicating yourself in a political
position.
It strikes me as particularly unfortunate, though given the recent
mistreatment of Middle East Studies professor Joseph Massad, not
unexpected, that Columbia's president should be leading the charge. In
1968, as Hebrew University busied itself in confiscating Palestinian
land in East Jerusalem, on the west side of Manhattan, Columbia
University was doing something similar. In April of that year, Columbia
broke ground in Morningside Park, a neighborhood park adjacent to its
main campus, in order to build a gym. The neighborhood outcry was
immense and students immediately organized to stop what they saw as an
arrogant appropriation of neighborhood space for largely private use. A
long protest followed, which though at first violently suppressed by
police, was ultimately effective in achieving its goal. The plan for the
gym was abandoned and the students' demand for Columbia to sever ties
with the Institute of Defense Analysis was also met, a step that surely
allowed its scientists to work with greater "openness" and
"free
exchange of ideas." This was a galvanizing event in Columbia's history
and the effectiveness of the protest and ultimate good it achieved in
respecting the neighborhood's rights and highlighting the complexity of
the racial relations of its residents with the university is now told as
a proud moment in Columbia history and nicely archived on its website.
This is a history Bollinger and others might learn from, for
institutions do need motivation to move forward and transcend their
sometimes less-than-illustrious pasts. Supporting a boycott of a
university can help those dissidents within the university more
effectively work towards change, for the wish to make a favorable
impression in the world has frequently served as a catalyst for positive
transformation. World opinion was absolutely central to pressuring the
US government during the Civil Rights era and to dismantling Apartheid
in South Africa. Since the boycott is aimed at institutions not
individuals, rather than isolating Israeli academics, the boycott could
provide a sort of support to those academics who wish to reform their
universities.
There are other tactics aside from a boycott open to us as academics for
addressing the suffering of Palestinians in the occupied territories. A
university community might well decide upon a different strategy.
Recently New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested that
universities would do better to educate Palestinian students, establish
exchanges, and send faculty to teach in Palestinian universities. I
think that these are great ideas and hope that Israel will agree with
Friedman and no longer refuse to issue or arbitrarily revoke visas of
visiting faculty and prevent Palestinian students and academics from
attending meetings abroad. I am certain that "an open exchange of ideas"
on university campuses will lead to a lot of different and creative
suggestions for considering how we, as academics, can contribute towards
improving the plight of our Palestinian colleagues and supporting our
Israeli colleagues in doing the same. But let's not condemn the boycott
out of hand before that discussion has taken place.
To this end, I have created a petition at my university to ask the
principal to retract her statement and support the organization of a
forum to discuss the issues relating to the proposed boycott. This is
the very least that a university should do. I urge my colleagues at
other universities to do likewise.
Endnotes
[1] All quotations from university presidents, principals, chancellors,
etc. that I cite are taken from their statements posted on their
university websites.
[2] "Israel/Palestine and the paradoxes of academic freedom,"
Judith
Butler, Radical Philosophy 135, January/ February 2006, p. 11.
[3] "U.S. university presidents visit Israel to strengthen academic
ties," Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz, 3 July 2007.
Margaret Aziza Pappano is an Associate Professor of English at Queen's
University, Kingston, Ontario; her specialty is medieval literature. In
2006 she visited the West Bank as part of the institute, "Connecting
Dearborn and Jerusalem," sponsored by the Center for Arab American
Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. |
