Summary
The United States academics’ association whose Committee A report “On Academic Boycotts” Barghouti critiques in Chapter 4 for positing academic freedom as of paramount importance while never censuring Israel’s denial of Palestinian academic freedom (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, PDF p.92-103).
Details
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After the Association of University Teachers’ April 2005 boycott, the AAUP issued a statement condemning academic boycotts, committed since 1915 to “the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas” (PDF p.92-93).
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Its planned February 2006 invitation-only debate at Bellagio was scuttled after lobby pressure scared off sponsors; the papers were published in Academe (PDF p.93).
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Its 1915 Declaration of Principles conditioned academic freedom on “correlative obligations” (PDF p.95).
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In the South African case it justified sanctions “against apartheid” in general and called for divestment from South Africa; in the Palestinian case it restricted its interest to violations of academic freedom (PDF p.98-100).
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Barghouti’s recommendations: censure Israel, consider divestment from companies prolonging occupation, and revamp its notion of academic freedom to international standards (PDF p.102-103). Its policy was unaltered between 2006 and 2011 (PDF p.102).
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In Stern’s testimony, its then-president Cary Nelson co-authored with Stern (for the AJC) the 2011 article on abuse of the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism in Title VI cases, including complaints about BDS films and occupation programs; Ernst Benjamin of the AAUP co-authored with Stern the Academe piece calling the South Carolina bill and the Antisemitism Awareness Act a hate speech code (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.7-8).
Related pages
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, PACBI, Academic boycott, Association of University Teachers, Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, Kenneth S. Stern