The Movement to Boycott the American Studies Association for Boycotting Israel
Several states are pushing bills to block aide to public universities that got on board with the decision to stop working with Israeli universities over the Jewish State’s human rights record.
What’s the best way to beat back a boycott? By boycotting the boycotters, of course!
At least that is what several states are doing in response to a decision by the American Studies Association to boycott Israel over human rights. That boycott bars official collaboration with Israeli universities—but not Israeli scholars—and brought forth a torrent of criticism, even from those who were sympathetic to the boycott’s aims, but who feared that such a move would hurt academic freedom.
“In seeking to punish alleged violations of academic freedom elsewhere, such boycotts threaten the academic freedom of American scholars to engage the broadest variety of viewpoints,” wrote the leadership of the American Association of University Professors.
And now those varieties of viewpoints could diminish further.
A bill in New York would strip aid from universities that use state aid to fund academic groups that who’ve passed resolutions or taken official actions to promote boycotts against institutions where the New York Board of Regents charters their own institutions—a list that includes Israel, Lebanon, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/15/the-movement-to-boycott-the-american-studies-association-for-boycotting-israel.html
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