COINCIDENCE?: AAUP suddenly supports boycotts amid anti-Israel protests
In the wake of widespread anti-Israel protests during the past academic year, one major academic group is loosening its stance on the acceptability of faculty members’ involvement with such movements.
In the wake of widespread anti-Israel protests during the past year, one major academic group is loosening its stance on the acceptability of faculty members’ involvement with such movements.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) recently renounced its longstanding stance against academic boycotts, a process by which large groups of academics collectively agree to not teach or research at specific colleges or universities, usually for political reasons, according to Insight into Diversity.
In a statement on the matter published earlier this month, AAUP explained that its newfound tolerance for such practices was rooted in its support for academic freedom, framing academic boycotts as a means of free expression and a “legitimate tactical [response]” to institutions opposed to the “mission of higher education.”
“When faculty members choose to support academic boycotts, they can legitimately seek to protect and advance the academic freedom and fundamental rights of colleagues and students who are living and working under circumstances that violate that freedom and one or more of those rights,” the statement read. “In such contexts, academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom; rather, they can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.”
Rana Jaleel, chair of AAUP’s “Committee A,” told Inside Higher Ed that AAUP’s new stance pertains to academic boycotts generally rather than particular instances of boycotts.
Jaleel said that the change in position is “not advocating for academic boycotts, it’s not advocating for any particular form of academic boycott that’s going on now, it’s just saying that, as a tactic, it doesn’t necessarily violate academic freedom.”
The move comes in the wake of multiple academic boycotts organized by the BDS movement which target universities that support Israel.
[RELATED: Legal scholar calls out AAUP group for its ‘distressing anti-Israel bias’]
The AAUP has denied allegations that its change in position was influenced in any way by Israel’s war against Hamas.
Campus Reform has reached out to the AAUP and Rana Jaleel for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.