TASHJY: Anti-Israel agenda motivated professors to abandon academic freedom principles
While the AAUP claims that its recent embrace of academic boycotts is not intended to target Israel, make no mistake, it is clearly motivated by an anti-Israel ideology and, to some, smacks of antisemitism.
Ken Tashjy served as General Counsel for the Massachusetts Community College System for over 21 years and currently serves as a higher education attorney and consultant. He has taught as an adjunct instructor at Suffolk University since 2008, and previously at Brandeis University as a Guberman Teaching Fellow. He received a B.A. in Psychology from Susquehanna University, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his J.D. from Suffolk University Law School.
After more than 100 years as the “primary defender of academic freedom” in American higher education, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) rejects its long-held principles with its controversial endorsement of academic boycotts.
While the AAUP claims that its recent embrace of academic boycotts is not intended to target Israel, make no mistake, it is clearly motivated by an anti-Israel ideology and, to some, smacks of antisemitism.
[Related: COINCIDENCE? AAUP suddenly supports boycotts amid anti-Israel protests]
What makes the AAUP’s ideological shift in support of academic boycotts so striking is the seeming ease with which it ignores its long history of steadfast and principled opposition to such tactics.
An academic boycott is when an academic institution or organization refuses to engage with certain colleges or universities in protest over institutional or governmental policies.
For example, a university might refuse to collaborate on research, exchange programs or institutional partnerships with institutions in China in protest over its reported genocide of the Uyghurs.
Proponents of this tactic believe that by isolating and cutting off a college or university from the global community, they can force the offending institution or government to change policies.
Until recently, the AAUP has long-rejected this tactic and held the position that the most effective way to influence governmental or institutional policies is with more academic freedom, not less.
Since its founding in 1915, and the issuance of its Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom, the AAUP had been “committed to preserving and advancing the free exchange of ideas among academics irrespective of governmental policies and however unpalatable those policies may be viewed.”
In 2005, the AAUP stood firm for academic freedom when it unequivocally and unconditionally rejected an academic boycott proposed by a British teachers’ association against two Israeli universities due to Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.
The AAUP criticized the tactic as “repugnant to our principles,” and a blatant violation of academic freedom, which “strikes directly at the free exchange of ideas.”
Over the years, the AAUP has remained resolute in opposing academic boycotts, even of institutions whose governments have faced international condemnation, including China, Nigeria, Iran, and Brazil.
In 2013, the AAUP again opposed an academic boycott proposed by the Council of the American Studies Association (ASA) against Israeli institutions, strongly criticizing the ASA’s claim that an academic boycott “doesn’t violate academic freedom but helps to extend it.”
The AAUP characterized the ASA’s position as “Orwellian” and “utterly wrongheaded.”
Now, after decades of unwavering opposition to academic boycotts, the AAUP has reversed course claiming that “academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom; rather, they can be considered legitimate tactical responses” when challenging governmental or institutional policies.
Adopting the same “wrongheaded” logic it criticized previously, the AAUP now asserts that academic boycotts can actually “protect and advance the academic freedom and fundamental rights of colleagues and students who are living and working under circumstances that violate that freedom.”
Simply put, the AAUP now believes that the way to protect academic freedom is to deny it.
Although the AAUP claims that its new position should not be interpreted as anti-Israel, and that its decision did not involve an ideological or political litmus test, its timing and associations indicate otherwise.
It is no coincidence that the AAUP abandoned its principled and full-throated opposition to academic boycotts soon after Israel’s military response in Gaza to the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7.
In doing so, the AAUP aligned itself with the anti-Israel protesters that flooded college campuses last spring, including the Students for Justice in Palestine, which supports the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement and advocates for the dismantling of the State of Israel.
[Related: Academic freedom can’t be safeguarded when activists run the show]
Its decision also reflects solidarity with its union affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which strongly supported the anti-Israel protests, many of which resulted in destruction of property, class cancellations, restricted campus access, and threats, intimidation and harassment of Jewish students.
Both the AAUP and the AFT have downplayed concerns of antisemitism on campus, characterizing the protests as peaceful demonstrations, condemned congressional hearings investigating antisemitism in higher education, and, unsurprisingly, in 2021, AFT’s San Diego Chapter passed a resolution rejecting Israel’s legitimacy as a country.
Indeed, the AAUP’s recent actions reflect an anti-Israel bias that closely aligns with those at odds, both ideologically and politically, with Israel and its supporters.
For decades, the AAUP rejected academic boycotts as hostile to the free exchange of ideas and the advancement of knowledge.
It protected the rights of faculty to cooperate and collaborate across campus or across the world, which is essential to academic freedom and promoting intellectual discourse.
Now, it is the AAUP that is threatening academic freedom by prioritizing ideology over principle and promoting a tactic that not only contradict its mission, but also restricts the very freedoms it claims to defend.
By abandoning its core principles and endorsing academic boycotts, the AAUP has not only compromised its commitment to academic freedom, but has also set a dangerous precedent where ideology trumps open inquiry and the free exchange of ideas—principles it once championed.
Editorials and op-eds reflect the opinion of the authors and not necessarily that of Campus Reform or the Leadership Institute.
