Ball of
Cottont,
Metro
Academic Support
U.S. campus presidents reject
British boycott of Israel.
On the Boardwalk
Don Cohen
Special to the Jewish News
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14
August 9 • 2007
JN
he presidents of three of
Michigan's top universities
have joined 280 of their fel-
low college and university presidents,
a unanimous U.S. Congress as wells
as thousands of academics and others
around the world in publicly opposing
a proposed academic boycott of Israel.
Lou Anna K. Simon of Michigan
State University, Mary Sue Coleman
of the University of Michigan and Dr.
Irvin D. Reid of Wayne State University
have each endorsed Columbia
University President Lee C. Bollinger's
statement condemning the call for a
boycott and telling British academics
to boycott his university if they boy-
cott Israel.
Harold T. Shapiro, like Bollinger a
former president of the University of
Michigan, solicited endorsements of
the statement from more than 2,000
university and college presidents
across the nation. Shapiro, president
emeritus of Princeton University
and co-chair of the American Jewish
Committee's Koppelman Insitute on
The Bollinger Statement
The following statement from
Columbia Universtiy President Lee
C. Bollinger was slated to be pub-
lished as an ad with endorsements
in the New York Times on Aug. 9:
"As a citizen,
I am profoundly
disturbed by the
recent vote by
Britain's new
University and
College Union
to advance a
boycott against
Lee Bollinger
Israeli academic
institutions. As a
university professor and president,
I find this idea utterly antithetical
to the fundamental values of the
academy, where we will not hold
intellectual exchange hostage to
the political disagreements of the
moment. In seeking to quarantine
Israeli universities and scholars,
this vote threatens every univer-
American Jewish-Israeli Relations,
solicited the help of the AJC in prepar-
ing an ad that will appear in the Nov. 9
edition of the New York Times. The ad
will include Bollinger's statement and
a list of endorsers.
In May, the University and College
Union of the United Kingdom, by a
vote of 158-99, called on the European
Union to stop funding educational
programs with Israel academics
and instituions of higher education
because of "Israeli academia's coop-
eration with the occupation?' It also
called for a year of study during which
the union would promote the views
of Palestinian advocates of a boycott
before voting on a full boycott.
Opposition to the boycott call has
been significant. The head of the UCU
has spoken out against it. In early July,
the U.S. House of Representatives, by
a vote of 414-0, unanimously passed a
resolution urging the European Union
and governments around the world
to reject the call. A Scholars for Peace
in the Middle East (SPME) petition
drafted by Harvard Professor Alan
Dershowitz has garnered more than
11,000 signers.
sity committed to fostering schol-
arly and cultural exchanges that
lead to enlightenment, empathy
and a much-needed international
marketplace of ideas.
At Columbia I am proud to say
that we embrace Israeli scholars
and universities that the UCU is
now all too eager to isolate — as
we embrace scholars from many
countries regardless of divergent
views on their governments' poli-
cies. Therefore, if the British UCU
is intent on pursuing its deeply
misguided policy, then it should
add Columbia to its boycott list,
for we do not intend to draw dis-
tinctions between our mission
and that of the universities you
are seeking to punish. Boycott us,
then, for we gladly stand together
with our many colleagues in
British, American and Israeli uni-
versities against such intellectu-
ally shoddy and politically biased
attempts to hijack the central mis-
sion of higher education."