Ronelle Grier

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BDS Vote

UM-Dearborn faculty
defeats anti-Israel
resolutions.

Ronelle Grier | Contributing Writer

T

2093060

24 April 14 • 2016

wo resolutions to boycott Israeli
academic institutions and divest
funds from companies doing
business with Israel were overwhelmingly
voted down by faculty members at the
University of Michigan-Dearborn (UM-D)
at a Faculty Congress meeting on Monday.
The resolution to create an advisory
committee about divesting funds failed by
a vote of 32-5, with one abstention. The
resolution to boycott Israeli academic insti-
tutions, including no cultural cooperation
or collaboration and avoiding all forms of
funding or subsidies to these institutions,
failed by a 31-6 vote, with one abstention.
This resolution also supported the rights of
scholars and students to conduct research
and speak publicly about Israel-Palestine
and the boycott, divestment and sanctions
(BDS) movement without recrimination or
coercion.
David Skrbina, a senior UM-D philoso-
phy professor, proposed the resolutions as
“an attempt to isolate an offending nation.”
“This is an ethical issue,” said Skrbina,
who called Israel an apartheid state. “For
70 years, Israel has committed war crimes
and ethnic cleansing.”
Speaking against the resolutions was
UM-D Professor Jamie Wraight, who
teaches Holocaust and history courses and
is director of the Voice/Vision Holocaust
Survivor Oral History Archive. He dis-
agreed that Israel is an apartheid state,
saying the 1.6 million Arabs living in
Israel are fully integrated and entitled to
the same rights as all Israeli citizens, as
opposed to those living in the West Bank
and Gaza under Palestinian authority.
“Academic boycotts run counter to aca-
demic freedom — a key tenet of American
higher education,” Wraight said. “This
resolution upholds academic freedom for
some and opposes it for others. I believe in
academic freedom for all, not for a few.”
According to Wraight, the proposed
academic boycott could have meant loss of
access to scholarly journals and textbooks
published in Israel, as well as journal arti-
cles, book reviews and other publications
by Israeli authors, and the potential loss of
grant opportunities, research funding and
study-abroad programs.
“This impacts not only Israeli scholars,
it also affects Americans who seek to build
or sustain relations with scholars in Israel
or Israel academic institutions,” Wraight

Speaking for Israel: UM-D Professor
Jamie Wraight and student Katrina Stack.

said. “Systematic censorship has no place
here.”
Prior to the vote, UM-D Chancellor
Dan Little told the group his objections
were the same he voiced two years ago
when similar resolutions were proposed by
Skrbina and voted down by the faculty.
“UM-Dearborn has worked hard to cre-
ate an environment of inclusiveness,” Little
said. “This is the opposite of that. It would
create hostility. It’s unimaginable to keep
our faculty from a whole nation of schol-
ars, research and academic institutions. It
boggles my mind.”
The president of Students for Justice
in Palestine (SJP) said her group did not
advocate blanket divestiture but sup-
ported divesting funds from companies
directly involved in Gaza and the West
Bank, such as Caterpillar Inc. and United
Technologies.
Also attending were some students who
joined Wraight on a university-sponsored
trip to Poland last year to study Holocaust
history, a trip UM-D senior Katrina Stack
said “completely changed” her life. She
spoke against the proposed academic
boycott because it could end such trips
and because it threatens her freedom to
continue studying the Holocaust or Israeli
history.
“The moment we silence a group, we
cease to learn,” Stack said.
Once Miriam Starkman, executive direc-
tor of Hillel of Metro Detroit, learned the
proposed resolutions were added to the
agenda last Thursday, she held a confer-
ence call with representatives of the Jewish
Community Relations Council (JCRC),
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the
Academic Engagement Network and the
Israel Action Network to discuss strategy.
“We have amazing partnerships,”
Starkman said. “We were fortunate to have
support from the administration and the
community.”
Heidi Budaj, ADL Michigan Region
director, said, “It was a vote in favor of
academic freedom, a vote against racism
and a vote in favor of an inclusive atmo-
sphere on campus that encourages healthy
dialogue.”

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