6 February 7 • 2019 jn U niversity leaders across the country must loudly condemn faculty who would implement an academic boycott of Israel that deprives students of educational oppor- tunities and academic rights in the name of personal politics. Opponents of an academic boycott of Israel owe John Cheney- Lippold and Daniel Segal a debt of gratitude. Cheney-Lippold is the University of Michigan professor who agreed to write a letter of recommendation for one of his students last fall and then reneged after realiz- ing it was for study in Israel. Segal, a professor at Pitzer College and a major proponent of the academic boycott of Israel, convinced his fellow Pitzer facul- ty members to shut down the school’ s study-abroad program at the University of Haifa only months later. These profes- sors’ reprehensible behavior has brought much-needed attention to how imple- mentation of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) — long-advertised as aimed at academic institutions in Israel — in reality directly threatens the aca- demic freedom and rights of students on North American campuses. Alarmingly, Cheney-Lippold and Segal are just the tip of the iceberg. First, their behavior is not unique. They are just two of a growing number of faculty who choose to privilege their own personal politics above the aca- demic welfare of their students. In fact, shortly after the Cheney-Lippold inci- dent became public, another Michigan student reported that his graduate student instructor had similarly refused a letter of recommendation for a study- abroad program in Israel. Ten U.S. professors — all outspoken advocates of PACBI’ s campus agenda — have also pledged their willingness to refuse letters of recommendation for students wanting to study in Israel and encouraged others to do the same. And a petition titled “Stand With John Cheney-Lippold” that states, “We, too, are supporters of the BDS Movement and would not provide a letter of support for a student seeking to study in an Israeli University, ” has been signed by 1,000 individuals. Second, following the PACBI guide- lines to a tee, attempts have also been made to sabotage student-organized pro- grams and faculty collaborations related to Israel, thereby directly suppressing student and faculty free speech and free- dom of assembly. For example, faculty boycotters at the University of California Santa Cruz tried to cancel a student-or- ganized event titled “Queer in Israel” that was to take place at the school’ s LGBTQ Center. And faculty boycotters at Cornell University attempted to block a part- nership between Cornell and Israel’ s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to create a joint institute of applied sci- ences that would benefit Cornell faculty and students. Third, some academic disciplines, particularly in the social sciences and humanities departments, have become dominated by academic boycotters, creating a professional climate that con- dones, if not encourages, faculty asso- ciated with those disciplines to support the boycott, despite its harmful effects on students. A recent study found that departments of Middle East and ethnic and gender studies with affiliated faculty who support academic BDS are five to 12 times more likely to sponsor Israel- related events with BDS-promoting speakers than similar departments with no academic boycotters. As blatantly antithetical to the mission and values of academia as an academ- ic boycott of Israel may be, individual faculty members do have the right to express their public support for it. But when faculty like Cheney-Lippold and Segal go beyond merely expressing sup- port for an academic boycott and actual- ly threaten a student’ s right to participate in university-approved educational programs, they are not only trampling on the academic rights of their students, they are undermining the academic integrity of the entire university. It is a serious and growing problem that uni- versity leaders must face before it spirals out of control. While hundreds of university presi- dents have condemned academic boy- cotts, including the heads of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Brown and Dartmouth, thus far only a handful of university leaders have recognized the importance of opposing attempts to implement an academic boycott on their own campuses: • Following an enormous public outcry over Cheney-Lippold’ s refusal to write a letter of recommendation, University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel issued a strong statement acknowledging that “such actions inter- fere with our students’ opportunities, violate their academic freedom and betray our university’ s educational mis- sion. ” • In a speech addressing the faculty commentary University of Michigan and Pitzer College Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg The Jewish News aspires to communicate news and opinion that’ s useful, engaging, enjoyable and unique. 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