Recently, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) protested against the choice of Archbishop Desmond Tutu to deliver commencement addresses at Michigan State University (MSU) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). In letters to Dr. Lou Anna K. Simon, MSU President, and to Dr. Holden Thorp, UNC Chancellor, the ADL referred to Archbishop Tutu’s endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel as “based on ideas that are anti-Semitic and should be anathema to any institution of higher learning truly committed to academic freedom.”
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) joins the ADL in opposing Archbishop Tutu’s designation as a commencement speaker specifically because he advocates an academic boycott of Israel.
As the ADL pointed out in its letters, two years ago both President Simon and Chancellor Thorp were among more than 200 college and university leaders who signed a statement of opposition to academic boycotts, prompted by a campaign in the United Kingdom’s University and College Union to boycott Israeli academics. More than 11,000 academics including 55 college and university presidents and 33 Nobel Laureates signed a similar statement issued by SPME then and more recently in response to new boycott campaigns in Canada.
In those statements, the signers implicitly acknowledged that boycotts are antithetical to academic freedom. However, academic freedom is widely misunderstood. It is the right of universities to determine, among other things, who can teach and study there. It is also the right of faculty to determine, within their discipline and subject to peer review, what they will teach and what areas of scholarship they will pursue. Academic freedom does not confer immunity to criticism from non-academics, who have the same First Amendment freedoms as anyone else to comment on scholars, scholarship, and academic institutions. Academic freedom also does not give anyone who wants it the right to a podium on a university campus.
Boycotts are antithetical to academic freedom because they prevent universities from determining who can teach and study there and faculty from determining with whom they can collaborate. Universities should clearly recognize the danger of giving a podium to someone who has become an ally of those who seek to undermine academic freedom.
It is deeply disappointing that Archbishop Tutu has associated himself with the boycott campaign. He deserves our respect and admiration for his personal history of militant, principled opposition to South African apartheid, but that history may have made him vulnerable to the rhetoric of anti-Israel groups and their false charges that Israel is an apartheid state.
Unlike some anti-Israel groups, he has not called for the dissolution of the Jewish state. In a speech at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), he said: “I believe that Israel has a right to secure borders, internationally recognized, in a land assured of territorial integrity and with acknowledged sovereignty as an independent country.” But in the same speech, he referred to Israeli apartheid and oppression of Palestinians, and used Biblical language in attributing the conflict to “wayward and sinful” Jews. And he is an honorary member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).
Archbishop Tutu is active in other causes as well. He is an eloquent spokesperson about Darfur, but he is not campaigning for or even suggesting an academic boycott of Sudan or of the other countries that are enabling genocide in Darfur. His failure to do so suggests that either he is poorly informed about both conflicts or he shares the biases of USACBI.
In any case, by rejecting him, universities can educate students as well as faculty and the public about the true meanings of academic freedom and academic integrity. They can also do some educating about the true meaning of apartheid, and why the term does not apply to Israel, but that is a secondary issue.
For Further information Contact:
Judith Jacobson, Columbia University, SPME Vice President for Internal Relations jsj4@columbia.edu
Edward Beck, Walden University, SPME President Emeritus,
Peter Haas, Case Western Reserve University, SPME Vice President for External Relations peter.haas@case.edu
Sam Edelman, Cal State Chico, SPME Executive Director, sedelman@csuchico.edu
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is a 501 (3)(C) academic organization with nearly 27,000 faculty subscribers from over 2000 institutions world wide. SPME seeks to address issues of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism as they present in our academic institutions where we teach, research and work.