Statements on the Boycott by University of Calgary, University of Manitoba and Université du Québec à Montréal

  • 0

Harvey P. Weingarten: Boycott Must be Condemned

In May this year Britain’s University and College Union called for a boycott of Israeli academics and Israeli academic institutions. The organization, which has 120,000 members, is Britain’s main faculty union, and the proposed boycott has generated considerable controversy. I offer my personal commentary.

The role of universities is to promote, permit and enable the free exchange of ideas, debate and civil discourse. If universities do not support these values, which societal institutions will? The proposed boycott runs counter to these values and must be opposed and condemned.

I encourage our British colleagues to reject the proposed boycott, and all those who value the idea and ideals of a university to speak out against it.

Dr. Harvey P. Weingarten,
President and Vice-Chancellor
University of Calgary

*****

University of Manitoba: Statement by the President on British UCU Boycott

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I am deeply disturbed by the decision taken by delegates to the British University and College Union to advance a boycott of Israeli academics and Israeli universities. I call on the Union membership to reject the boycott, and defend the values that define the very notion of a university. It is abhorrent to silence individuals for the sake of political interests. There is no conceivable justification for isolating academics and their institutions from participating in scholarly and scientific debate because of their place of residence or the location of their universities.

The University of Manitoba is proud of its linkages to universities in Israel. We have mutually benefited from student exchanges and joint research. Our involvement will continue unabated. Israeli academics will always be welcome at the University of Manitoba as will anyone who values the exchange of ideas, and knows that arbitrarily silencing one academic’s view is the beginning of the silencing of us all. In a highly pluralistic world we need more interaction to understand each other better, not less.

For more information, contact:
Public Affairs
public_affairs@umanitoba.ca
Phone: (204) 474-8346

*****

Danielle Laberge, rectrice by interim of the UQAM, disapproves the proposal for a boycott of the Israeli universities of University and College Union (UCU) of the United Kingdom
On June 26, 2007 – the rectrice by interim of the UQAM, Mrs Danielle Laberge, having taken knowledge with consternation of the proposal for a boycott of the Israeli universities put of before by University and College Union (UCU) of the United Kingdom, disapproves such a proposal formally. “As several other universities which already reacted to the situation throughout the world, we disapprove the gesture of our colleagues of the United Kingdom and let us incite them to re-examine without delay a position which makes shame at the university institution”, to declare Mrs Laberge.

“Although the University is subjected to increasingly strong pressures in the context of an increasing universalization, and although the democratic debate asserted by University and College Union always has its place there, the choice to boycott the whole of the university institutions of a country goes clearly against the idea even of university”, to continue the rectrice by interim.

“Since its origins, the force of the university institution and what characterizes it among all the institutions, it is the paramount place which it grants to the development knowledge, their division and the engagement of opened intellectual debates, unceasingly seeking to release itself from the ideologies, the generally accepted ideas and the considerations of religious, ethnic or political nature. It is under these conditions which university autonomy and the critical spirit must be exerted”, Mrs Laberge concludes.

Source: Francine Jacques, director
Division of the relations with the press and events special
Service of the communications
University from Quebec in Montreal
Tel.: (514) 987-3000, item 7954
jacques.francine@uqam.ca

Statements on the Boycott by University of Calgary, University of Manitoba and Université du Québec à Montréal

  • 0
AUTHOR

SPME

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is not-for-profit [501 (C) (3)], grass-roots community of scholars who have united to promote honest, fact-based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues. We believe that ethnic, national, and religious hatreds, including anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, have no place in our institutions, disciplines, and communities. We employ academic means to address these issues.

Read More About SPME


Read all stories by SPME