“Academic Freedom at Risk: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement Against Israel” will be presented on Monday, April 27, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Moot Court Room in the University of Baltimore’s John and Frances Angelos Law Center (home of the UB School of Law), 1401 N. Charles St. Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at the Harvard Law School, will deliver the keynote address.
Participants and schedule (all events will take place in the Moot Court Room in the John and Frances Angelos Law Center unless otherwise indicated):
10 a.m.:
Welcome by Dean Ronald Weich
Alan Dershowitz: “Countering the Immorality of BDS”
Followed by questions and responses
11:30 a.m.:
Morning Panel: “Overview of BDS”
- Jeffrey Herf
- Alexander Joffe
- Richard Landes
- Asaf Romirowsky
Followed by questions and responses
1 p.m., in the Learning Commons and Town Hall:
- Lunch (dietary laws observed)
- Film: Crossing the Line 2
2 p.m.:
Afternoon Panel: “BDS and Mideast Politics”
- Alan Elsner
- Benjamin Weinthal
- Moderator: School of Law Dean Ronald Weich
Followed by questions and responses
3 p.m.:
“Summing Up and Moving Forward”
- Kenneth L. Marcus
Followed by questions and responses
Alan Dershowitz has been called one of the nation’s “most distinguished defenders of individual rights” and “Israel’s single most visible defender in the court of public opinion.” He joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. Dershowitz is the author of 30 books, including The New York Times bestseller Chutzpah and The Case for Israel. He regularly contributes to a range of publications around the world.
Alan Elsner served as a correspondent for Reuters, with stints in Jerusalem, London, Stockholm and Washington covering foreign policy and presidential elections. He currently is vice president for communications at J Street.
Jeffrey Herf is an intellectual historian, sociologist, political scientist, and professor of modern European history at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has taught at Harvard University and Ohio University. His most recent book isNazi Propaganda for the Arab World.
Alexander Joffe, a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum, has taught at Pennsylvania State University and the State University of New York at Purchase. He has published numerous scholarly articles on archaeology, ancient and modern history, and cultural affairs.
Richard Landes is a noted history professor at Boston University, where he specializes in Millennialism. Author of the popular blog The Augean Stables, his most recent book is Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millenial Experience.
Kenneth L. Marcus is president and general counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law at the Louis D. Brandeis Center, and author of the award-winning Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America. Marcus founded the Brandeis Center in 2011. In November 2012, Marcus was named to the Forward 50, the Jewish Daily Forward‘s listing of the “American Jews who made the most significant impact on the news in the past year.”
Asaf Romirowsky is executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. Trained as a Middle East historian, he has published widely on various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and American foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as on Israeli and Zionist history.
Benjamin Weinthal is a European correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He also reports on European-Middle East relations and the BDS movement for The Wall Street Journal(Europe), Slate, The New Republic, Fox News, The Weekly Standard, the National Review, Haaretz, and the German daily Der Tagesspiegel.
This event is free and open to the public; an R.S.V.P. is required.
Details are available here.
