http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1629735&p=1

This week, Canada’s largest annual academic conference — the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (informally known as “the Learneds”) — meets in Ottawa. Like other academic conferences, this one is intended as a forum for scholars — experts in particular fields — to present the fruits of their research in progress and receive feedback from colleagues.

Lay people who glance at the list of sessions are often surprised to see what qualifies as legitimate academic inquiry. This year’s schedule, for example, includes a session entitled “Palestine Solidarity on Campus: The question of boycott.” Five scholars are participating in this roundtable discussion; the session is sponsored in part by the Society for Socialist Studies.

Untrained observers might make a few understandable errors about this session. They might expect that the Society for Socialist Studies would consist of academics with a variety of attitudes about socialism, pro and con, who study socialism dispassionately. It isn’t. According to its Web site, it “is dedicated to providing a forum for those who promote a socialist perspective.”

Observers also might assume that this session would present a variety of opinions about the controversial question of the boycott of Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy. It won’t. All the participants are on record as supporting a boycott.

Upon learning this, you might search through the program to see if there will be other sessions dedicated to discussing the boycott of other countries — perhaps those that persecute homosexuals, disenfranchise women or outlaw trade unions. Sorry, you won’t find one.

As a scholar of Jewish history, I know that the scapegoating of Jews has a long and sordid history. In the 21st century it generally takes the form of scapegoating the Jewish state. But there is one aspect of the “Palestine Solidarity on Campus” panel that ought to shock even seasoned veterans of Canadian academia: the utter lack of qualifications of the panellists to speak on the subject at an academic conference.

The panel includes three full-time professors, one contract faculty member and one graduate student, none of whom has academic credentials or expertise in the study of Israel or of the Palestine-Israel conflict. One professor is “the Canadian Auto Workers-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy,” known for her work on Canadian feminism; another, according to his
Web site, “works in the areas of theory, sexuality and labour studies,” all focused on Canada; the third recently edited a book entitled Gendering the Nation-State: Canadian and Comparative Perspectives. The contract faculty member on the panel teaches English as a Second Language. The graduate student has a history of anti-Israel political activism that long predates her current uncompleted studies in a PhD program.

Again, an outsider might conclude that academics have decided that since the border between scholarship and politics is too blurry, academic conferences are now appropriate places for any political activity. But this conclusion would be inaccurate: Imagine what would happen if a group of Catholic academics with no credentials in biology wanted to have a session at the Learneds discussing how to stop stem cell research. Or if a group of conservative academics with no credentials in labour law organized a session on how to outlaw strikes in the public sector in Canada.
Is it reasonable for academics to be political activists? It certainly is, and there should be nothing to stop academics from pursuing political activity outside of the academy in areas where they lack disciplinary training, just as we do not demand expertise from non-academics who want to be politically active. But how did such political activism find its way into the Learneds?
The sad truth is that there is a “privileged discourse” in our academy today. Under this regime, bashing Israel is legitimate — with or without credentials.

The state of Israel — a strong and vibrant democracy — will survive the verbal abuse that will be heaped on it at the Learneds. But I worry more about the academy in Canada. I worry that the abuse of the system of academic conferences (and other widespread similar phenomena down to the classroom level, where political action is misrepresented as academic activity) will naturally bring Canadians of goodwill to ridicule the academy. This will inevitably undermine the efforts of those academics who care deeply about teaching, who strive for solidly researched scholarship grounded in proper training and who pursue personal political agendas only outside of the academy.

Martin Lockshin is professor of Humanities and Hebrew at York University in Toronto.