MLA Rejects Israel Boycott

Vote by Delegate Assembly was 113-79. Body approves another measure, calling on association to refrain from the boycott
  • 0

PHILADELPHIA — In a defeat for the movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions, members of the Modern Language Association’s Delegate Assembly voted down a resolution endorsing the academic boycott while voting to adopt another resolution that calls on the association to refrain from the boycott.

The vote in favor of the anti-boycott resolution was 101 to 93, while the pro-boycott resolution failed by a 113-79 margin.

About half a dozen U.S.-based scholarly associations, including the American Studies Association and the National Women’s Studies Association, have formally expressed their support for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions since 2013. Members of the American Anthropological Association narrowly voted down a pro-boycott resolution in the spring.

The text of the anti-boycott resolution asserts that endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic institutions “contradicts the MLA’s purpose to promote teaching and research on language and literature” and could “curtail debates with representatives of Israeli universities … thereby blocking possible dialogue and general scholarly exchange.”

In proposing the resolution, Russell A. Berman, the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, argued that “a call to boycott universities is not covered by the purpose of the MLA. It’s OK for us to have an association that focuses on language and literature, research and teaching. These are noble goals. They need our attention. We don’t have to allow the association to become the organ to address all political issues in the world.”

Berman and 11 other former MLA presidents earlier this week issued a letter opposing the boycott in which they argued that supporting a boycott of universities “will damage the reputation of the MLA and will do nothing to solve conflicts in the Middle East.”

Supporters of the boycott, on the other hand, argue that it is a powerful way to show solidarity for Palestinians in the face of what the text of the pro-boycott resolution describes as “the systematic denial of academic freedom and educational rights for Palestinian scholars and students.”

“Our resolution is responding to a virtually unanimous call from Palestinian civil society,” Rebecca Comay, a professor of philosophy and comparative literature at the University of Toronto, said in introducing the pro-boycott resolution, which ultimately failed. “The boycott is an act of solidarity to counter the enormous injustices of dispossession, occupation, blockade and racial discrimination that Palestinians continue to suffer daily. These injustices have stripped Palestinians of their basic human rights, including their rights to education and academic freedom, rights we ourselves take for granted and to which the MLA is committed.”

Even if the MLA’s Delegate Assembly had approved a pro-boycott resolution Saturday, the matter would not have been conclusively decided. Any resolutions approved by the Delegate Assembly (including the anti-boycott measure that was approved) will be forwarded on, first to the MLA’s executive council, which under the association’s rules is charged with conducting a review of the “constitutional, legal and fiduciary issues posed by the language of each resolution approved by the Delegate Assembly.” The council will then determine whether to pass it along to the full membership of the association for a vote.

A change to MLA’s bylaws that went into effect in 2012 requires a resolution to receive the support of 10 percent of all members in order to pass. Since that bar’s been in place, only two of six resolutions submitted to the full membership for a vote have been ratified.

In advance of the boycott votes, the two main groups that have mobilized to support or oppose the boycott within the MLA — the pro-boycott MLA Members for Justice in Palestine and the anti-boycott MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights — have issued blog posts and other resources on their respective websites.

“We are relieved,” said Cary Nelson, the Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the co-editor of The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel (Wayne State University Press).

“Our resolution of course will go to the members for a vote,” where it would need to receive the support of 10 percent of all MLA members in order to be approved. Getting to the 10 percent threshold, Nelson said, “will be a challenge.”

“It will be helpful,” he said, “if we can get a strong member vote behind the resolution. Maybe we won’t have to face this again for a while.”

In addition to approving the anti-boycott resolution and defeating the pro-boycott resolution, the MLA’s Delegate Assembly voted 83 to 78 to indefinitely postpone consideration of a resolution condemning alleged attacks on academic freedom by Palestinian political organizations, a resolution opposed by critics as “racist” and as victim-blaming in focusing on alleged violations of rights carried out by Palestinians to the exclusion of those attributed to the Israeli government.

 

MLA Rejects Israel Boycott

Vote by Delegate Assembly was 113-79. Body approves another measure, calling on association to refrain from the boycott
  • 0