This past month, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East assisted and supported Professor Ole-Petter Ottersen (MD, PhD), Rector of the University of Oslo, Norway, thwart t recent efforts by one of the University’s unions to force the University’s Board of Directors to vote on an academic boycott of Israel’s universities and academicians.
University leadership initially refused to accommodate such a proposition, but one of the board members forced the issue.The vote was 9-2 against the boycott. However, the University’s governance went beyond a mere rejection of the boycott initiative. Under Professor Ottersen’s leadership, the University also decided to advance a counter-proposition, stating that the University forthrightly opposes any academic boycott of Israel. This global anti-boycott proposition was approved.
Professor Ottersen summarized the university’s position by saying that academic contacts contribute to creating understanding and peace, and, conversely, an academic boycott is incompatible with the principles of academic freedom.
Professor Peter Haas, Case Western Reserve University and President of SPME, thanked Professor Ottersen for his principled stand, and praised the University of Oslo for its recognition that academic boycotts are a threat to academic freedom and diminish the prospects for peace.
Haas wrote on behalf of the SPME Board of Directors and the nearly 60,000 university and college professors, researchers, administrators, teachers, librarians, and students on more than 3,500 campuses worldwide who belong to the SPME Faculty Participant Network.
For a full account of the University of Oslo’s anti-boycott initiative, in Norwegian, see:
