23.10.24
Editorial Note
The Claremont Colleges complex is located on contiguous campuses in the Southern California city of Claremont. They include five undergraduate liberal arts colleges and two graduate institutions. These are Pomona College, Claremont Graduate University, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, and Keck Graduate Institute.
Earlier this month, a discussion titled “Should Universities Boycott, Divest, or Sanction Israel” was hosted at the Claremont McKenna College. As well known, the BDS movement calls for institutions to cut their ties with “companies that participate in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.” The discussion was part of the Claremont Colleges Open Academy, a program focusing on “core commitments to Freedom of Expression, Viewpoint Diversity, and Constructive Dialogue.” In Open Academy, “Students are given the tools to listen respectfully, ask incisive questions, and engage with greater curiosity and openness to differences of opinion. This is how we strengthen the national practice of our democracy.”
Two professors appeared on the panel, one advocating for BDS and the other arguing against it.
Prof. Yuval Avnur, an associate professor of philosophy at Scripps College specializing in agnosticism and epistemology, represented the anti-BDS position. Prof. David Lloyd, an emeritus professor of English at UC Riverside whose expertise focuses on Irish culture and postcolonial and cultural theory, represented the pro-BDS stance.
As expected, the event was emotionally charged.
Avnur started with a statement on why universities should reject BDS and encourage engagement with Israel. He disagreed with Pitzer College’s decision to remove the Study Abroad program with the Israeli University of Haifa, which was driven by the BDS movement. “The University of Haifa is an incredibly diverse school that provides substantial opportunities for its students… If the aim was to encourage Israel to provide better opportunities for Arab-Israelis, this, I think, was a spectacular and hypocritical failure. We should instead engage with the University of Haifa to strengthen the positive role it plays for Arab-Israelis.” Avnur closed his statement by emphasizing why he believes the BDS movement can cause harm to the Claremont community. “As an academic community, we must do better than getting into simple good versus evil narratives and into false colonizer-colonized dichotomies where they don’t exist… We need to think critically and seek out knowledge about the problems we wish to solve, not accept sloganeering and propaganda. This is why we should reject BDS.” Avnur said.
Lloyd followed up with his pro-BDS arguments, countering Avnur’s claims that the BDS movement is divisive. “BDS is a civil rights movement… It seeks to transform a situation by placing external pressure, not divisive pressure, by any means, in the interest of having people learn to live together.” Lloyd explained how the practices of BDS hold power when targeted toward a country such as Israel.“ BDS is “only really effective where it is possible to put pressure on a population that might conceivably make them change… It is possible for Israel to decolonize.” Lloyd noted that academic spaces were ideal for these difficult conversations. “If we are going to proximate truth or social justice, and I don’t think the two are fully separable, then this is how we do it… We talk. We try to persuade and we try to introduce people to facts they haven’t heard before. The boycott strategy is precisely designed to do that,” Lloyd said.
Worth noting that Lloyd is a longtime anti-Israel activist. Jadaliyya, an independent journal produced by the Arab Studies Institute, describes Lloyd as a “Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, and a founding member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.” Adding, he published numerous articles on Palestine and Israel, including “Settler Colonialism and the State of Exception: The Example of Israel/Palestine” in The Journal of Settler Colonial Studies and, with Malini Johar Schueller, an essay on the rationale for the academic boycott of Israel in the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom.” For Jadaliyya, it doesn’t matter if Lloyd has no academic background in Palestinian, Israeli, or Middle Eastern Studies. As Jadalliya admits, “Lloyd works primarily on Irish culture and on postcolonial and cultural theory. His most recent book is Irish Culture and Colonial Modernity: The Transformation of Oral Space.”
In October 2023, soon after the Hamas massacre of Israelis, several events took place at the Claremont Colleges. For example, a panel at Pomona titled “Conflation of Antisemitism with Criticism of the Israeli Government: Unpacking a Campus, Domestic, & International Problem.” Another event at Pomona was titled “Standing in Solidarity with Palestine,” co-hosted by Claremont SJP and Claremont Jewish Voices for Peace.
Unfortunately, BDS already scored some wins. In April 2024, Pitzer College removed from its pre-approved list the study abroad programs in 11 countries, including the University of Haifa in Israel. Pitzer’s administration stated otherwise. President Strom C. Thacker wrote in a statement that the decision to remove 11 international programs from the pre-approved list “was made by the Faculty Executive Committee in April. I wish to reiterate, as stated in communications from the Dean of Faculty, that none of the removals from the pre-approved list, including that of the University of Haifa, were for reasons of academic boycott.”
However, in May 2023, a delegation of professors and students from Pitzer College and Claremont McKenna College visited Birzeit University. They came to learn more about higher education institutions in Palestine. The delegation met with Dr. Beshara Doumani, Birzeit University’s President, who addressed the “challenges facing Palestinian universities in light of settler colonialism and for-profit education.”
Doumani emphasized the “significance of academic exchange as a means to break the siege on Palestinian universities.” He stated, “Although the Israeli occupation imposes severe restrictions on Palestinian universities, we developed strong south south academic relations and partnerships with other parts of the world to conquer geography.” During the meeting, the delegation learnt about the BDS movement and mobility programs available to Palestinian students. The delegation has met members of the Right to Education campaign to learn about “Israeli violations against Birzeit University students and Israeli directives that isolate Palestinian universities.” Pitzer College professors also held individual meetings with several Birzeit University professors “to learn more about the academic programs offered at Birzeit University and to explore collaborative research projects.”
To recall, Doumani previously taught at Brown University, where he recruited the anti-Israel Israeli Professor Ariella Azoulay, a specialist in art and culture, to the Middle East Center, which he headed. Azoulay made a career of bashing Israel. She is one of the numerous Israeli scholars rewarded with positions in Western institutions due to their political agenda, a phenomenon IAM has frequently reported.
The BDS discussion underscores the difficulties in providing a balanced discourse as the Open Academy required. Liberal arts on American campuses are full of academic activists such as Doumani or Lloyd. Students are often indoctrinated by their professors to the point that they are unwilling to listen to the other side. As one of the students stated in the BDS discussion: “Some questions, which were back-to-back, were asked in what felt like an antagonistic manner… It didn’t really feel as if some of the questions were coming from a state of wanting to know more but instead an unwillingness to hear out the other perspective.”
REFERENCES:
‘Should Universities Boycott, Divest, or Sanction Israel?’: Professors debate productivity of BDS on college campuses
By Audrey Park and Chloe Eshagh
On Saturday, Oct. 5, Claremont McKenna College’s (CMC) Open Academy hosted a discussion titled “Should Universities Boycott, Divest, or Sanction Israel” at CMC’s Kravis Center. Featuring two professors, one advocated the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement while the other argued against it.
The BDS movement calls for institutions to cut ties with “companies that participate in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.” The debate around this sentiment is especially prevalent among U.S. college and university students, including those at the 5Cs.
Yuval Avnur, an associate professor of philosophy at Scripps College who specializes in agnosticism and epistemology, represented the anti-BDS position. David Lloyd, a professor of English Emeritus at UC Riverside whose expertise focuses on Irish culture and postcolonial and cultural theory, represented the pro-BDS stance.
Facilitated by Heather Fergusen, associate professor of history at CMC, the emotionally charged event had community members challenging the professors’ perspectives, sharing their own experiences and asking questions.
Following Fergusen’s brief introduction to the professors and outline of the event’s structure, each professor delivered opening statements, addressing their stances on the movement.
Avnur gave an opening statement on why universities should reject BDS and encourage engagement with Israel instead of resisting. Avnur said he disagreed with Pitzer College’s decision to remove its study abroad program at the University of Haifa in Israel, which was driven by the BDS movement.
“The University of Haifa is an incredibly diverse school that provides substantial opportunities for its students,” Anvar said. “If the aim was to encourage Israel to provide better opportunities for Arab-Israelis, this, I think, was a spectacular and hypocritical failure. We should instead engage with the University of Haifa to strengthen the positive role it plays for Arab-Israelis.”
Avnur closed his statement by emphasizing why he believes the BDS movement can cause harm to the 5C community.
“As an academic community, we must do better than getting into simple good versus evil narratives and into false colonizer-colonized dichotomies where they don’t exist,” Avnur said. “We need to think critically and seek out knowledge about the problems we wish to solve, not accept sloganeering and propaganda. This is why we should reject BDS.”
Lloyd followed up with his pro-BDS argument, countering Avnur’s argument that the movement is divisive.
“BDS is a civil rights movement,” Lloyd said. “It seeks to transform a situation by placing external pressure, not divisive pressure, by any means, in the interest of having people learn to live together.”
Lloyd explained how the practices of BDS hold power when targeted toward a country such as Israel.
“Sanctions and divestment and boycott are only really effective where it is possible to put pressure on a population that might conceivably make them change,” Lloyd said. “It is possible for Israel to decolonize.”
When asked why universities are the appropriate setting for discussions and boycotts, Lloyd noted larger academic spaces as the ideal place for these difficult conversations.
“If we are going to proximate truth or social justice, and I don’t think the two are fully separable, then this is how we do it,” Lloyd said. “We talk. We try to persuade and we try to introduce people to facts they haven’t heard before. The boycott strategy is precisely designed to do that.”
Following the professor’s opening statements, Ferguson opened the conversation for comments and questions. During this time, several students detailed their personal experiences relating to the situation, resulting in some tension and high emotions.
Event attendee Alyssa Wu PO ’28 said that while the space allowed for a productive and necessary conversation, at times, questions felt targeted toward Lloyd.
“Some questions, which were back-to-back, were asked in what felt like an antagonistic manner,” Wu said. “It didn’t really feel as if some of the questions were coming from a state of wanting to know more but instead an unwillingness to hear out the other perspective.”
Wu said that overall, the event was helpful in education on the topics and left her feeling prepared to engage in discourse surrounding them.
“A lot of history, terms and specific documents were talked about,” Wu said. “Just being able to hear them explained in a more simplified manner was really nice, and I plan to use this as a gateway to do my own reading and research.”
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A Statement on a Proposed Boycott
by jpitney | Mar 8, 2024 | Higher Education, Israel | 0 comments
[On] Wednesday, Feb. 28, TSL received a statement from Claremont McKenna College (CMC) Professor of Mathematics Lenny Fukshansky that expressed his and dozens of other faculty members’ opposition to the proposed suspension of the Haifa study abroad program and condemned the recent results of the Associated Students of Pomona College’s (ASPC) referendum.
The statement, titled “Promoting Learning, Rejecting Division: Claremont Faculty Against Academic Boycott,” had a total of 38 faculty member signatures. A majority of support came from CMC professors, representing 26 of the signatures. Following behind CMC, Scripps College had six signatures, Pitzer and Pomona College each contributed two and Keck Graduate Institute and Claremont Graduate University had one signature each. No one from Harvey Mudd College signed the statement.
Originally, the letter was drafted in collaboration between a small group of faculty members before being sent to colleagues whom Fukshansky said he knew personally and thought would be interested in signing it. In an interview with TSL, Fukshansky also noted that several individuals expressed support for the letter but ultimately refused to sign it for fear of backlash.
“There were a certain number of people who said that, while they do agree with the statement of the letter, they did not feel comfortable signing it because of, I guess, potential consequences,” Fukshansky said. “To me, it sounded like people are afraid of possible intimidation.”
The statement began by expressing some professors’ opposition to the suspension of the Haifa program, stating that the institution has a diverse array of students and viewpoints.
“The University of Haifa is among the most multicultural campuses in the world,” the statement read. “Its professors express a wide spectrum of opinion on Israel and Zionism. No college committed to promoting inquiry, dialogue and debate should refuse to send their students to the University of Haifa.”
The statement stood in support of President Gabrielle Starr’s Feb. 16 email to the Pomona community in which she opposed ASPC’s hosting of the referendum and suggested that targeting Israel could have antisemitic implications. Similarly, the Feb. 28 statement criticized the referendum’s focus on Israel, noting the historic vilification of Jewish people.
“As Pomona President Starr’s letter notes, branding Israel as the world’s only pariah state is troubling because of a long history of treating Jews as a singular threat to human progress and flourishing,” the statement read.
The statement also argued that, while “there is a spectrum of reasonable disagreement on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” recent calls to suspend the study abroad program at the University of Haifa and to cease academic and economic relations with Israeli institutions did not recognize this spectrum.
“[These initiatives] are part of the broader Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is opposed to any relations with Israel, its people, its institutions, and its supporters,” the statement read. “We fear that the intellectual retreat and calcification BDS encourages would make it harder for all of us to engage and understand both Israel and its Palestinian neighbors.”
In the interview, Fukshansky elaborated on his aversion to boycotts specifically.
“I am fairly pro-Israel in this situation and I know a number of people who also are,” he said. “For us, seeing boycott measures or calls for boycott measures feels very divisive. I can think of few things that are more illiberal than a boycott, because a boycott shuts down a conservation before it gets started.”
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Hundreds of 7C students call for end to Gaza siege, demand Pomona financial disclosure, divestment from Israeli government
On Wednesday afternoon, over 350 Claremont Colleges students walked out of classes to demand that the 7Cs divest from companies and manufacturers that support the Israeli government, citing the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The demonstration and delegation effort was part of a nationwide student walkout calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of historically Palestinian land and U.S. support of what many international groups recognize as Israeli apartheid.
Wednesday’s walkout was the most recent student action of many protests, teach-ins, vigils and panels at the Claremont Colleges since Oct. 7, when Palestinian armed group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing approximately 1,300. The Oct. 7 onslaught was one of the largest militant resistance efforts from a Palestinian group since the origin of Israeli military occupation in the West Bank in 1967. As of Oct. 26, Gaza’s Ministry of Health estimates that over 7,000 have been killed by retaliatory attacks by Israel Defense Forces since Oct. 7.
Less than 30 minutes before the walkout was scheduled to begin, Pomona College President Gabi Starr sent an email to students reminding them that they “must adhere to [Pomona’s] student code and demonstration policy at all times,” and that campus safety staff would now be present during protests “to help ensure the safety of all.”
7C community members have called out Starr for her lack of recognition toward and support of Palestinian students. A 5C student who participated in the walkout said they felt dispirited by Claremont administrators’ responses, or lack thereof, to the grief of Palestinian students.
“We’ve seen no [administrative] acknowledgement of the 75 years of apartheid which have been happening in Palestine, which is incredibly disheartening and honestly racist, the way that white lives are being valued more than brown lives,” the student, who requested anonymity for safety and doxxing concerns, said.
Wednesday’s walkout began at 1:30 p.m. when students left their classes to gather on Bowling Green Lawn at Scripps College, participating in protest chants such as “Stop the killings stop the hate / Israel is an apartheid state,” “Hey students, come outside / Claremont pays for genocide,” and “Gaza Gaza head held high / Palestine will never die.” Many wore masks to protect their identities. Several onlookers took photographs and recordings of protestors.
“The protest was peaceful, it was respectful, it was a joyous moment of community and advocacy for people who are being marginalized and whose voices have been overlooked for so long and whose humanity has been continuously stripped from them in the media,” the anonymous student said.
Around 2:15 p.m., students walked through Claremont McKenna College’s (CMC) campus to Pomona’s Alexander Hall, where hundreds of students stood outside administrative offices. One unidentified student leader spoke directly to Pomona’s Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Treasurer Jeff Roth about protesters’ demands. They asked Roth to disclose whether Pomona was investing their endowment in any companies that fund Israel and to divest from those companies if so. The speaker said that students would escalate action if Pomona failed to disclose investments by Friday.
“Until disclosure, we have every reason to believe that our tuition money is being used to support this internationally recognized apartheid regime and the war crimes of the Israeli State,” the student stated. “We are here because Pomona is complicit with the mass slaughter of an entire people, with the ethnic cleansing and the forced displacement of Palestinians.”
The protest dispersed after closing protest chants on Pomona’s Marston Quad just before 3:00 p.m.
Mark Kendall, Pomona’s chief communications officer, told TSL via email that the institution’s endowment investment policies are set by the Board of Trustees. Kendall referred TSL to Pomona’s audited financial statements for more information on monetary disclosure.
“The pooled funds include international equities, and the investment policies do not single out any country or region with nation-based investment restrictions,” Kendall said. “Donations for current use (such as the annual fund) are not invested alongside the endowment. Tuition and fees also are separate from the endowment and are used solely to support college operations.”
The protester’s request was the latest instance of the BDS movement at the 5Cs, which has taken over some academic and student government discourse at Pitzer College and Pomona, to administrative pushback.
Hours after President Starr’s email in the early afternoon and the completion of the student delegation at Alexander Hall, Pomona students received another email outlining changes in policies for event promotion/advertising, speech and events. The email was sent jointly by Pomona’s Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Avis E. Hinkson and Associate Dean of Students & Dean of Campus Life Josh Eisenberg.
Amid last week’s return from fall break, over 150 7C students arranged a vigil for Palestine on Friday at Pomona’s Smith Campus Center (SCC). The vigil was followed by a teach-in, informing students on the historical context of the Free Palestine movement.
During the vigil, student representatives from different affinity groups and social justice organizations read out messages in solidarity with Palestine. Before the teach-in, some event organizers also handed out information packets to attendees, which highlighted the event’s thesis.
“In order to understand the Palestinian struggle, you must understand it through a framework that captures the historical processes that produced our current conditions,” the pamphlets read. “That framework is ‘settler-colonialism.’ In its current manifestation, this settler colonialism is enforced or sustained through systems of occupation and apartheid. This in turn requires us to understand the Palestinian struggle as one of national liberation.”
After listening to a line-up of speakers, the vigil attendees decorated the SCC fountain with flowers, stuffed animals and letters in support of Palestinians affected by the violence, including a message mourning “insurgents who have died for the liberation of Palestine.”
Some students disagreed with parts of the vigil’s messaging. Riaan Dhankhar PO ’25 spent time working for the House Foreign Affairs Committee on policies around Israel and wanted to look at differences between student and policymaker perspectives on current issues. He cited compassion for Palestinian people and hopes for a ceasefire as his primary reasons for attending the vigil, and said he was disappointed by the nature of the event.
Dhankhar said he felt that some student speakers at the vigil leaned in to propaganda. While he thinks there is “a lot of merit” to calling what is happening in Palestine a genocide, he believes student groups in Claremont should focus on directly helping Palestinians in this moment rather than utilizing combative anti-apartheid rhetoric.
“Everyone in this situation is going through hell. This is the darkest moment in Israeli history since 1967, but it’s also what Palestinians view as the third Intifada, or as the second Nakba,” Dhankhar said. “That I think is getting lost because everyone is so mad and so vigilant and so interested in pointing fingers, that the need for aid and help and the moment to actually mourn the loss and actually have a real vigil has been lost.”
After the teach-in, students and organizers marched around the SCC. Their chants included “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “From Palestine to Mexico / All these walls have got to go.”
The march continued through the campuses to its destination at Commencement Plaza during Pitzer President Strom Thacker’s inauguration. Around 50 students protested Thacker’s Oct. 13 response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Thacker’s statement was his second response to the attack, with the first on Oct. 9 receiving criticism for neutrality.
Wearing all black and silently holding signs raising awareness for the Free Palestine movement, protestors maintained a stark visual for everyone on stage for the remainder of the ceremony.
One student demonstrator, who requested to remain anonymous for safety concerns, felt the need to protest because of Pitzer’s response to the situation.
“As a Palestinian student, I’m deeply hurt that we continue to talk about this genocide as a conflict when a population is being ethnically cleansed, there’s no place for justification. Of course, we must mourn all lives lost, but we cannot dismiss the source of the violence which is settler colonialism and genocide. And Pitzer has a responsibility in addressing the truth as it is,” they said.
The student expressed gratitude for the demonstrations happening for Palestine, in contrast to what they felt was silence on the part of the college administrators.
“While it has been heartwarming to see students teaching other students and faculty just having open conversations about this, it’s also been really disappointing to see that the very leaders of this place are the ones that are either choosing to be silent, or to take a neutral stance on genocide.”
Another student demonstrating at the inauguration, who requested to remain anonymous for the same concerns, cited Pitzer’s need to divest from funding to Israel.
“I think at this school, President Thacker and all of us have a really big responsibility to do what we can to prevent the genocide that is being funded by our tax dollars as an institution we have ties to the State of Israel,” they said. “And I think it’s important that we bring awareness to the genocide that’s happening and we emphasize how important it is for Pitzer College to divest from apartheid Israel, and to stand with Palestinians.”
Five days after these events, the vigil at the SCC was taken down by Pomona facilities staff on Tuesday morning.
Claremont students and faculty have also created platforms to share both research and personal experiences with conflict and occupation in Israel and Palestine. On Wednesday evening in Pitzer’s Benson auditorium, four students and three professors from CMC and Pitzer participated in a panel highlighting an 11-day solidarity tour in Palestine they participated in this summer.
A Pitzer student on the study tour, Jordan PZ ’23, talked about the impactful and joyful time he spent with Palestinian students at Birzeit University in the West Bank during the trip.
“It just felt like college students hanging out and joking around just like we would in Claremont,” he said. “This seems sort of banal, but it is profound because most of us who are Americans are taught to dehumanize Palestinians.”
One of the panelists, Pitzer Associate Professor of English and World Literature Amanda Lagji, spoke to her positionality and perspective on the Palestinian solidarity study tour.
“I’ll mention just briefly how I’ve taken what I’ve learned from the trip back to Pitzer into the classroom,” Lagji said. “My work is not simply to integrate Palestinian voices into my syllabi, not only to understand Palestine’s occupation as settler colonialism, but also to address the perception that to speak about Palestine is impossible.”
Other events that took place this week include a panel at Hahn Hall at Pomona on Monday, “Conflation of Antisemitism with Criticism of the Israeli Government: Unpacking a Campus, Domestic, & International Problem” and a Thursday Community Lunch at the Pomona Womxn’s Union “Standing in Solidarity with Palestine” co-hosted by Claremont SJP and Claremont Jewish Voices for Peace. Today, Claremont Hillel is sponsoring a weekly Lunch and Learn at CMC: “Israel and Us: A Faculty Moderated Discussion.”
Maxine Davey, Ben Lauren and Enoch Kim contributed reporting.
This article has been updated Oct. 27 at 11:00 a.m. to include the perspectives students who demonstrated at Pitzer’s inauguration last Friday.
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Birzeit University hosts delegation from Pitzer and Claremont McKenna College, United States
6 Jun 2023
On Thursday, May 25, 2023, a delegation from Pitzer College and Claremont McKenna College, California, US, comprising professors and students, visited Birzeit University to learn more about higher education institutions in Palestine.
The delegation met with Birzeit University President Dr. Beshara Doumani, who addressed the challenges facing Palestinian universities in light of settler colonialism and for-profit education.
Dr. Doumani emphasized the significance of academic exchange as a means to break the siege on Palestinian universities. He added, “Although the Israeli occupation imposes severe restrictions on Palestinian universities, we developed strong south south academic relations and partnerships with other parts of the world to conquer geography.”
During the meeting, the delegation inquired about the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and mobility programs available to Palestinian students.
To answer student inquires, Dr. Amir Khalil, director of the External Academic Relations Office, elaborated on partnerships between Birzeit University and American and European universities, emphasizing the interpersonal skills students develop while studying abroad.
Later, the delegation met members of the Right to Education campaign to learn about Israeli violations against Birzeit University students and Israeli directives that isolate Palestinian universities.
Pitzer College professors also held individual meetings with Birzeit University professors to learn more about the academic programs offered at Birzeit University and to explore collaborative research projects.
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Committee on Academic Freedom
Urging Claremont McKenna College to Uphold Free Speech and Academic Freedom Principles regarding SJP Protest
- April 26, 2013
- Committee on Academic Freedom
Pamela Brooks Gann, President
Claremont McKenna College
500 E. Ninth Street
Claremont, CA 91711
via fax: (909) 621-8790
Dear President Gann:
I am writing on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express concern about the response of Claremont McKenna College (CMC) to an incident that took place on its campus on March 4, 2013, and to urge the CMC administration and faculty to investigate this incident in a thorough and even-handed manner so as to uphold the principles of free speech and academic freedom.
MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 3000 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.
As we understand it, Students for Justice in Palestine at the Claremont Colleges, a recognized student organization, was conducting a demonstration on the CMC campus to protest Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, having secured prior authorization from the CMC administration. During that demonstration someone who turned out to be a CMC faculty member is alleged to have urged a security guard to stop the protest and to have repeatedly directed a degrading epithet at a Pitzer student participating in the protest.
The principles of academic freedom protect the right of all members of a college or university community, including students and student organizations, to express their political views and engage in peaceful protest, in keeping with an institution’s reasonable rules and regulations. Those principles also require that such rules and regulations, and any investigation into alleged violations thereof, be applied equally to all; selective application of regulations is itself a violation of the principles of academic freedom and free speech. It is our understanding that the CMC administration’s initial response to this incident was to focus on whether the students had violated college policy on demonstrations, rather than on the alleged incident of verbal assault and harassment, despite a complaint having been lodged regarding the latter. We would point out that CMC’s own Guide to CMC’s Civil Rights Policies and Civil Rights Grievance Procedures deems the use of degrading and insulting epithets directed at people as members of racial, religious, ethnic, gender or other groups, and the creation thereby of a hostile environment for them, to be unacceptable. We also note that such language is particularly troubling when it comes from a faculty member and is directed at a student.
Given this, we urge the CMC administration to conduct a thorough investigation of all aspects of this incident, including the actions of the CMC faculty member involved, and to uphold the right of students at the Claremont Colleges to express their views without being subjected to verbal or physical harassment. More broadly, we urge the CMC administration to publicly reaffirm its commitment to the principles of academic freedom, which require that institutions of higher education protect and foster the vigorous and respectful expression and exchange of ideas and opinions on all topics, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sincerely,
Peter Sluglett
MESA President
Visitin Research Professor, Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore
Documents & Links
- US20130426
pdf 124 KB
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The Palestinian Litmus Test
After three years of unprecedentedly open debate, the membership of the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) membership is finally voting on the Palestinian call to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
- By David Lloyd May 14
Racism in the Defense of a Racist State: Some Reflections on BDS at the Modern Language Association
It is beginning to seem as if the arrival of winter spells academic boycott season as well as the festive season. This year in November, the business meetings of two major associations voted overwhelmingly to endorse the call of Palestin..
- By David Lloyd Jan 16
Anthropologists Speak Out for Justice in Palestine
The American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) annual business meeting voted on 20 November 2015 to send to the membership for a full vote a resolution to endorse the Palestinian call for the
- By David Lloyd Nov 25
Cary Nelson: The Lackey of Power
Israel recommenced its offensive against Gaza by taki..
- By David Lloyd Aug 11
On the American Association of University Professors’ Opposition to Academic Boycotts
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On 10 May 2013, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) issued a “Statement on Academic Boycotts” which states, not for the first time, its “opposition to academic boycotts as a matter of princ..
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