Another pro-BDS academic conference at CUNY

It takes academics to defend things that are indefensible.

Panelists: Professor Bill Mullen (Purdue), Radhika Sainath (Palestine Solidarity Legal Support), Sherry Wolf (International Socialists Review), Professor Ashley Dawson (CSI/GC, CUNY).

April 2, 2014
7:00-9:00pm
Skylight room, CUNY GC


Following the official endorsement of the American Studies Association of the call from Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israel, concerns over “academic freedom” have been repeatedly invoked as reasons to oppose academic boycotts. Moreover, official statements by university presidents, attempts by New York, Maryland state legislatures, and now the US Congress, to outlaw such political affiliations demand that the significance of “academic freedom” and its functionality in the US university system be interrogated and reaffirmed.

This panel discussion specifically addresses the question of academic freedom and political affiliation from the different perspectives of academics and activists working with and around BDS in the US academe today. Panelists interrogate how the pursuit of “academic freedom” has been used to both open and close debate, how it frames the call for solidarity with Palestinian students and scholars, structures relationships with dissenting opinions, and how it applies in a US university system increasingly dependent on a contingent workforce of graduate students and adjunct labor.

Co-sponsored by: The Adjunct Project; the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics; Critical Palestine Studies Association; International Socialist Organization at the Graduate Center; Middle East Studies Organization; Post-Colonial Studies Group; and Haymarket Books.

They even created a graphic for the event that apparently portrays people who are against boycotting Israel as imprisoning pro-Palestinian minds:

I do not support any law that would outlaw any form of speech except incitement for violence. But outlawing boycotts is not the same as "outlawing political affiliations."

Even the description of this academic conference proves that the organizers are liars.

By the way, here is an example of "academic freedom" that not one of these academics would ever condemn. It occurred this week at the National University of Ireland Galway as BDS supporters of "academic freedom" cursed and shouted down the evil Zionists who were discussing - how to fight boycotts.



Will any BDS advocate on this panel about freedom of expression condemn this? You know the answer. They make their decisions first, and justify it later using lots of polysyllabic words. Everyone sees through this but the BDS academics themselves.

Next month maybe these brilliant academics will contextualize rape for us and show how it could be a moral act.

It sounds horrible, I know - how can I even think such a thing?

Yet some Arabs have said that they want to use rape as a weapon against Israeli Jewish women. This turns rape from a horrible crime against women into legitimate resistance against the Zionist oppressor. And BDS' intellectual leaders say, quite explicitly, that all forms of resistance are legitimate, even if they are not tactically appropriate at all times. Anything that is part of the struggle to destroy the Zionist regime - even immoral acts - is by definition righteous.

So is it really so far-fetched that a "rape Israeli women" conference could attract the same kinds of moral midgets who are organizing these jokes on campus?

(h/t David L)

(corrected headline; I had mistakenly said NYU)