In sharp policy reversal, American Association of University Professor supports academic boycott

The American Association of University Professors announced on Monday the reversal of its 24-year-old stance opposing academic boycotts with a statement saying faculty members and students should be free to assess the specific circumstances of systematic academic boycotts and make their own choices regarding their participation in them.  

According to its new policy, AAUP said academic boycotts are not inherently violations of academic freedom and can instead be "legitimate tactical responses" to conditions that are "fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education."

"The freedom to produce and exchange knowledge depends upon the guarantee of other basic freedoms and human rights, among them the rights to life, liberty, security of person, freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention, and the rights to liberty of movement and freedom to choose one’s residence," AAUP said in a statement written by it's Committee A on Academic Freedom. 

According to the statement, academic boycotts should neither "involve any political or religious litmus tests" nor "target individual scholars and teachers engaged in ordinary academic practices, such as publishing scholarship, delivering lectures and conference presentations, or participating in research collaborations."

While not pinpointing acceptable forms of academic boycott, AAUP said only institutions of higher education "that themselves violate academic freedom" or the "fundamental rights upon which academic freedom depends" should be boycotted.

AAUP's statement comes on the heels of a chaotic academic year following October 7 where rampant calls for BDS and anti-Israel protests from faculty and students alike swept college campuses nationwide. Academic departments were roiled with controversies over the condemnation of Israel.

Criticism intensifies

While AAUP doesn't directly mention Israel, or any country, Rana Jaleel, chair of Committee A, told Inside Higher Ed that the policy change is being made "in the context of Israel and Gaza."

Miriam Elman, president of the Academic Engagement Network, a group of faculty across the country who oppose efforts to delegitimize Israel and defend academic freedom on campus, slammed the policy reversal and accused AAUP of targeting Israel.  

"We wouldn't want to see any academic university systems boycotted, because we believe that intellectual exchange among academics is actually a route to societal change," Elman told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "It's important to foster it, and it was always fostered."

According to Elman, even during the boycott of the South African government during apartheid, there was not a systematic academic boycott because people recognized there were academics in South Africa who wanted change, just like there are academics on Israeli campuses that are "at the vanguard of trying to create change."

It's self-defeating as a strategy, she added. 

Elman attributed the policy reversal to AAUP's "buy in" that Israeli universities are complicit in the war against Hamas. 

Elman said while it sounds nice in theory for AAUP to say universities as institutions could be boycotted without harming individual faculty, it doesn't work in practice. 

"When you boycott a university you are, by definition, impacting the people who work, live and study in them. You are impacting the individuals," Elman said. 

Elman described AAUP's policy reversal as a "shot in the arm" as her organization, the American Engagement Network, had leaned on AAUP's opposition to academic boycotts for support during increasing calls for boycotts of Israel over the past decade. 

Elman said some boycott calls came from organizations within specific universities like NYU and Columbia to end study abroad and research exchange programs with Israel whereas other calls came more broadly from Students for Justice in Palestine.  

Since professors have been engaging in "silent" boycotts of Israel by not inviting Israeli speakers and not putting Israeli materials on their syllabi, Elman expects to see pursuit of new campaigns for institutional boycott as institutions across Europe have already done by closing research partnerships with Israeli universities. 

Elman referenced the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which says conferences should not be hosted with scholars unless they support the Palestinian BDS approach and files for tenure and promotion should not be approved for faculty who disagree with that approach. 

However in a post on X, AAUP said "faculty members should not be denied institutional support or face reprisal for supporting or not supporting an academic boycott."

As the upcoming semester ticks forward, Elman fears Jewish and Israeli students and professors will continue to be targeted on campuses. 

It's unclear how universities will respond to varying interpretations of AAUP's statement. 

Dean Hoke, President and CEO of the American Association of University Administrators, did not return The Post's request for comment. 

AAUP also did not respond to The Post's inquiry about its policy reversal.