In response to recent anti-Israel actions by faculty at the University of Michigan and Pitzer College in support of the BDS movement, more than 100 national and local groups called on the same 250 higher-education leaders who denounced the American Studies Association’s anti-Israel boycott to sign a letter to affirm their opposition to the anti-Israel movement.
Started by the AMCHA Initiative and titled the “University Leaders Statement Against the Implementation of an Academic Boycott of Israel,” the letter states: “Following the American Studies Association’s adoption of a resolution endorsing a boycott of Israeli universities in 2013, leaders of 250 U.S. colleges and universities, including your own, issued statements opposing the ASA resolution.”
“However, in light of recent reprehensible attempts by faculty at University of Michigan, Pitzer College and elsewhere to implement an academic boycott that thwarts their own students’ academic freedom and their own colleagues’ scholarly activities, it is imperative that university leaders speak out once again, this time even more forcefully,” they added.
Some of the organizations that signed the letter include, but are not limited to StandWithUs, B’nai B’rith International, WoMen For All, American Zionist Movement, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Endowment for Middle East Truth, Association of Reform Zionists of America, National Council of Young Israel, American Council of Trustees and Alumni, CUFI on Campus, Hasbara Fellowships, NCSY, Iranian American Jewish Federation, Rabbinical Alliance of America, and students and faculty groups on campuses such as Dartmouth Students for Israel and Tufts Friends of Israel.
