Todd Wolfson, the freshly minted president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), wasted no time in issuing his battle cry. Claiming that “fascist” politicians are “within striking distance of the annihilation of American higher education as we know it,” Wolfson urged all those “who care about higher education, academic freedom and the future of democracy” to “prepare for the fight ahead.”
Ironically, an AAUP statement released a few days later revealed that the real threat to “higher education, academic freedom and the future of democracy” is Wolfson’s AAUP and its leaders.
Reversing its 2005 position acknowledging that academic boycotts, which call for cutting all ties to targeted academic institutions and scholars, are “inimical to academic freedom,” the AAUP’s latest statement on the matter claims that academic boycotts are perfectly compatible with academic freedom. The statement even argues these boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with higher education.”
What gives? Why did the organization that has been setting the professional standards for higher education since 1915 and is widely acknowledged as the protector and defender of academic freedom in the American academy twist itself into pretzel-like contortions, claiming that what it once considered “inimical” to academic freedom is now perfectly acceptable, and can even contribute to protecting academic freedom? In a word: politics.
Both the AAUP’s 2005 pronouncement and the just-announced reversal of it were directly responsive to calls from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), the academic arm of the BDS movement. The AAUP’s flip-flop is a testament to the growing foothold of PACBI in academia, and its success in bringing the antisemitic fight to dismantle the Jewish state not only to college and university campuses, but to academic associations like the Middle East Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, and yes, the AAUP.
Since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 last fall, PACBI’s efforts have taken a quantum leap. On more than 100 U.S. campuses, chapters of the PACBI-affiliated group Faculty for Justice in Palestine have been established for the express purpose of bringing academic BDS into classrooms and the campus square.
Tellingly, the AAUP’s decision to give license to academic boycotts comes as several of its members who openly champion academic BDS have recently filled key roles in the association. For instance, Wolfson has not only signed a letter endorsing a call to action that involves incorporating academic BDS into faculty members’ teaching and research, he is also a member of an FJP chapter at his institution, Rutgers University, that openly advocates for academic BDS. Isaac Kamola, director of the association’s new Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, is also a member of an FJP-affiliated group at Trinity College and signed a letter in support of a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions that was voted on at the American Political Science Association’s annual conference in 2019. Rana Jaleel, who took over as chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure in 2024, was an early supporter of PACBI’s academic BDS campaign.
In addition, three of the five members of AAUP’s regional council, as well as presidents and executive board members of several campus chapters, including at New York University, the University of California, the University of Maryland, Syracuse University and the University of Michigan, have publicly endorsed an academic boycott of Israel.
It’s hard to deny the once-storied AAUP, esteemed for its commitment to academic integrity, has been captured by activists who are more concerned with advancing their political goal of dismantling the Jewish state than with advancing the group’s scholarly mission.
This shift from scholarship to anti-Israel politics, as expressed by the AAUP’s approval of academic boycotts, not only corrupts AAUP’s mission and degrades its reputation, it can cause real harm to higher education in America and beyond.
What few people realize is that although an academic boycott of Israel ostensibly targets Israeli universities and scholars, there is simply no way it can be implemented without directly suppressing the educational opportunities and academic freedom of students and faculty on U.S. campuses, as well as inciting antisemitic animus and harm towards Israel’s on-campus supporters.
Specifically, implementing academic BDS means boycotting the educational programs in or about Israel on one’s own campus, and seeking to cancel or shut down Israel-related events and activities; encouraging academic programming and campus events that portray Israel in a wholly negative light, as a pariah state unworthy of normalization; shunning collaborations with Hillel and other Jewish organizations and the students and faculty who affiliate with them; and denigrating, protesting and harassing members of the campus community who express positive views about Israel.
The AAUP’s reversal of its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts marks a significant blow not only to Jewish students and faculty but to the future of higher education and the society that vitally depends upon it. By condoning an academic boycott that replaces genuine scholarship with political activism aimed explicitly at dismantling the Jewish state and purging Zionism and Zionists from the academy, the AAUP has made a mockery of the professional standards it has, for more than 100 years, been relied upon to uphold. It has shown itself to be a deeply corrupt organization, antithetical to the core principles of American higher education, and wholly unworthy of the public’s trust.
