There Are Both Honorable and Dishonorable Ways to Boycott Israel

As I posted here last week, Prof. John Cheney-Lippold, of the University of Michigan, belatedly rescinded his commitment to write a study-abroad reference for one of his students, once he realized that she planned to attend Tel Aviv University. Cheney-Lippold explained that he participates in the “academic boycott against Israel in support of Palestinians living in Palestine. This boycott includes writing letters of recommendation for students planning to study there [and] for reasons of these politics, I must rescind my offer to write your letter.”

There has been considerable discussion of Cheney-Lippold’s decision. BDS advocates have predictably endorsed his stance, while critics have focused on his contravention of obligations to his student(s). In brief, Cheney-Lippold’s supporters assert that he has the right to stand on his principles, as asserted in this statement from the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel:

 A letter of recommendation is not a right but is written at the discretion of faculty members. Professors, like any other individual, are entitled to hold firm positions on a matter of conscience and act in regard with those principles. Prof. Cheney-Lippold endorses the academic boycott of Israel. In declining to write a letter of recommendation for a study abroad program in Israel, he is aligning his actions with his stated views.

Others believe that a professor should not allow his political views to impede a student’s educational path. The University of Michigan’s faculty Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs unanimously issued a statement criticizing Cheney-Lippold, and holding “faculty should let a student’s merit be the primary guide for determining how and whether to provide such a letter.” Likewise, Henry Reichman wrote on the AAUP’s Academe Blog, that Cheney-Lippold had violated “professional ethics and responsibility” to his student.  John Wilson, editor of the Academe Blog (and no friend of Israel) told Inside Higher Ed that “it is morally wrong for professors to impose their political views on student letters of recommendation.”

Most recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education posted an article titled “Academics Who Back Boycott of Israel Practice Activism With Small, Weighty Gestures,” cataloging the various measures that pro-BDS faculty have adopted. Although I am opposed to academic boycotts in principle, and specifically to the BDS movement, I think that some of these measures are honorable in ways that Cheney-Lippold’s decision was not.

Columbia’s Katherine Franke, for example, says that she has declined requests from Israeli universities and government institutions to review research proposals. “I respectfully decline to do so and write a letter explaining why: that I’ve endorsed the academic boycott, that my refusal to support or cooperate with the institute’s application process does not indicate in any way a negative judgment about the candidate.” Stanford’s Joel Beinin says that he will not attend academic conferences in Israel or provide tenure reviews for Israeli universities: “On the tenure reviews, I simply decline because I would not want to say anything that would be held against the candidate.”

Franke and Beinin, and others like them, have chosen not to associate themselves with Israeli universities or government bodies. I think that is misguided – given that universities are probably the most inclusive and peace-oriented institutions in Israel – but it is well within the prerogatives of faculty members. Most importantly, the Franke and Beinin approach does not disadvantage or interfere with the academic freedom of any of their own students.

Cheney-Lippold, on the other hand, has crossed a different line by impeding the freedom of a University of Michigan student to participate in a program approved by his own university. By his own admission, the student was worthy of a reference – indeed, he said he’d be happy to “write other letters” for her – which he withheld for “reasons of these politics.”

In other words, he declined to perform part of his job because of a political disagreement with a student, which may have had the effect of preventing her from pursuing an authorized course of study. This is markedly different from abstaining from personal involvement with Israel, because it had a direct impact on one of his own students. Cheney-Lippold is well within his rights when he boycotts Israel, but he violates his professional obligations when he imposes his views on the educational choices of a qualified student.

As Reichman put it on the Academe Blog, “I hope no one will deny that faculty members do have a general professional obligation to write letters of recommendation for students.”

There are honorable and respectable ways to boycott Israel, but imposing your views on students – in the manner of Cheney-Lippold – is not one of them.

[Note: Some of Cheney-Lippold's supporters have claimed that he did not interfere with the student's education because she could have obtained a reference from a different professor. This is wrong for several reasons -- and not only because Cheney-Lippold initially agreed to provide the reference and only rescinded the offer several weeks later, which alone could have prevented the student from successfully completing her application. More significantly, the student obviously believed that Cheney-Lippold was in the best position to evaluate her work, and she may not have had another professor -- at a large state university -- who knew her as well. Finally, a successful academic boycott of Israel, as promoted by Cheney-Lippold and others, would mean that no professor would provide such a reference, thus making it impossible for the student to pursue her course of study. Perhaps Cheney-Lippold did not make it effectively impossible for the student to attend Tel Aviv University, but that is certainly what he has advocated.]

Comments

[Raff Donelson]

Generally, I agree that there are reasonable and less reasonable ways to boycott institutions, but I'm not sure that the line lies at letters of recommendation.

Imagine an evil organization, an organization whose primary purpose was to harm and denigrate certain groups of people, like the American Nazi Party, the American Freedom Party, or some other racist group. Suppose that a student asks for a letter of recommendation to work for such an organization. Suppose even that the student is well-intentioned because she thinks that, once inside the organization, she can re-channel the hateful energies elsewhere. She thinks that the people who join such groups are actually mad about economic marginalization, not people of other races.

In such a situation, it seems entirely reasonable for a professor to refuse to write to a letter. (And that's the best case scenario; if the student endorsed the awful views, the prof is even more licensed not to take part.) If that's right, the question of whether a professor has crossed the line into an unreasonable way of boycotting isn't settled by asking whether she has refused to write a letter. Instead, we're going to have to ask whether the group is an ANP type of group or not.

I want to close with two remarks about the scope of my comment. First, I haven't said anything about Israel or Cheney-Lippold. My point was just that we faculty should not understand ourselves as morally obliged to write letters for just ANY organization, no matter who they are. Second, though my example imagined the student as seeking a job, not an educational opportunity, nothing turns on that. Or at least nothing suggests that the professor should feel more obliged to help the student get into a hateful 'school' than a hateful job. If anything, being a teacher maybe requires one to try, within reasonable bounds, to steer students away from 'educational opportunities' that are not genuinely educational.

[Steve L.]

Raff Donelson: First, sorry about the delay posting your comment; it was stuck in the spam filter.

You raise a valid consideration, but the study-abroad Tel Aviv program is approved by the University of Michigan, making it part of the curriculum, which I believe takes it out of the "hateful school" category you propose. A professor could not, for example, refuse to sign off on a prerequisite for another course, even if he or she thought it "hateful."

[Brett Kavanaugh Macho Macho Man Association of America]

If Palestine or disputed territories were to unilaterally lay down their arms and declare peace, what do you think would happen? There would be peace. If Israel were to unilaterally lay down it arms and declare peace, what do you think would happen?

[Jeffry V Mallow]

Refusing to referee Israeli proposals isn't so different from refusing to write student recommendations. It belies the BDS claim that it targets institutions, not individuals. It hurts the proposers by constraining the referee pool (which in my subspecialty is not large to begin with). Journal editors who recognize this behavior should remove the boycotter from the referee pool entirely. This is not only an appropriate response to dishonorable behavior, but it also levels the playing field for the proposers.

[Steve L.]

You raise a good point, Jeffry, but there is still a difference. Professors owe a specific professional duty to their own students, which they do not owe to other researchers or institutions. So whatever one thinks of abstaining from refereeing proposals, refusing to recommend your own students is worse.

[anon]

A question might be raised that perhaps transcends the particulars (letter of recommendation, referee proposals, approve study abroad, etc.). What is the point of BDS?

If the point of BDS is to cause Israel to "reform" itself, then one suspects that the type of "reform" BDS contemplates would involve Israel going out of existence as a Jewish state, with the Jews of "foreign" origin returning to Europe, Russia, Africa or whatever, and the Arabs restoring their control of the land of Israel.

(A revealing study one should make concerns how that control was exercised historically; indeed, one need only look to how Jews are treated today in the Arab countries that surround Israel to get a sense of it. And, let's flavor the discussion with the way that the Arabs embraced the Nazis.)

Yes, BDS thinks it has a laudable and modest goal: the destruction of Israel.

Boycott away! Israel, one suspects, will continue to defend itself until and unless the Arabs (and Iran) have their way and drive all the Jews in Israel into the sea (their pledge for more than half a century).

[anon]

Incidentally, the blind hatred and rage of the those who support BDS is just a small piece of the same set of attitudes that infect most of the left in this country: they are in a constant state of hysteria and outrage, and bound and determined to destroy those persons (most of the population, it turns out) who don't adopt their extremism.

It is easy to hide in academia and nurture one's out of control hatreds. But, in the society at large, these persons must limit their interactions to those with whom they agree, lest they lose control completely and actually find themselves interacting with the lesser humans they consider so inferior.

It is truly a disgusting intolerance that epitomizes the modern left in this country. Before someone proclaims "I'm proud to be intolerant of evil" this commenter would answer:

"that, my friend, is the problem."

[Ellen Wertheimer]

It is possible that refusing to write a letter of recommendation and rescinding a commitment to write such a letter should be viewed differently, whatever one's opinion about the underlying merits of the matter. When a commitment to act as a reference or to write a letter of recommendation is made, it is more than possible that the student has as a result listed the professor's name as a reference on his or her resume or even included the name in a cover letter to the prospective recipient to the effect that a letter from that reference will be forthcoming. If either of these has occurred, rescinding a commitment to write such a letter with no cataclysmic reason for the rescission (health reasons, for example) could easily cause harm to the student.

This rescission hypothetical surely changes any balancing of interests that may apply to a situation involving an initial refusal. I of course am not familiar with all the facts in the scenario under discussion; I am merely speaking hypothetically about how two different scenarios might yield different results.

[Steve L.]

Ellen Wertheimer: I agree that rescinding his agreement makes it even worse, especially since he made no effort to determine the effect on the student's application (as is apparent from his email).