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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMore McCarthyism Aimed Against Academic Freedom and Dissent
More McCarthyism Aimed Against Academic Freedom and Dissent
Saturday, 05 July 2014 13:40
By David Palumbo-Liu, Truthout | Op-Ed
Recently Truthout featured a piece by Chip Gibbons entitled, "'Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Signatory to a Boycott of Israel?' The BDS Movement and the Return of McCarthyism." In it, he outlines the censorious measures taken against those who support BDS, most particularly academic organizations such as the Association for Asian American Studies, the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Gibbons mentions the legislation put forward in New York and Maryland (note that this also occurred in Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Kansas and South Carolina), as well as the actions of the Jewish Community Center to vet and censor artistic and cultural performances.
Another practice that smacks of McCarthyism is the misuse of state and federal law to pressure universities to restrict criticism of Israel on campus. In a previous piece I wrote of the use of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to stifle and punish protests on campus under the pretense that such protests harm the feelings of "Jewish students." In its rejection of the vast majority of such complaints, the US Department of Education declared that the kinds of protest events that were the basis of complaint "constitute expression on matters of public concern directed to the University community. In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience."
One of the most active groups that have been monitoring college and university campuses for any hint of criticism of Israel has called for the investigation and interrogation of teachers suspected of engaging in anti-Semitic behavior. The Amcha Initiative says its mission is "to investigate, document, educate about, and combat anti-Semitic behavior on college and university campuses in America and the institutional structures that legitimize it and allow it to flourish." Its objectives are "to investigate and document the problem of campus anti-Semitism in our extensive database and through investigative reports; to organize and carry out campaigns to address campus anti-Semitism that include communicating with university, state and federal leaders about the problem and possible solutions, engaging grassroots activists, and collaborating with other legal and educational organizations; to educate the Jewish community and the general public about the problem of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses; (and) to foster grassroots activism to act locally and nationally to combat campus anti-Semitism across the country." The problem is that in many cases, here as elsewhere, "anti-Semitism" is a code word that covers any criticism of Israel - a legitimate complaint against ethnic and religious prejudice is appropriated as a kind of Trojan horse to disarm political criticism. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24745-more-mccarthyism-aimed-against-academic-freedom-and-dissent
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More McCarthyism Aimed Against Academic Freedom and Dissent (Original Post)
marmar
Jul 2014
OP
msongs
(67,193 posts)1. Palestinians are Semites too...so Israel has plenty of its own anti-smitism to deal with nt