AAUP Journal Is Under Fire for Issue With 6 Essays Calling for Boycott of Israel

This entry was posted on 10.28.13, in Commentary, Diversity, Global. Bookmark the permalink.

The American Association of University Professors’ Journal of Academic Freedom has come under criticism from both inside and outside the organization for its new issue, which is dominated by essays calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

One member of the online publication’s editorial board—Matthew W. Finkin, a professor of law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—has resigned in protest of its decision to publish a collection of essays that came down, six to one, in favor of a boycott and in opposition to the AAUP’s stand against academic boycotts.

Soon after the new issue came out last month, two other members of the journal’s board—Cary Nelson, a former AAUP president, and Ernst Benjamin, a former AAUP general secretary—persuaded the journal’s editor to publish responses defending the association’s 2005 decision to oppose academic boycotts as threats to academic freedom. <Read more.>

Via Peter Schmidt, The Chronicle of Higher Education.