Thursday, February 9, 2006
[Update: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that, for their next act, AAUP has also invited [/cue fanfare] Tariq Ramadan to address their annual meeting in June. What are the odds he gets a standing-o, hopefully via satellite? It's academic celebrity via martyrdom.]
The American Association of University Professors has indeed cancelled its conference on academic boycotts (see yesterday's post: AAUP Circulates Antisemitic material in advance of conference...oops) following a "loss of confidence" announced by the three major charitable foundations underwriting the event.
This article recaps some of the reasons:
A Parley on Academic Boycotts Seen as Anti-Israel Is Postponed
Later that day, the three organizations underwriting the conference, the Ford, Rockefeller, and Nathan Cummings foundations, called for its postponement after the professors' association acknowledged it had circulated an anti-Semitic article by a Holocaust denier published in the Barnes Review, which has published speeches by Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Benito Mussolini. The association said the article's distribution was an accident and it has publicly apologized.
In a joint statement on Tuesday, the president of the Ford Foundation, Susan Berresford, and the president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Lance Lindlom, said the paper's inclusion in the conference materials had "undermined the credibility of this conference as a forum for intellectually honest and rigorous exchange." The Rockefeller Foundation, which was to house the conference free of charge at its historic villa on the banks of Lake Como in Bellagio, Italy, issued a separate statement on Tuesday that asked the association to delay use of its facilities. "The sponsors of the conference and subsequent publications have stated that the credibility of the conference has been undermined. ... The Rockefeller Foundation shares these concerns," it said...
Alan Dershowitz has it exactly right here [emphasis mine]:
He added that the conference would "turn into a debate about boycotting Israel. I wonder how many of the same people would come if this were a debate about boycotting China or Cuba. ... They don't favor boycotts, they favor boycotts against Israel."
Mr. Dershowitz also questioned whether the circulation of the anti-Semitic article was an accident. "Accidents like that don't happen unless you're playing footsie with Holocaust deniers."
The general-secretary of the professors' association, Roger Bowen, told the Sun yesterday that the article's inclusion in the conference material was probably the result of an errant Google search [DOH!] and lax oversight [or lax judgement]. He did not return messages requesting comment after the association announced it would postpone the conference...
Also see this article at Insider Higher Ed: Fiasco at AAUP, but particularly to the comments. The one left by Joan W. Scott, the Chair of the AAUP Committee on Academic Freedom is particularly instructive. Do not miss it.
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Hey--remember the lovely, the talented, Sue Blackwell?
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=207
Well, it looks like she's coming to grace America's shores w/her presence at the PSM conference at Georgetown:
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.673803/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={EF27BDF2-8C3C-442D-9176-683DCD5A3B84}¬oc=1
Thought my correspondence with AAUP Gen'l Sec'y Roger Bowen might be of interest. Here it is:
________
from: Roger Bowen
Thursday, February 9, 2006 12:14 PM
My sensitivities may be different: I tend to look rather for articles and statements supportive of Israeli democracy and the openness of
Israeli universities and seldom have a problem finding such information.
Roger W. Bowen
General Secretary
American Association of University Professors
Web site: www.aaup.org
-----Original Message-----
_____
From: Alan Potkin [mail to: alan@potkin.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 12:58 PM
To: Roger Bowen
Subject: Re: Egregious errors
Thoughtful reply appreciated.
Have you looked at the Chronicles of Higher Education these days?
Astonishing how the delegitimation of Israel has gotten mainstreamed in US academic life. You could expect this kind of garbage from the Zeropeans,
but here?
AP
You're right--Zionists take a beating regularly, but not by us. There is so much anger in this world, so many folks just trying to get on with their lives and avoid the angry people. How, then, to reduce the level of anger? Ours is an old approach, not always successful to be sure, but discussing issues--academic boycotts in this case--is a lot better
than name-calling and war.
Roger W. Bowen
General Secretary
American Association of University Professors
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Potkin [mailto: alan@potkin.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 6:43 AM
To: Roger Bowen
Subject: Egregious errors
Dear Dr Bowen:
Certainly a surfeit of "egregious errors" out there in Euro conference-land these days, what with the present AAUP Bellagio fiasco and the official
Davos publication a few weeks ago of that insane screed by Mazin Qumsiyeh.
Strange that these seem to focus on the crimes of the Zionists. Don't you still have editorial overview, or is that only applied post-facto, after the
shit has hit the fan?
AP
Thank you for that, Alan.
Well, she'll certainly be in her element, there, shem. I wonder if she'll be packing her Palestinian flag dress?