The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council interfered in an academic conference last week called “Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?” at the UC Hastings College of the Law.
They pressured the Hastings Board of Directors into an emergency meeting in which the board decided to “take all steps necessary to remove the UC Hastings name and brand” from the conference. Frank Wu, dean and chancellor, was barred from giving a welcoming talk; a major foundation withdrew funding.
Professors dislike academic intimidation, and this case is no exception. Nearly all of UC Hastings’ tenured professors signed a letter warning that the board’s capitulation to outside pressure on academic freedom risked “great damage to Hastings’ reputation.”
The elected student government, joined by 30 student organizations, charged the board with “stifling their academic freedom” and “prospectively chilling free speech” at future academic conferences.
They are right, of course. But there are bigger issues at stake.
Why were these mainstream Jewish organizations so troubled by the academic pursuit of legal approaches to securing Palestinian rights and freedom?
Perhaps for the first time in U.S. history, there is an aggressive challenge to a one-sided narrative that covers up or justifies ongoing Israeli repression of Palestinians, and U.S. culpability for that repression. The center of that challenge is on campuses, which is why those who have traditionally adopted knee-jerk defenses of Israeli policies are attempting to stigmatize or shut down alternative viewpoints.
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