A silver lining in the ASA boycott?

To the great ire of anyone old-fashioned enough to value free inquiry, the American Studies Association (ASA) bucked its mission of promoting “the study of American culture and history” in favor of boycotting Israeli universities and Israeli professors. The ASA’s December vote to censor Israelis came after a similar vote by the Association of Asian American Studies in April. And the more prestigious Modern Language Association also hopped on the anti-Israel bandwagon, voting to publicly rebuke Israel for its alleged human rights violations.

What’s notable about all this self-righteousness over Israel—which, last I checked, is not located in the Americas or Asia and is not related to the study of modern languages—is that the humanities professors who voted for censorship have brought on sharp counter-criticism from even their Leftist peers. Jonathan Marks, blogging for the Chronicle of Higher Education, writes that the ASA’s obsession with Israel is so extreme as to represent a practical joke, as if the jokesters were asking themselves:

How can we invent the kind of American Studies Association that would exist in a bizarro world in which Allan Bloom and Roger Kimball were 110% correct about academe, one in which scholars devote themselves exclusively to the self-righteous rehearsal of left-of-center talking points?

Perhaps—and this is a big perhaps—the contemporary humanities, having finally hit rock bottom, will return to their actual academic calling.

A host of university presidents, who represent some of the most leftist schools in the country—including my own college president, Rebecca Chopp—have not minced words on the boycotts. Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan, writes, “I deplore this politically retrograde resolution of the American Studies Assn. Under the guise of phony progressivism, the group has initiated an irresponsible attack on academic freedom. Others in academia should reject this call for an academic boycott.” Lee Bolinger at Columbia points out that the ASA boycott, “taken to its logical conclusion, would necessarily result in boycotts of fellow scholars and peer institutions from many nations around the world.” And Drew Faust, president of Harvard, states, “Academic boycotts subvert the academic freedoms and values necessary to the free flow of ideas, which is the lifeblood of the worldwide community of scholars.”

The fact that these presidents felt compelled to critique the illiberalism of the boycotts—and call out many of their own faculty in the process—represents a small glimmer of hope in higher education. Now, it’s time for college presidents to apply these same high-minded principles and respect for pluralism on their own campuses.