“How Academic Freedom Can Be Used to Silence Others”

The Dispatch has posted my new essay on the declaration of solidarity with the Palestinian Feminist Collective recently issued by the women and gender studies departments at over 130 North American universities, condemning Israel and calling for a Palestinian "right of return." I defend the right of academic departments to make such statements, while pointing out that departmental declarations — as distinct from individual or group statements — may nonetheless chill the free expression of dissident faculty members and students.

Here is the gist:

What is the purpose of issuing such a coordinated statement other than to announce an intellectual orthodoxy? What does solidarity mean, after all, other than unified determination to achieve a common goal? 

One may either agree or disagree with the objectives of the solidarity statement—and accept or deny an academic department’s right to make such a pronouncement—while nonetheless recognizing that it is meant to be a form of line-drawing. Its clear intention is to separate those who have joined in Palestinian solidarity from others who may believe that the conflict is “too ‘controversial and complex’ to assess,” or who reject the characterization of Israel as a “settler colonial” state. It is no surprise, therefore, that the statement was celebrated on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

In fact, the continent-wide commitment to “center global social justice”—defined as opposing the “military, economic, media, and global power” of Israel—“in our intersectional teaching, scholarship, and organizing” leaves scant room for political disagreement within the signatory departments. (Nor should it escape notice that the so-called “media and global power” of Israel treads perilously close to a classic anti-Jewish trope.)

You can read the entire essay here.