Brandeis Center Joins AMCHA, AEN and SPME in Urging Universities to Withdraw MESA Membership

Brandeis Center Joins AMCHA, AEN and SPME in Urging Universities to Withdraw MESA Membership

Washington, D.C., (April 6, 2022) – The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights (LDB) joined three additional leading organizations in urging a dozen U.S. universities to withdraw institutional membership from the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) after the association endorsed an academic boycott of Israel. Failure to do so, the groups charge, would violate the intent and spirit of the Title VI funding that these universities receive from the U.S. Department of Education.

All four groups collaborating – LDB and its partners, AMCHA Initiative, the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) – work to defend campus free speech while combating campus anti-Semitism.

LDB Chair Kenneth L. Marcus commented: “University leaders who are committed to the principles of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion should, as a first step, withdraw from any organization that embraces anti-Semitic or racist principles. This includes, at a minimum, organizations that adopt anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement policies or practices. This would be an important step for any university, but it is doubly important for any institution that accepts federal funds under Title VI. We congratulate Tammi Rossman-Benjamin for her leadership on this issue and welcome the opportunity to work with AMCHA, AEN, and SPME.”

A dozen prominent universities – Columbia, GWU, Georgetown, Indiana Univ., NYU, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Univ. of Chicago, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Univ. of Washington and Yale – currently receive four-year federal Education Department grants between $1-2 million for Middle East Studies programs and foreign language instruction.

Two other universities with federally-funded Middle East Studies programs – Univ. of Arizona and Duke – are among the seven universities that have thus far disassociated themselves from MESA following its decision to endorse an academic boycott of Israel.

“An academic boycott of Israel, if implemented, would seek to derail the academic opportunities of students and faculty who desire to study in and about Israel, end the many formal partnerships your university has with educational and training institutions in Israel, and thwart extensive faculty research initiatives and collaborations at Israeli institutions and with Israeli scholars,” wrote the organizations in personalized letters to each of the 12 schools. “All of these boycott-compliant actions would directly and substantively harm your university’s students and faculty.”

When applying for these coveted federal funds, each school touted its commitment to the study of Israel and Hebrew, including their numerous research partnerships with Israeli institutions of higher education and their popular Israel study abroad programs. All of these programs for which federal funding was requested would be threatened by an academic boycott of Israel.

Under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, students are protected from discrimination based on their race, color, or national origin at federally funded post-secondary educational institutions. The Brandeis Center authored a white paper detailing the need to address widespread abuse of this program and led a multi-organization coalition that successfully urged reforms strengthening how Title VI is administered.

The guidelines of the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) – endorsed by MESA – urge faculty to work toward shutting down study abroad programs in Israel and refuse to write recommendations for students who want to attend them; scuttle their colleagues’ research collaborations with Israeli universities and scholars; and cancel or shut down educational events organized by students or faculty featuring Israeli leaders or scholars, including those that promote coexistence and mutual understanding or that seek to “normalize” Israel by presenting it in anything but a negative light.

“It’s also important to point out that the PACBI guidelines’ rejection of the normalization of Israel in the academy…also encourages the censuring, denigration, protest and exclusion of pro-Israel individuals,” wrote the four organizations. “Recent studies have shown that these PACBI-compliant behaviors are strongly linked to acts targeting Jewish and pro-Israel students for harm – including assault, vandalism, harassment and suppression of speech – and that the presence and number of faculty who support academic BDS are strongly correlated with every measure of campus anti-Semitism.”

In addition to urging the universities to sever ties with MESA, LDB and these likeminded groups recommend each university publicly acknowledge and denounce the direct harm that an academic boycott of Israel would cause students and faculty on their own campuses and provide assurances that they will not allow their faculty to implement an anti-Israel academic boycott.