The boycott announced by the American Studies Association had sparked vigorous and, it seems to me, instructive debates about the definition and limits of academic freedom, the exertion of political influence by academics and their organizations, and the obligations scholars have to issues of justice.  The ASA explains on its website that the resolution passed by a majority of voting members at its most recent conference was “to honor the call from Palestinian civil society to support the academic boycott of Israel.”  Doing so was “an ethical stance,” the representatives of the ASA argued, “a form of material and symbolic Read more