California Scholars for Academic Freedom Statement on UC Berkeley Course Cancellation

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Sep 17, 2016 Palestine
California Scholars for Academic Freedom Statement on UC Berkeley Course Cancellation

California Scholars for Academic Freedom Statement on UC Berkeley Course Cancellation

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following letter was issued on 16 September 2016 by California Scholars for Academic Freedom in response to the University of California Berkeley`s cancellation of a course on Palestine]

Dear Chancellor Dirks and Dean Hesse,

The California Scholars for Academic Freedom, a group of over 200 academics from different California institutions of higher education focused on protecting academic freedom and freedom of expression, is writing to object in the strongest possible terms to your recent suspension of the student-led DeCal course, “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis.” This unprecedented action is a breach of the accepted principles of academic freedom and a clear violation of the academic freedom of the student instructor and the instructor of record.

By overruling the vetting and approval process of the senate, it could set a very dangerous precedent for undermining what is absolutely essential for a university to have: academic freedom and faculty governance. This course was vetted through all the normal faculty procedures according to university policies. It was approved by the instructor of record, the sponsoring department, and the Committee on Courses. The administration made its decision to suspend the class without ever consulting the students enrolled in the class, the student instructor and instructor of record, the department, or the senate. Moreover, they have not communicated with any of those involved directly in the class, nor have they requested any information from them. The decision was taken with the utmost disregard of the wellbeing of the students involved.

It behooves the university administration not to cave in to outside political pressures when they try to undermine academic freedom. The suspension of the course not only violates principles of faculty governance, but also encourages and licenses the very organizations that have been harassing students and faculty whose perspectives are different from theirs and who seek to broaden the sphere of learning and critical thinking further than these groups would like.

Academic freedom means the freedom to conduct and disseminate scholarly research and the freedom to design courses and teach students in the areas of their expertise. Academic freedom means that what is acceptable or unacceptable for professors as such is determined by the faculty, not by administrators, alumni, or donors. Those who administer institutions of higher learning bear a responsibility for the protection of academic freedom. The purpose of the university is to expand students’ critical thinking, not to narrow it.  Scholarly learning at its best often challenges common sense viewpoints. University education therefore may and often should make students uncomfortable.

We are concerned that the suspension of this course was a political decision in response to pressures from outside interest groups which support the perspectives of a foreign government, in this case Israel. This is the latest episode in the relentless attacks on U.S. scholars who teach on or research the topic of Palestine and Israel, orchestrated by a well-financed network of special interest groups such as the AMCHA Initiative, Stand with Us, the Canary Website, and Campus Watch (See the recent Los Angeles Times article on this network: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-uc-israel-palestinian-adv-snap-story.html ). On other campuses, similar attacks have led to the defamation and physical threatening of students as well as faculty, and it is clearly their intent to intimidate not only in this case, but by example. These groups have a well-organized campaign to end any critical discourse on Israel and are fundamentally anti-intellectual in their aims. Imagine, for example, if a class on the U.S. as a settler colonial state were to be suspended on grounds of anti-Americanism! 

The extremist charge that the course is anti-Semitic is patently an effort to suppress open learning about the situation in Palestine/Israel, including opening space for scholarly debate.  Similarly, the extremist charge that a scholarly inquiry into how to end the Israeli occupation means the destruction of the state of Israel is patently false. Two years ago, a similar case of intensive pressure took place when the AMCHA Initiative and other pressure groups tried to suspend a similar class through the R`course (much the same as DeCal), with Professor David Lloyd of UCR, one of the signatories of this letter, as the instructor of record. However, the UCR Chancellor did not succumb to the pressure and allowed the class to be offered. Some years ago at Columbia University, a similar case ensued when outsider groups tried to pressure Columbia to refuse tenure to a scholar of Israel, Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, on the grounds that she was seeking the destruction of Israel. In that case, the university did the right thing by abiding by the faculty procedures for evaluating scholarly work and awarded her tenure.  

The University’s administration should provide protection to its faculty and students from such continuous harassment, preserving their academic freedom in the process. Therefore, we urge you to re-instate this course immediately and demonstrate that UC Berkeley is still committed to the principles of academic freedom, including freedom from outside political groups who wish to suppress debate on contentious issues.  To do otherwise and succumb to external pressures will expose students and faculty to further harassment from external organizations.

Sincerely,

California Scholars for Academic Freedom**

 

CONTACT PEOPLE:

Ahlam Muhtaseb
Professor, Department of Communication Studies
Interim Director, Center for Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies
California State University, San Bernardino
amuhtase@csusb.edu

Lisa Rofel
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Director, Center for Emerging Worlds
University of California, Santa Cruz
lrofel@ucsc.edu

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor, Department of English
University of California, Riverside
colles2012@sbcglobal.net

 

**CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM (cs4af) is a group of scholars who defend academic freedom, the right of shared governance, and the First Amendment rights of faculty and students in the academy and beyond. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere. California Scholars for Academic Freedom investigates legislative and administrative infringements on freedom of speech and assembly, and it raises the consciousness of politicians, university regents and administrators, faculty, students and the public at large through open letters, press releases, petitions, statements, and articles. 

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Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412