MLA Members to Protest Suppression of BDS Resolution at Convention

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Jan 6, 2025
MLA Members to Protest Suppression of BDS Resolution at Convention

MLA Members to Protest Suppression of BDS Resolution at Convention

By : Jadaliyya Reports

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

MLA Members to Protest Suppression of BDS Resolution at Convention

At the annual convention in New Orleans on January 9-12, MLA members will engage in multiple actions to protest MLA leadership’s censorship of a resolution endorsing BDS

January 3, 2025 – In an unprecedented move, the leadership of the Modern Language Association, one of the largest humanities organizations in the United States, is refusing to allow members to vote on a resolution endorsing the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. In response, supporters of the resolution are planning protests at the MLA’s annual convention in New Orleans, culminating in an action at the Delegate Assembly meeting on Saturday, January 11 at 12:30pm at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. 

Thirty-nine MLA members introduced the resolution in September. It was on track for a vote by the MLA’s Delegate Assembly at the convention, after more than 100 additional members signed on in support. But on October 29, MLA Executive Director Paula Krebs emailed Anthony Alessandrini, who submitted the resolution, stating that the Executive Council had refused to approve it.

“I was shocked,” Alessandrini, an elected MLA delegate, said. “We followed all the rules and crafted a resolution modeled on those passed by other academic organizations, but after weeks of consultation with MLA leadership, it was rejected with no explanation.”

MLA leadership eventually issueda statement defending the decision, emphasizing the hypothetical fallout from anti-BDS laws in several states. The Executive Council claimed that the resolution could adversely affect “sales of products to universities and libraries” and the MLA’s larger “financial profile.” In 2023, the MLA reported$17 million in revenue and $38.9 million in total assets.

But Zoha Khalili, a Senior Staff Attorney at Palestine Legal, called this a “flawed legal analysis.” “A purely expressive resolution like this one is protected speech that is beyond the reach of any anti-BDS law, even under the most repressive interpretation of our constitutional rights,” Khalili said.

“The MLA Executive Council’s decision to prevent the Delegate Assembly from voting on the BDS resolution is a cowardly, anti-democratic move,” Khalili added. “It is also a misguided one: Even if the MLA chooses to prioritize mercenary interests over Palestinian lives, its flawed legal analysis fails to acknowledge that the resolution is simply an endorsement of the Palestinian call for BDS and does not bind the MLA itself to engage in a boycott.”

The outcry from MLA members has been widespread. Two members of the Executive Council, which voted to suppress the resolution,resigned in protest. A statement from eight former MLA Presidents called on the Executive Council to reverse its decision, joined by more than a dozen former Executive Council members, as well as current and former members of the MLA Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities. Supporters of the resolution have published a detailed rebuttal of MLA leadership’s claims.

In addition, over 100 MLA members have signed a pledge to quit the association to protest the repression of the BDS resolution, and some members have taken to social media to announce they are boycotting the convention. Supporters of the resolution who plan to attend are being asked to read a solidarity statement expressing their support.

“I cannot, in good conscience, continue to be a dues paying member of an organization that both suppresses the free speech of its members and prioritizes its own financial interests over the lives of Palestinians,” said Hannah Manshel, one of the submitters of the resolution and a member of the Executive Committee for the MLA Forum on Indigenous Literatures of the United States and Canada. “It is hypocritical, at best, for the MLA to claim to have an investment in Indigenous literatures while suppressing actions in support of the Indigenous people of Palestine.”

Krebs and the Executive Council have failed to respond, except to state that the resolution will be “discussed”—but not voted on—at the convention in New Orleans. 

“The MLA’s Report on the Current State of Academic Freedom, approved by the Executive Council in May of last year, singles out administrative usurpation of shared governance as a principal area of tension,” said Esther Allen, one of the two Council members who resigned in protest. “It defines shared governance as meaningful participation in decisions, that is: voting. So the MLA purports to advocate for its members’ participation in decision-making at their universities, and then turns around and prevents members from taking a vote in their own organization?”

Supporters have called for protests at the convention in New Orleans next week, with a major action at the Delegate Assembly meeting where the resolution would have been voted upon. Other actions, including a pop up poetry reading, will highlight the ongoing genocide and scholasticide being carried out by Israel and supported by the United States. Many of the resolution’s supporters are also taking part in conference sessions dedicated to Palestine.

“The MLA leadership has been advertising the presence of Palestine panels, and we want to make clear that we see this as a calculated effort to cover over the suppression of our BDS resolution,” noted Cynthia Franklin, who also organized for the MLA academic boycott resolution in 2017. “We denounce this shameful attempt at cooptation. And these sessions, many of which have been organized by and feature Palestinian scholars, will include attention to the MLA’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine.” 

More information about upcoming actions at the MLA convention in New Orleans from January 9-12 can be found athttps://linktr.ee/mla4pal or by following @mlamjp2025 on Instagram. 

Press Contact: Anthony Alessandrini                   

tonyalessandrini@gmail.com | @TAlessandrini (X) | @mlamjp2025 (IG)  https://linktr.ee/mla4pal

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Postcolonial Directions in Education is a peer-reviewed open access journal produced twice a year. It is a scholarly journal intended to foster further understanding, advancement and reshaping of the field of postcolonial education. We welcome articles that contriute to advancing the field. As indicated in the editorial for the inaugural issue, the purview of this journal is broad enough to encompass a variety of disciplinary approaches, including but not confined to the following: sociological, anthropological, historical and social psychological approaches. The areas embraced include anti-racist education, decolonizing education, critical multiculturalism, critical racism theory, direct colonial experiences in education and their legacies for present day educational structures and practice, educational experiences reflecting the culture and "imagination" of empire, the impact of neoliberalism/globalization/structural adjustment programs on education, colonial curricula and subaltern alternatives, education and liberation movements, challenging hegemonic languages, the promotion of local literacies and linguistic diversity, neocolonial education and identity construction, colonialism and the construction of patriarchy, canon and canonicity, indigenous knowledges, supranational bodies and their educational frameworks, north-south and east-west relations in education, the politics of representation, unlearning colonial stereotypes, internal colonialism and education, cultural hybridity and learning  in  postcolonial contexts, education and the politics of dislocation, biographies or autobiographies reflecting the above themes, and deconstruction of colonial narratives of civilization within educational contexts. Once again, the field cannot be exhausted.

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[Click here to access the articles of the issue.]