Georgetown recently became the American college with the highest number of academics to boycott Israeli academic institutions in response to Israeli Defense Forces operations against Hamas in Gaza, with 13 professors participating. Started by the American Studies Association and involving faculty at Columbia, New York University, and the University of California at Berkeley, among others, the boycott is meant to put pressure on Israeli policymakers. It also expresses solidarity with Palestinian academics who are, according to ASA statements, without “substantive academic freedom … under conditions of Israeli occupation.”
Although the boycott is an acceptable expression of professors’ political beliefs, the act conflicts with the central tenets of academia by silencing dialogue over a controversial issue sorely in need of discussion. Academia’s mandate to foster productive debate is central to its purpose at a world-class institution such as Georgetown. Responding to the announcement of ASA’s boycott in December of last year, President DeGioia articulated University faculty’s “responsibility to deepen engagement and foster dialogue between scholars and societies to enhance the entire global academic community.” Scholarship is diminished when it does not work to advance a dialogue in which otherwise intractable problems can be reasoned through.
Despite its potential disservice to resolving the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this intersection of politics and the classroom has the potential to enrich students’ intellectual engagement with the issue on campus. Though some might see the potential for professorial bias, no lecture will ever be perfectly objective. The ability of students to respond to highly politicized issues via a focused and critical opinion has the potential to yield a classroom environment of discussion and debate hospitable to both those who agree and disagree with the opinions of their professors.
As an institution founded on religious principles, Georgetown constantly walks the thin line between retaining a certain institutional identity and allowing the free exchange of ideas in an academic setting. With the University’s Catholicism come myriad beliefs, tenets, and perspectives that not every student or faculty member on campus may necessarily hold or agree with. While ripped-from-the-headlines boycotts may justifiably rile emotions, the precedent for scholarly temperance is rooted far deeper in Georgetown’s academic culture. This culture does not adhere unilaterally to a single frame of mind, but instead allows—or should allow—for a diversity of opinions to be aired freely and safely on the Hilltop. A recent on-campus dialogue between Ambassador Dennis Ross and Former Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams that considered, among other issues, the recent Israel-Hamas fighting provided a strong counterweight to the silence of boycott.
As long as professors involved in the boycott do not allow their personal or political biases to hinder the education of their students, academic integrity will remain vibrant at Georgetown. Those who welcome the free exchange of ideas go a step further—involving themselves in the valuable search for a solution, rather than seeking ever-greater division.
Is there a point anywhere in here? This is just terrible writing.
I assume all these professors and students also plan BDS movements against all the many nations that have real problems with human rights,such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia – for its treatment of women and prisoners, the media,etc (waIt a minute, I forgot. G’town is beholden to Saudi Arabia for money) . If they do not launch huge protests against those nations, then it is impossible to take the. Seriously. It truly exhibits pure hypocrisy and borders on antisemitism.