Hearteningly, there are still voices of decency left in academia. The Jerusalem Post reports a wave of protest at the AUT boycott of Israeli universities from Britain and around the world:

'The backlash, which may take the form of mass resignations from the union, has seen an outpouring of protests by Jewish and non-Jewish academics across Britain. John Vail, lecturer in political economy at Newcastle University, wrote in an e-mail to fellow academics: "The boycott is blatantly discriminatory and reeks of double standards." He added: "Although I have no current research links with Israeli academics, this has made me want to go out and develop some just so as to show my disapproval of this motion.'

Resignations, as I have said before, are not the best policy since the AUT motion needs to be fought from within the union. Counter-boycotts are also counter-productive, since they obviously undermine the point about freedom of speech. What seems to me far more important is to publicly challenge the lies such people are telling, ensure that the truth is aired in the public domain, and that these named academics are exposed for the sloppy, ignorant and mendacious corrupters of the academy that they are.

Posted by melanie at April 27, 2005