How academic boycotts threaten academic freedom

At its most basic level, an academic boycott is a tactic in which faculty members state that they, or an organization to which they belong, will refrain from working with certain scholars or institutions affiliated with the target of the boycott until that target changes the policies or practices to which the boycotters object. 

Today, academic boycotts are frequently proposed as part of the broader Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel. Because they limit open inquiry and the free exchange of ideas, academic boycotts, as they are most often conducted today, are fundamentally incompatible with the academic freedom that drives knowledge creation and liberal education across the globe.

FIRE has long supported the rights of individual students and faculty to make individual decisions about the scholars and institutions with whom they wish to engage — or wish to avoid. Academia could not function if scholars could not exercise their own judgment, even if individual academics may not always act in a way that best serves the interests of open inquiry. The academic boycotts of primary concern arise when individual academic institutions, their subdivisions, or professional organizations enact systematic boycotts to which their members are expected or required to adhere, or that impede individual scholars from engaging with boycotted counterparts. Indeed, these systematic boycotts themselves interfere with the individual rights of faculty to decide which peers to engage or avoid.

Academic boycotts are not a new tactic, and have long been controversial. First coming to prominence as a tool to oppose apartheid in South Africa, for the last generation they have largely been aimed at Israel. 

FIRE stands ready to defend freedom of expression and freedom of conscience for students and faculty nationwide, as we always have. 

In 2005 (with a 2006 revision), the American Association of University Professors issued a statement opposing all academic boycotts on principle. As the AAUP argued at that time, academics “should feel no obligation to support or contribute to institutions that … claim to be free but in fact suppress freedom,” and yet, “[s]uch institutions should not be boycotted. Rather, they should be exposed for what they are, and, wherever possible, the continued exchange of ideas should be actively encouraged. The need is always for more academic freedom, not less.” 

The AAUP statement concluded, “[W]e resist the argument that extraordinary circumstances should be the basis for limiting our fundamental commitment to the free exchange of ideas and their free expression.”

In the wake of campus controversy over the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s military response, however, the AAUP changed course. In August 2024, it issued a new Statement on Academic Boycotts that “supersedes” its 2005 statement.

FIRE’s position on academic boycotts has not changed

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FIRE President Greg Lukianoff argued that academic boycotts of a nation’s institutions or scholars cannot be reconciled with academic freedom.

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The AAUP now takes the position that “academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom; rather, they can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education” — though it concluded that “[a]cademic boycotts should target only institutions of higher education that themselves violate academic freedom or the fundamental rights upon which academic freedom depends.”

In contrast, FIRE continues to oppose systematic academic boycotts.

Writing about the BDS movement nearly a decade ago, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff argued that there was no way to reconcile academic boycotts of a nation’s institutions or scholars with academic freedom. He noted that academic freedom “relies on open communication across lines of difference in a global system of checking, arguing, researching, collaborating, and competing to produce better ideas,” and that preventing scholars from working with peers from a particular nation “in the name of opposing that country’s government is incompatible with this open, liberal system.” 

Greg also noted the opinions of the individual professors adversely affected in the targeted country may not reflect, or may even oppose, that of their government.

This does not mean students and professors may not call for, or loudly oppose, academic boycotts. They must be free to do either without punishment, and may well see speaking out on the issue as a matter of conscience. And while FIRE itself opposes systematic academic boycotts, FIRE has opposed attempts to punish organizations for supporting the BDS movement. The responsibility properly lies with universities and professional organizations to not accede to those demands, as part of the obligation that comes with their officially institutionalized power.

FIRE stands ready to defend freedom of expression and freedom of conscience for students and faculty nationwide, as we always have. But while we defend the rights of individual students and faculty, we oppose academic boycotts as a threat to academic freedom, and will continue to oppose them. As the AAUP’s 2005 statement on the question argued:

Colleges and universities should be what they purport to be: institutions committed to the search for truth and its free expression. Members of the academic community should feel no obligation to support or contribute to institutions that are not free or that sail under false colors, that is, claim to be free but in fact suppress freedom. Such institutions should not be boycotted. Rather, they should be exposed for what they are, and, wherever possible, the continued exchange of ideas should be actively encouraged. The need is always for more academic freedom, not less.

That statement was correct in 2005. It continues to be correct today.