December 18, 2013--Professing
Having been one at a number of institutions, from up-close observation, professors are not among my favorite professionals. For the most part, I prefer dentists.
Professors--tenured professors--have about the best job in the history of the world.
With what other kind of work can one make a very comfortable living with generous benefits, work two to three days a week, eight or at most nine months a year, and have frequent vacations? Almost as many as members of Congress. And then every few years have sabbaticals, which for a half to a full year offer full or half salary with no classroom or other university responsibilities. And, perhaps best of all, with tenure a professor can work until he or she drops and in no way be let go. Even for demonstrable incompetence or lack of research and publications.
And with all of this, professors are often among the world's most prolific whiners. About their university responsibilities (many would like to be paid, and paid more, for doing even less); about university politics (usually much to do about nothing or at most very little); about their colleagues and administrators; and about much that goes on in the world.
Criticizing and complaining they are very good at, but doing something about it is another matter.
So I was not surprised when a day or two ago, the American Studies Association, with about 5,000 professors as members, voted by a two-to-one margin to boycott Israeli academic institutions to protest Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
This means they will oppose academic exchange programs and Israeli professors will no longer be welcome as ASA members; invited to ASA-sponsored events; or, if the ASA has anything to do about it, be allowed to have sabbaticals in the U.S.
Next month, the much larger and more influential Modern Language Association will vote to ask the State Department to criticize Israel for allegedly barring American professors from going to Gaza or the West Bank when invited by Palestinian institutions.
The boycott is the first the ASA has ever instituted and what the MLA is calling for is equally unprecedented. They have not seen fit to take similar action in regard to Russian or Chinese academic institutions even though those governments curtail basic freedoms for almost all of their citizens. They did not call for the boycott of South African institutions during the Apartheid years. They are apparently OK with Iranian, Egyptian, Cuban, Venezuelan, Saudi Arabian, and Pakistani academic institutions though basic freedoms are severely restricted in these and, sadly, many other countries.
The fundamental case in favor of lifetime employment--tenure--is to protect academic freedom. To make professors impervious to arbitrary or ideological retribution when they express their contrarian views. So it is more than a little ironic that the ASA, for which one of its principals is the protection of freedom of thought and scholarly activity, would so blatantly, for ideological reasons, take such a censorious position.
The good news is that the major higher education organization in the United States, the American Association of University Professors opposes the boycott, saying that it makes little sense to focus on Israeli universities where criticism of government policy often originates.
Even Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas opposes the boycott. He said that it is inappropriate, as the ASA did, to compare Israel to Apartheid in South Africa. Further--
I may have once been a professor, but I need help from other professors to help me understand and parse this tortured tangle of rationalization.
Professors--tenured professors--have about the best job in the history of the world.
With what other kind of work can one make a very comfortable living with generous benefits, work two to three days a week, eight or at most nine months a year, and have frequent vacations? Almost as many as members of Congress. And then every few years have sabbaticals, which for a half to a full year offer full or half salary with no classroom or other university responsibilities. And, perhaps best of all, with tenure a professor can work until he or she drops and in no way be let go. Even for demonstrable incompetence or lack of research and publications.
And with all of this, professors are often among the world's most prolific whiners. About their university responsibilities (many would like to be paid, and paid more, for doing even less); about university politics (usually much to do about nothing or at most very little); about their colleagues and administrators; and about much that goes on in the world.
Criticizing and complaining they are very good at, but doing something about it is another matter.
So I was not surprised when a day or two ago, the American Studies Association, with about 5,000 professors as members, voted by a two-to-one margin to boycott Israeli academic institutions to protest Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
This means they will oppose academic exchange programs and Israeli professors will no longer be welcome as ASA members; invited to ASA-sponsored events; or, if the ASA has anything to do about it, be allowed to have sabbaticals in the U.S.
Next month, the much larger and more influential Modern Language Association will vote to ask the State Department to criticize Israel for allegedly barring American professors from going to Gaza or the West Bank when invited by Palestinian institutions.
The boycott is the first the ASA has ever instituted and what the MLA is calling for is equally unprecedented. They have not seen fit to take similar action in regard to Russian or Chinese academic institutions even though those governments curtail basic freedoms for almost all of their citizens. They did not call for the boycott of South African institutions during the Apartheid years. They are apparently OK with Iranian, Egyptian, Cuban, Venezuelan, Saudi Arabian, and Pakistani academic institutions though basic freedoms are severely restricted in these and, sadly, many other countries.
The fundamental case in favor of lifetime employment--tenure--is to protect academic freedom. To make professors impervious to arbitrary or ideological retribution when they express their contrarian views. So it is more than a little ironic that the ASA, for which one of its principals is the protection of freedom of thought and scholarly activity, would so blatantly, for ideological reasons, take such a censorious position.
The good news is that the major higher education organization in the United States, the American Association of University Professors opposes the boycott, saying that it makes little sense to focus on Israeli universities where criticism of government policy often originates.
Even Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas opposes the boycott. He said that it is inappropriate, as the ASA did, to compare Israel to Apartheid in South Africa. Further--
We are neighbors of Israel, we have agreements with israel, we are not asking anyone to boycott products of Israel.But members of the ASA do not perceive any contradictions in their position. One member said that--
People who truly believe in academic freedom would realize protesting the blatant and systemic denial of academic freedom to Palestinians, which coupled with material deprivation of a staggering scale, far out ways concerns we in the West might have about our own rather privileged academic freedoms.I am having trouble figuring out why we in the West who have the privilege of academic freedom should be immunized from the consequences of denying it to others.
I may have once been a professor, but I need help from other professors to help me understand and parse this tortured tangle of rationalization.
Labels: Academic Boycotts, Academic Freedom, Academics, American Association of University Professors, American Studies Association, Apartheid, Israel, Israelis, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestine, Professors, Tenure
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:25 AM
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