Boycott of Israel prompts two universities to quit American Studies Association

Posted on December 19, 2013 by JNS.org.
The Brandeis University campus. Brandeis announced it has quit the American Studies Association following the association's boycott of Israel. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.(JNS.org) Brandeis University and Penn State Harrisburg on Wednesday announced they have withdrawn from the American Studies Association (ASA) following the ASA membership’s Dec. 15 vote to endorse a boycott of Israel.
“We view the recent vote by the membership to affirm an academic boycott of Israel as a politicization of the discipline and a rebuke to the kind of open inquiry that a scholarly association should foster,” the Brandeis American Studies Department said in a statement. “We remain committed to the discipline of American Studies but we can no longer support an organization that has rejected two of the core principles of American culture—freedom of association and expression.”
Dr. Simon Bronner, the head of the American Studies department at Penn State Harrisburg, said in a statement, “In the wake of the passage of the resolution by the ASA to boycott Israeli institutions, which programs and departments such as Penn State Harrisburg’s program in American Studies consider to curtail academic freedom and undermine the reputation of American Studies as a scholarly enterprise, the chair of the American Studies program at Penn State Harrisburg plans to drop its institutional membership and will encourage others to do so.”

This is the update Thanks to Ted Byrne  Managing Director of Business2Business Magazines

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has issued a revised list of schools rejecting the ASA's bigotry:

American University (President Cornelius M. Kerwin),
 Amherst College (President Carolyn A. Martin), 
Barnard College (President Debora Spar), 
Birmingham Southern College (President Charles C. Krulak), 
Boston University (President Robert A. Brown), 
Bowdoin College (President Barry Mills), 
Brandeis University (President Frederick M. Lawrence), 
Brooklyn College, CUNY (President Karen Gould), 
Brown University (President Christina Hull Paxton), 
Carnegie-Mellon University (President Subra Suresh), 
Case Western Reserve University (President Barbara R. Snyder), 
Catholic University of America (President John H. Garvey), 
City University of New York (Interim Chancellor William P. Kelly), 
Clark University (President David P. Angel), 
Colby College (President William D. Adams), 
Colgate University (President Jeffrey Herbst), 
College of Charleston (President P. George Benson), 
Columbia University (President Lee C. Bollinger), 
Cornell University (President David Skorton), 
Dartmouth College (President Philip J. Hanlon), 
Dickinson College (President Nancy Roseman), 
Drexel University (President John A. Fry), 
Duke University (President Richard H. Brodhead), 
Emory University (President James Wagner), 
Florida Atlantic University (Interim President Dennis J. Crudele), 
Florida International University (President Mark B. Rosenberg,) 
Fordham University (President Joseph M. McShane, S.J.),
 Franklin & Marshall College (President Daniel R. Porterfield), 
George Washington University (President Steven Knapp), 
Georgetown University (President John J. DeGioia), 
Goucher College (President Sanford J. Ungar), 
Hamilton College (President Joan Hinde Stewart), 
Harvard University (President Drew Gilpin Faust), 
Haverford College (President Daniel Weiss), 
Hunter College (President Jennifer J. Raab), 
Indiana University (President Michael McRobbie), 
Johns Hopkins University (President Ronald Joel Daniels),
 Kenyon College (President Sean M. Decatur), 
Lafayette College (President Alison Byerly),
 Lehigh University (President Alice P. Gast), 
Loyola University Maryland (President Rev. Brian F. Linnane, S.J.), 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (President L. Rafael Reif), 
Michigan State University (President Lou Anna K. Simon), 
Middlebury College (President Ron Liebowitz), 
New York University (President John Sexton), 
Northeastern University (President Joseph E. Aoun), 
Northwestern University (President Morton O. Schapiro), 
Ohio State University (President Joseph A. Alutto),
 Pennsylvania State University (President Rodney Erickson), 
Pomona College (President David Oxtoby), 
Princeton University (President Christopher L. Eisgruber), 
Purdue University (President Mitch Daniels), 
Ramapo College (President Peter Philip Mercer), 
Rhode Island College (President Nancy Carriuolo), 
Rice University (President David W. Leebron),
 Rider University (President Mordechai Rozanski), 
Rutgers University (President Robert Barchi), 
Smith College (President Kathleen McCartney), 
Stanford University (President John L. Hennessy), 
State University of New York (Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher),
 Swarthmore College (President Rebecca Chopp), 
Touro College and University System (President and CEO Alan Kadish), 
Trinity College (President James F. Jones, Jr.), 
Tufts University (President Anthony P. Monaco), 
Tulane University (President Scott S. Cowen),
 University of Alabama (Chancellor Robert E. Witt), 
University of California System (President Janet Napolitano), 
University of California, Berkeley (Chancellor Nicholas Dirks), 
University of California, Davis (Chancellor Linda P. B. Katehi), 
University of California, Irvine (Chancellor Michael V. Drake),
 University of California, San Diego (Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla),
 University of California, San Francisco (Chancellor Sue Desmond-Hellmann), 
University of Chicago (President Robert J. Zimmer),
 University of Cincinnati (President Santa J. Ono), 
University of Connecticut (President Susan Herbst), 
University of Delaware (President Patrick T. Harker), 
University of Florida (President J. Bernard Machen),
 University of Illinois System (President Robert A. Easter),
 University of Illinois at Chicago (Chancellor Paula Allen-Meares), 
University of Illinois at Springfield (Chancellor Susan J. Koch), 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Chancellor Phyllis Wise),
 University of Kansas (Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little),
 University of La Verne (President Devorah Lieberman),
 University of Maryland, Baltimore County (President Freeman Hrabowski), 
University of Maryland, College Park (President Wallace D. Loh), 
University of Miami (President Donna E. Shalala), 
University of Michigan (President Mary Sue Coleman), 
University of Minnesota (President Eric Kaler), 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chancellor Carol L. Folt),
 University of Pennsylvania (President Amy Gutmann), 
University of Pittsburgh (Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg), 
University of Rochester (President Joel Seligman), 
University of Southern California (President C. L. Max Nikias), 
University of Texas, Austin (President William C. Powers),
 University of Vermont (President Tom Sullivan), 
Vanderbilt University (Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos),
 Washington University in St. Louis (Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton), 
Wesleyan University (President Michael S. Roth), 
Willamette University (President Stephen Thorsett), 
Yale University (President Peter Salovey), 
Yeshiva University (President Richard M. Joel)

In addition, the following institutions’ American Studies programs have withdrawn their membership in the American Studies Association (ASA) following last month’s boycott vote:


Brandeis University, Indiana University,
 Kenyon College, Penn State Harrisburg

Furthermore, the following institutions have flatly denied being institutional members of the ASA, though the organization lists them as such:

Brown University, 
Carnegie-Mellon University, 
Hamilton College,
 Northwestern University,
 Temple University, 
Trinity College, 
Tufts University,
 University of Alabama, 
University of Mississippi,
 University of Southern California,
 Willamette University

 I SAY BRAVO !!!