Columbia University President Lee Bollinger took the lead among American university presidents as he wrote in a statement released on his university's Web site, "I am profoundly disturbed by the recent vote by Britain's new University and College Union to advance a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. [...] I find this idea utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment."
Bollinger's statement was a bold move, especially considering his University's Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures Department came under attack a couple years ago because many perceived it hostile and punitive towards students that advocate a pro-Israel stance. "At Columbia I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate-as we embrace scholars from many countries regardless of divergent views on their governments' policies," Bollinger wrote. "Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish. Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education."
Bollinger's strong stance mobilized other American academics to get involved in the campaign to end the British boycott. Two consecutive ads in The New York Times in early August gave prominence to international and American opposition. The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity sponsored an ad on Aug. 5 featuring 57 Nobel Prize Laureates' demonstrated opposition to the UCU Boycott, which it called
"shameful."
The following Tuesday, the American Jewish Committee sponsored an ad under the banner, "Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too!," inspired by Bollinger's original statement. 286 American college and university presidents signed the ad. Among them were the leading administrators of Cornell, UC-Berkeley, Dartmouth, Michigan, MIT, Mount Holyoke, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Smith.
Noticeably absent was President Anthony Marx's signature. The College simply did not want to participate in an ad sponsored by a third party. President Marx released a statement on the College's Web site soon after the New York Times ad appeared, asserting, "Amherst College is strongly opposed to the boycott of Israeli academics … We believe in academic freedom and in the full exchange of ideas as the surest basis of resolving differences and the surest bedrock of liberal education. We find the notion of exclusion from debate, even the exclusion of views many disagree with, to be abhorrent and misguided."
While President Marx did not sign the ad sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, he did sign a petition Bollinger circulated among college presidents earlier in the summer and offered to pay for an ad "publicizing [that group's] firm commitment." The problem was simply the third-party sponsorship. Marx concluded in his statement, "I was and remain concerned that our principled stance against a boycott and for academic freedom would be diluted or compromised by an ad sponsored by a third party, no matter how distinguished that group might be." Williams, Yale and several other prominent institutions shared President Marx's sentiment.
Erik Schulwolf '10, President of Amherst Hillel's Israel Action Committee, hesitantly supports Marx's steps. "As a strong supporter of Israel I am proud that President Marx has taken a principled stand in opposition to the UCU's illiberal and counterproductive attempt to boycott Israel's academics," he said. "While I privately wish that he had affixed Amherst's name to the AJC's advertisement in the Times, his desire to avoid affiliating the College with a third party's campaign is certainly understandable and justifiable."