Hypocritical definitions of ‘academic freedom’ empower extremists 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) quite rightly calls itself the “most prominent guardian of academic freedom” for faculty and students in the U.S. In a recent statement on the Israel-Hamas war, however, titled “Polarizing Times Demand Robust Academic Freedom” the AAUP displayed a distressing anti-Israel bias that sadly undermines its commitment to even-handed protection of free expression. 

The bias is apparent in the statement’s central premise, set out in its opening paragraph: “In the aftermath of the events of October 7, 2023, powerful campus outsiders . . . have escalated demands that institutions crack down on what can be said or expressed on campus (italics added).” 

While some media outlets have been regrettably reluctant to refer to the kidnapping, torture, murder and dismemberment of more than 1,200 Israelis, including many children, as “terrorism,” only the AAUP has refrained from calling it at least an attack or even a raid.  

Thus, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is disguised by a euphemism, and the word Hamas does not appear in the statement. An uninformed reader might well conclude that the AAUP’s demand to protect academic freedom — against interference from “donors, legislators and well-funded political organizations” — has followed a mere “event” such as a parade or perhaps a thunderstorm.  

But of course, the real story is the tumult at many colleges and universities, as contending voices strive to be heard, some justifying and even praising the Hamas pogrom, others defending or condemning Israel’s siege, bombing and ground invasion of Gaza. As can always be expected on campuses, there has been intemperate language on both sides. 

The AAUP, however, addresses only one rhetorical excess, even though it is almost entirely non-existent, declaring that it “rejects the characterization of pro-Palestinian speech or critiques of the Israeli state as invariably antisemitic.” That is a classic straw person. Apart from an occasional crank or zealot, nobody has ever charged that pro-Palestinian advocacy or criticism of Israel is “invariably” antisemitic.  

The truth is almost precisely the opposite. Virtually every widely published definition of antisemitism provides that critiques of Israel are not inherently antisemitic. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition — adopted for educational purposes by nearly 1,000 governments and organizations, although disdained by the AAUP statement as overly broad — specifically states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” 

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, favored by the AAUP, recognizes that “hostility to Israel could be an expression of antisemitic animus,” while “evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state” is not. In neither of these definitions — nor in any other — have “critiques of the Israeli state” been called “invariably antisemitic.” As I have written repeatedly, it would be wrong to assert that all opposition to Israel is antisemitic, but it is dangerous to insist that none of it is. 

Meanwhile, the AAUP statement says not a word about the threats to the academic freedom of Jewish students, who have been insulted and marginalized on many campuses.

 At Cornell, Columbia and Cooper Union, among other schools, they have been subjected to threats of harm and physical intimidation. As observed by Emory University President Gregory Fenves, “antisemitic phrases and slogans were repeatedly used by speakers and chanted by the crowd” at an anti-Israel demonstration. 

Rather than defend or even acknowledge the rights of Jewish students, the AAUP has instead scolded the administrators who have addressed the alarming rise of antisemitism on campuses and elsewhere, saying, “College and university leaders have no obligation to speak out on the most controversial issues of the day.” 

This newly announced restraint seems to apply only to condemnations of antisemitism. Literally scores of university departments and programs — including more than 130 gender studies departments — have for many years issued statements of solidarity with the Palestinians or announced boycotts of Israel.  

Recent statements have minimized or justified Hamas’s pogrom. In October, at least one ethnic studies department participated in a “general strike,” replacing an entire day of classes with pro-Palestinian “educational activities.” Another department voluntarily deleted its statement, recognizing that it made students “feel unsafe.” 

Such departments are too many to list, but the inflammatory language of the resolutions is often far more extreme than the cautious statements of university leaders that the AAUP considers out-of-bounds.  

There have been no admonitions from the AAUP about making such politicized declarations, despite their potential for chilling the speech of students and junior faculty. Departmental policies can have an immediate impact on the content of instruction and the progress of careers, which is far greater than any effect of the distant, and essentially anodyne, statements of university presidents about antisemitism. 

It is deeply objectionable, as the AAUP statement points out, that pro-Palestinian faculty have been “investigated, suspended, or fired.” But the same is true of the Jewish professors who have been suspended — as at Johns Hopkins, Southern California, and NYU — for anti-Hamas statements, and others who have been isolated or threatened, never mentioned by the AAUP. 

A professor at the University of California-Davis tweeted a threat of violence against so-called “zionist journalists” at their homes and their children’s schools. The only person thus far killed at a Middle East rally was a pro-Israel demonstrator, for which a community college professor has been charged with manslaughter. 

Perhaps the AAUP will someday call for the general adoption of the Chicago Statement, derived from the 1967 Kalven Report, which calls for institutional neutrality and precludes institutional statements on political issues. For the time being, however, the AAUP’s recent statement has disappointingly compromised its own status as a neutral defender of “robust academic freedom.”  

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor of Law at Northwestern University and a life member of the AAUP.