A Bold College President

The president of Columbia University has taken a stand against the British academics' boycott of Israel.

The British are trying to shut up academics in Israel. Of course stopping their speech will stop their careers, because publishing and professional exchange are key parts of an academic career. No publishing means no advancing.

Would you call it censhoring? It's not, because only governments do that. But it is the equivalent.

President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University took a stand against this "censorship" and got several more presidents to join him. See American Jewish Committee:

August 8, 2007 – New York – College and university presidents across the United States are signing on to a statement by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger denouncing the decision by the union representing British academics to promote a boycott of Israeli educational institutions.

The full list of presidents to date was published today by the American Jewish Committee in a full-page advertisement in the New York Times. Other presidents joining the initiative are being added to a list on the AJC website.

"Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too!" is the call of the nearly 300 college and university presidents who have endorsed Bollinger's powerful statement, released shortly after the United Kingdom's University and College Union shamefully passed a boycott resolution at its conference in May.

The appeal to U.S. college and university presidents to follow Bollinger's example came from eight of their colleagues: Jehuda Reinharz, president, Brandeis University; Robert J. Birgeneau, chancellor, University of California, Berkeley; Richard Herman, chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Donna E. Shalala, president, University of Miami; Henry S. Bienen, president, Northwestern University; Graham B. Spanier, Pennsylvania State University; Lawrence S. Bacow, president, Tufts University; M. Lee Pelton, Willamette; and, Harold Shapiro, president emeritus, Princeton University.

AJC shares the concerns of the presidents who have signed the statement to date, and is facilitating distribution of the list of presidents who have publicly endorsed Bollinger's statement ...