The College Fix

The American Studies Association’s controversial call for an academic boycott of Israel, has picked up a new supporter. Colin Dayan, the Robert Penn Warren professor of Humanities at Vanderbilt University has gone public with her support of the boycott.

Colin Dayan, who also goes by the name “Joan Dayan,” according to her website, told the New York Times that “the situation for Palestinians is deteriorating. It’s worse than I ever would have imagined.”

Dayan has written an op-ed for Al Jazeera, suggesting that the cause of boycotting Israeli academic institutions is just, and is not a violation of academic freedom:

The outrage following the boycott focuses on the end to academic freedom. That is daring and counterfactual. After all, freedom to discuss the illusion of “democracy,” the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the two assaults on Gaza, and the continued destruction of homes in East Jerusalem and olive trees throughout the West Bank has not been available to professors — especially not to professors without tenure. In Israel and in the United States, the threat against those who debate, or even ask questions about Palestinian human and political rights remains very much a reality…

Dayan believes the cultural stigma that may come with criticizing the Israeli government justifies outright suppression of Israeli academics. Strange logic, especially for someone who is now, very publicly, criticizing the policies of the Israel government. Obviously, the “threat against those who debate,” has not hindered professor Dayan at all.

Read Dayan’s full op-ed here.

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