University of California Campuses Speak Out Against President Napolitano & Chancellors

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**This page will be updated as more campuses respond***

On April 19th, 2016, President Janet Napolitano and all ten UC Chancellors signed a letter to the leadership of the American Anthropological Association, to “express their concern” about the resolution to boycott Israeli institutions, currently up for a vote. You can see that letter here.

The letter contains several deep misunderstandings about the point of an academic boycott. For example, it asserts that the boycott of Israeli institutions would “limit the open exchange of knowledge and ideas.” The call for the academic boycott of Israeli institutions does not call for silencing Israeli academics, nor does it call for censoring the ideas or knowledge produced by their research. Rather, the call asks that we look closely at the ways Israeli universities, as institutions, are complicit in the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, and perpetuate second-class status for Palestinian citizens in Israel.

The good news is that the faculty at the University of California has taken President Napolitano and the Chancellors to task. Below you can see the letters each campus has sent to their Chancellors, demanding that they stop intimidating faculty and interfering with the democratic process of the AAA.

UC Irvine and UC Riverside

UC San Diego

UC Santa Cruz

UC Santa Barbara

UCLA

UC Davis

California Scholars for Academic Freedom

If you want to find out more about the AAA boycott, you can go here: https://anthroboycott.wordpress.com/

To see our endorsement of the boycott resolution, go here.

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