Several faculty members who belong to the American Studies
Association have filed a lawsuit against their professional organization over
ASA’s resolutions and actions to support a boycott of Israel. The lawsuit is
framed along narrow lines, in order to improve its odds of winning. The gist is
to claim that anti-Israel activists in ASA have acted outside the stated goals
of the organization's official charter, which is filed with the IRS as a
non-profit corporation. Plaintiffs seek
an injunction and damages in excess of $75,000. Details of the complaint are here.
No one will sue BDS activists for being hypocrites; but the
point of the picture is that boycott activists should stop using Google for their boycotting activities after
the Internet firm bought the most popular mapping app from an Israeli developer, Ehud Shabtai, for more than $1 billion.
More fundamentally, BDS’s advocacy for boycotting Israeli universities is
contrary to the academic norm of promoting the free exchange of ideas among
scholars.
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