JVP Academic Council condemns Cornell University President’s attack on its own “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” class
Dear Interim President Kotlikoff:
Jewish Voice for Peace’s Academic Advisory Council condemns your attack on a course developed by Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, a distinguished Jewish member of Cornell’s humanities faculty, titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance.” According to its course description, the class will train students on how to “analyze Indigenous perspectives on political, social, and environmental systems,” as well as exploring themes such as “Indigeneity,” “Resistance,” “Settler Colonialism,” and “Genocide” as they are understood in international law; and to begin to study issues related to Indigenous epistemologies and their relationship with those of the West. All of these topics fall well within the boundaries of accepted scholarly research and pedagogy at the university and postgraduate level. Moreover, Prof. Cheyfitz is a world renowned expert on all of them, which accounts for the course being reviewed and approved by the relevant Curriculum Committee, in compliance with Cornell’s procedures.
As noted by our colleagues on the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association, when another professor with no expertise on this subject complained to you, you responded by expressing that you were “extremely disappointed with the curriculum committee’s decision to offer the course and the course’s apparent lack of openness and objectivity…. I personally find the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate, and biased view of the formation of the State of Israel and the ongoing conflict.”
When your comments were made public, rather than clarify that your views are your own and do not reflect your official position vis-à-vis Professor Cheyfitz’s course, capabilities, integrity, fairness or those of the relevant university committees that approved the course, you doubled down on questioning Prof. Cheyfitz’s scholarly credibility as well as that of your own university committee. In so doing you have directly interfered with and undermined academic freedom at Cornell University, and your own commitment core principles of the AAUP’s 1940 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom, among others. This is completely unacceptable for a senior official in the University’s administration. It also fails completely to take into account that Prof. Cheyfitz, who is himself Jewish, has close family living in Israel (who could be put in danger by these attacks), and has a long record addressing the complex relationship between criticism of Israel and even anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism. Instead, your actions fall completely in line with highly politicized and partisan attacks on him and anyone else who dares to challenge the official view at Cornell and other U.S. universities that criticism of Israel cannot be tolerated.
Your comments coupled with your silence have done serious harm to the reputation of one of the leading research universities in the United States, and put not just a celebrated senior professor but academic freedom at Cornell at risk. We call on you immediately to apologize to Prof. Cheyfitz, publicly recommit to the strictest standards of academic freedom at Cornell, to declare the University’s disavowal of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism that falsely equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and to work to ensure students and faculty alike are protected from harassment, punishment and harm for their engaging in protected speech and actions.
Sincerely,
On behalf of the Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace:
Rabbi Rebecca T. Alpert, Professor of Religion Emerit, Temple University
Ashley J. Bohrer, Assistant Professor of Gender and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Naomi Braine, Professor of Sociology, Brooklyn College
Judith Butler, Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School, University of California, Berkeley (former Presidential Visiting Professor, Cornell University)
Sarah Combellick-Bidney, Associate Professor of Political Science, Augsburg University
Michael Drexler, Professor of English, Bucknell University (Cornell A.B., 1993)
Laura Goldblatt, Assistant Professor of Global Studies & Engagements, University of Virginia
Glen Hendler, Professor of English and American Studies, Fordham University
Mark LeVine, Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories and Cultures, UC Irvine
Charles Manekin, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Maryland
Miller Oberman, Eugene Lang College, The New School
Martha Schoolman, Associate Professor of English, Florida International University
Victor I. Silverman, Emeritus Professor of History, Pomona College
Barry Trachtenberg, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University
Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan
JVP is a national, grassroots organization working towards Palestinian freedom and Judaism beyond Zionism. With roughly 750,000 members, supporters, and participants in the last year, JVP is the largest such organization in the world. The Academic Council is a network of scholars within JVP with a shared commitment to JVP’s core values.
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