Shame on IU-Bloomington’s interference in the Jewish Studies Program

The Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace writes with grave concern about both (i) administrative interference in the Borns Jewish Studies Program of Indiana University Bloomington and (ii) harmful conduct by the program’s interim director against a graduate student who was expressing support for Palestinian freedom and equality. 

The administration’s disregard for established norms of university governance was demonstrated by removing the incumbent program director (Professor Mark Roseman) and appointing an interim director (Professor Gunther Jikeli) without faculty consultation or consent. These actions have resulted in significant harm to both academic freedom and shared governance, and thus also to the academic integrity of the Borns Jewish Studies Program.  

In proceeding in this way, the IU administration has acted as if it is unaccountable to faculty, staff, or students.  The administration’s serious breach of well-established procedural norms at IU specifically, and of the norms of academic freedom and shared governance in higher education institutions in free societies more generally, makes clear that the recent decisions about the program were made with neither competence nor legitimacy.  IU Chancellor David Reingold and College Dean Rick Van Kooten dismissed Professor Roseman and installed the interim replacement without the participation of the program’s faculty and students—the people who understand the academic aim of the program and have undertaken the program’s scholarly and educational work. 

Professor Roseman should, immediately, be invited to return to his position as the program’s director.  We call for this for two reasons: first, his appointment as director occurred through a fully legitimate governance process and, second, because—by all reports—Roseman conducted himself as director in a manner that fully supported academic freedom and campus speech rights,including for faculty and students whose views differ from his own. 

The Academic Council is also gravely concerned by reports of harmful conduct by the interim program director.  At an online seminar on September 19, the interim director demanded that a graduate student, Sabina Ali, remove her profile picture, which was a drawing of a woman wearing a keffiyeh along with a Palestinian flag and the words “Free Palestine.”  This action of the interim director is censorship and a flagrant assault on academic freedom and speech rights, reflecting his personal political views.  It also undermined the educational purpose of the scheduled webinar, preventing the exercise of the program’s scholarly and educational activities.  Finally, given the power imbalance between the interim director and the graduate student, there are ample grounds for judging that the interim director’s conduct was bullying. The student, Ms. Ali, spoke from her Jewish commitment to justice, and should not be constrained from doing so.

We note that Indiana University administration has publicly embraced a commitment to “viewpoint diversity” as mandated by the Indiana state legislation, SEA 202.  The Academic Council notes, however, that “viewpoint diversity” is often used to suppress legitimate and protected scholarly and educational activities that challenge the views of right-wing politicians and university administrators who serve them (at the expense of education and open inquiry). We join the AAUP chapter at IU Bloomington in observing that no diversity of opinion is honored when acts of censorship and abrogations of academic freedom are committed, as they clearly have been in the case of the Borns Jewish Studies Program. 

The JVP Academic Council calls upon the interim director of the Borns Jewish Studies program to step down and for Professor Roseman to be invited to return to his position as the program’s director. The university’s senior administration should also issue an unqualified public apology to Sabina Ali.