Columbia University President Lee Bollinger challenged the British academics, making him the first American college president to speak out on the issue. In an interview he was at a loss to explain why he was the first US University president to speak up against the threatened boycott.
Bollinger said that if Britain’s University and College Union “is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list. … Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues … against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.”
Although other university and college presidents have yet to speak out, David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, the coordinating body for the country’s higher education institutions, said he finds the British action “reprehensible.”
And the American Association of University Professors, which has a membership of 45,000 and is dedicated to defending academic freedom, adopted a motion at the June 1 meeting of its academic freedom and tenure committee saying that the boycott is “contrary to the association’s position condemning such boycotts.”
Date: 18/06/07
Posted: 20/06/07
