Jewish Scholars Say Pro-BDS Dartmouth Prof Was Treated Unfairly
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A group of Jewish academics who oppose the boycott Israel movement decried a campaign against a Dartmouth professor who backed BDS, saying it has negatively impacted academic freedoms.
N. Bruce Duthu, an associate dean and faculty member in Native American studies at Dartmouth College, declined his nomination as dean of faculty earlier this year due to intense controversy over his past statements supporting the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement against Israel.
In response, eight members of the Alliance for Academic Freedom, a proponent of Liberal Zionism, noted Monday in an opinion piece in Inside Higher Education that while Duthu signed a petition supporting academic boycotts of Israel, he “embraced” Dartmouth’s official opposition to academic boycotts and pledged to continue to do so as dean of the faculty.
Pro-Israel critics of Duthu, the op-ed writers suggested, treated Duthu “unfairly” and did a disservice to “the cause of Jewish studies [and] Israel studies.”
On May 22, Duthu declined the nomination as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Dartmouth amid concerns over his support for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
