Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Controversial BDS Panel Draws Crowds at Brooklyn College

Protesters and panel attendees turned out in large numbers at the Brooklyn College BDS panel.

Judith Butler

Roughly 300 attendees came to listen to the discussion of the movement to impose boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. Outside, 150 counter protesters chanted in the cold on the public college’s campus, according to one report.

The event, co-sponsored by the school’s political science department, was at the center of a high-profile controversy in recent weeks, as Jewish activists and elected officials weighed in against it.

Elected officials criticized the school’s political science department for co-sponsoring the event. One group of Jewish political elected officials implicitly threatened the school’s funding of the decision. Mayor Michael Bloomberg pushed back at those specific threats at a February 6 press conference.

“If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea,” Bloomberg said.

In the hours since the talk, a written version of the remarks delivered at the event by U.C. Berkeley philosopher Judith Butler and posted on The Nation’s website have gone viral online. Butler, known for her relatively dense works of academic theory, spoke at length about BDS, and about the opposition to the Brooklyn College event.

“The principle of academic freedom is designed to make sure that powers outside the university, including government and corporations, are not able to control the curriculum or intervene in extra-mural speech,” Butler said, according to the Nation’s site. “It not only bars such interventions, but it also protects those platforms in which we might be able to reflect together on the most difficult problems.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.