{"id":65207,"date":"2018-11-25T17:05:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T15:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=65207"},"modified":"2018-11-20T16:27:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T14:27:28","slug":"19-00-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=65207","title":{"rendered":"ADL Joins With Leading Scholars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>ADL Joins With Leading Scholars to Urge New Policy on Faculty Recommendations Following Recent University of Michigan BDS Scandals<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ben Cohen<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A flag at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Photo: Corey Seeman.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

University administrations in the US are being encouraged to adopt explicit guidelines that would prevent academics from refusing to write study-abroad recommendation letters for students based on their political or ideological beliefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision to craft a \u201cmodel policy\u201d \u2014 drawn up by the Anti-Defamation League in cooperation with the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), which\u00a0brings together<\/a><\/strong><\/span> scholars opposed to the anti-Israel BDS campaign \u2014 was triggered by the recent refusal of two academics at the University of Michigan to write recommendation letters for students wanting to attend universities in Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

In both cases \u2014 one involving cultural studies\u00a0Prof. John Cheney-Lippold<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0and the other involving graduate instructor\u00a0Lucy Petersen<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 support for the academic boycott campaign targeting Israeli universities was cited as the reason for refusing to supply the requested recommendation letters.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a joint statement, former University of California President Prof. Mark Yudof, who now chairs the AEN advisory board, and Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL\u2019s chief executive, highlighted the lack of existing policies to guide\u00a0university administrators as the primary reason for their initiative.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the University of Michigan incidents, it became obvious that there were gaps in university faculty handbooks regarding writing or refusing requests for letters of recommendation,\u201d Greenblatt said. \u201cThis policy makes clear that a professor\u2019s personal politics should never interfere with the academic freedom of their students.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Commented\u00a0Yudof: \u201cWe believe that most faculty members, administrators, and governing boards understand the need to treat all students with fairness when they wish to study elsewhere. But many universities appear to have no explicit policies on this subject. The model policy is designed to facilitate the adoption of such policies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The draft policy would\u00a0not compel academics to write recommendation letters under all circumstances. \u201c[F]aculty are free to write or refuse to write letters of recommendation based on a range of considerations, including the number of requests, time to fulfill them, familiarity with the requesting student, and an assessment of the student\u2019s work,\u201d the draft policy asserted. \u201cWhen faculty are asked to write letters of recommendation, their primary considerations ought to be academic merit and the student\u2019s qualifications. At times, faculty may also wish to consider institutional accreditation and quality of the program. But the decision to express or withhold support for students in the form of recommendation letters should not be influenced by political considerations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Steven M. Freeman, vice president of the ADL\u2019s civil rights division, told\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>\u00a0on Thursday that the advocacy organization would be reaching out to university administrators and faculty through its 25 regional offices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is meant to be a suggestion, a model, and hopefully we\u2019ll be able to start a conversation,\u201d Freeman said. Nor is the ADL insisting that the policy be adopted exactly as drafted, noted Freeman, pointing out that the University of Michigan had already reacted\u00a0\u201cvery strongly\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to Prof. Cheney-Lippold\u2019s BDS-influenced decision. \u201cThe more important issue is not what the exact language is, but the need to address this situation,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prof. Kenneth Waltzer \u2014 the executive director of AEN \u2014 said that his organization had assembled a list of universities with Yudof\u2019s help \u201cthat we are definitely going to approach.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The list included \u201cmost of the large public universities, including the University of Michigan,\u201d Prof. Walzer said. \u201cMost of the University of California schools are there, the big privates are there, and ultimately it\u2019ll go out to the smaller liberal arts colleges.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Waltzer said that advance discussions with faculty around the country had persuaded the AEN that a model policy would clear away any ambiguities over politically-charged decisions by academics. Adopting the model policy would provide university administrators with \u201cclarity and a declarative statement of key values,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe message is, \u2018Keep your politics to yourself,’\u201d stated Waltzer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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ADL Joins With Leading Scholars to Urge New Policy on Faculty Recommendations Following Recent University of Michigan BDS Scandals Ben Cohen A flag at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Photo: Corey Seeman. University administrations in the US are being encouraged to adopt explicit guidelines that would prevent academics from refusing to write study-abroad recommendation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65214,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65207\/revisions\/65214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}