UK ‘Campaign for Free Speech’ 12/12 - How & Why Free Speech Is Coming Under Attack

UK ‘Campaign for Free Speech’ on December 12 - How and why Free Speech is coming under increasing attack

Session 1 - https://youtu.be/VpLb0NfVlIU

Chair: Jackie Walker

Speakers (all in personal capacity):

* Graham Bash (Labour Briefing)
* Craig Murray (journalist reporting on the Julian Assange campaign)
* Kerry-Anne Mendoza (editor, The Canary)
* Chris Williamson (former Labour MP)
* Moshé Machover (Israeli socialist, co-founder of Matzpen)
* Jonathan Coulter (Lib Dems for Free Speech)
* Tony Greenstein (Jewish blogger, Labour Against the Witchhunt)

-> Plus: Presentation of the Draft Charter for Free Speech (draft here ) and conference on Saturday January 23 2021, introduced by Kevin Bean

2.30pm – 4.30pm:

The international campaign to impose the IHRA fake definition of antisemitism and the fight for free speech in schools and universities

Session 2 - https://youtu.be/9F4eCY3wuBI

Chair: Tina Werkmann

* Ilan Pappé (Israeli historian, University of Exeter)
* Leah Levane (Jewish Voice for Labour)
* Ronnie Kasrils (former ANC and SACP leader)
* Ronnie Barkan (Jewish author and activist, living in Berlin)
* Steve Zeltzer (US filmmaker and commentator)

http://www.labouragainstthewitchhunt.org


Palestinian rights and the IHRA definition of antisemitism

A group of 122 Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals express their concerns about the IHRA definition
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/nov/29/palestinian-rights-and-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism

The Guardian 29 Nov 2020

A file photo taken on June 8, 2013 shows a Palestinian holding a placard which “Boycott divestment, sanctions” as part of a protest in the West Bank village of Surif, west of Hebron.
‘The portrayal of the [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] campaign as antisemitic is a gross distortion of what is fundamentally a legitimate non-violent means of struggle for Palestinian rights.’ A Palestinian protester with a placard saying ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ in the West Bank village of Surif in 2013. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images
We, the undersigned Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals are hereby stating our views regarding the definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and the way this definition has been applied, interpreted and deployed in several countries of Europe and North America.

In recent years, the fight against antisemitism has been increasingly instrumentalised by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimise the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights. Diverting the necessary struggle against antisemitism to serve such an agenda threatens to debase this struggle and hence to discredit and weaken it.

Antisemitism must be debunked and combated. Regardless of pretence, no expression of hatred for Jews as Jews should be tolerated anywhere in the world. Antisemitism manifests itself in sweeping generalisations and stereotypes about Jews, regarding power and money in particular, along with conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. We regard as legitimate and necessary the fight against such attitudes. We also believe that the lessons of the Holocaust as well as those of other genocides of modern times must be part of the education of new generations against all forms of racial prejudice and hatred.

The fight against antisemitism must, however, be approached in a principled manner, lest it defeat its purpose. Through “examples” that it provides, the IHRA definition conflates Judaism with Zionism in assuming that all Jews are Zionists, and that the state of Israel in its current reality embodies the self-determination of all Jews. We profoundly disagree with this. The fight against antisemitism should not be turned into a stratagem to delegitimise the fight against the oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their land. We regard the following principles as crucial in that regard:

1. The fight against antisemitism must be deployed within the frame of international law and human rights. It should be part and parcel of the fight against all forms of racism and xenophobia, including Islamophobia, and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. The aim of this struggle is to guarantee freedom and emancipation for all oppressed groups. It is deeply distorted when geared towards the defence of an oppressive and predatory state.

2. There is a huge difference between a condition where Jews are singled out, oppressed and suppressed as a minority by antisemitic regimes or groups, and a condition where the self-determination of a Jewish population in Palestine/Israel has been implemented in the form of an ethnic exclusivist and territorially expansionist state. As it currently exists, the state of Israel is based on uprooting the vast majority of the natives – what Palestinians and Arabs refer to as the Nakba – and on subjugating those natives who still live on the territory of historical Palestine as either second-class citizens or people under occupation, denying them their right to self-determination.

3. The IHRA definition of antisemitism and the related legal measures adopted in several countries have been deployed mostly against leftwing and human rights groups supporting Palestinian rights and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, sidelining the very real threat to Jews coming from rightwing white nationalist movements in Europe and the US. The portrayal of the BDS campaign as antisemitic is a gross distortion of what is fundamentally a legitimate non-violent means of struggle for Palestinian rights.

4. The IHRA definition’s statement that an example of antisemitism is “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” is quite odd. It does not bother to recognise that under international law, the current state of Israel has been an occupying power for over half a century, as recognised by the governments of countries where the IHRA definition is being upheld. It does not bother to consider whether this right includes the right to create a Jewish majority by way of ethnic cleansing and whether it should be balanced against the rights of the Palestinian people. Furthermore, the IHRA definition potentially discards as antisemitic all non-Zionist visions of the future of the Israeli state, such as the advocacy of a binational state or a secular democratic one that represents all its citizens equally. Genuine support for the principle of a people’s right to self-determination cannot exclude the Palestinian nation, nor any other.

5. We believe that no right to self-determination should include the right to uproot another people and prevent them from returning to their land, or any other means of securing a demographic majority within the state. The demand by Palestinians for their right of return to the land from which they themselves, their parents and grandparents were expelled cannot be construed as antisemitic. The fact that such a demand creates anxieties among Israelis does not prove that it is unjust, nor that it is antisemitic. It is a right recognised by international law as represented in United Nations general assembly resolution 194 of 1948.

6. To level the charge of antisemitism against anyone who regards the existing state of Israel as racist, notwithstanding the actual institutional and constitutional discrimination upon which it is based, amounts to granting Israel absolute impunity. Israel can thus deport its Palestinian citizens, or revoke their citizenship or deny them the right to vote, and still be immune from the accusation of racism. The IHRA definition and the way it has been deployed prohibit any discussion of the Israeli state as based on ethno-religious discrimination. It thus contravenes elementary justice and basic norms of human rights and international law.

7. We believe that justice requires the full support of Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including the demand to end the internationally acknowledged occupation of their territories and the statelessness and deprivation of Palestinian refugees. The suppression of Palestinian rights in the IHRA definition betrays an attitude upholding Jewish privilege in Palestine instead of Jewish rights, and Jewish supremacy over Palestinians instead of Jewish safety. We believe that human values and rights are indivisible and that the fight against antisemitism should go hand in hand with the struggle on behalf of all oppressed peoples and groups for dignity, equality and emancipation.

Samir Abdallah
Filmmaker, Paris, France
Nadia Abu El-Haj
Ann Olin Whitney Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, USA
Lila Abu-Lughod
Joseph L Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, Columbia University, USA
Bashir Abu-Manneh
Reader in Postcolonial Literature, University of Kent, UK
Gilbert Achcar
Professor of Development Studies, SOAS, University of London, UK
Nadia Leila Aissaoui
Sociologist and Writer on feminist issues, Paris, France
Mamdouh Aker
Board of Trustees, Birzeit University, Palestine
Mohamed Alyahyai
Writer and novelist, Oman
Suad Amiry
Writer and Architect, Ramallah, Palestine
Sinan Antoon
Associate Professor, New York University, Iraq-US
Talal Asad
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Graduate Center, CUNY, USA
Hanan Ashrawi
Former Professor of Comparative Literature, Birzeit University, Palestine
Aziz Al-Azmeh
University Professor Emeritus, Central European University, Vienna, Austria
Abdullah Baabood
Academic and Researcher in Gulf studies, Oman
Nadia Al-Bagdadi
Professor of History, Central European University, Vienna
Sam Bahour
Writer, Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine
Zainab Bahrani
Edith Porada Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, USA
Rana Barakat
Assistant Professor of History, Birzeit University, Palestine
Bashir Bashir
Associate Professor of Political Theory, Open University of Israel, Raanana, State of Israel
Taysir Batniji
Artist-Painter, Gaza, Palestine and Paris, France
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Writer, Paris, France
Mohammed Bennis
Poet, Mohammedia, Morocco
Mohammed Berrada
Writer and Literary Critic, Rabat, Morocco
Omar Berrada
Writer and Curator, New York, USA
Amahl Bishara
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, Tufts University, USA
Anouar Brahem
Musician and Composer, Tunisia
Salem Brahimi
Filmaker, Algeria-France
Aboubakr Chraïbi
Professor, Arabic Studies Department, INALCO, Paris, France
Selma Dabbagh
Writer, London, UK
Izzat Darwazeh
Professor of Communications Engineering, University College London, UK
Marwan Darweish
Associate Professor, Coventry University, UK
Beshara Doumani
Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies and of History, Brown University, USA
Haidar Eid
Associate Professor of English Literature, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza, Palestine
Ziad Elmarsafy
Professor of Comparative Literature, King’s College London, UK
Noura Erakat
Assistant Professor, Africana Studies and Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, USA
Samera Esmeir
Associate Professor of Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Khaled Fahmy
FBA, Professor of Modern Arabic Studies, University of Cambridge, UK
Ali Fakhrou
Academic and writer, Bahrain
Randa Farah
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Western University, Canada
Leila Farsakh
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
Khaled Furani
Associate Professor of Sociology & Anthropology, Tel-Aviv University, State of Israel
Burhan Ghalioun
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Sorbonne 3, Paris, France
Asad Ghanem
Professor of Political science, Haifa University, State of Israel
Honaida Ghanim
General Director of the Palestinian forum for Israeli Studies Madar, Ramallah, Palestine
George Giacaman
Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies, Birzeit University, Palestine
Rita Giacaman
Professor, Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Palestine
Amel Grami
Professor of Gender Studies, Tunisian University, Tunis
Subhi Hadidi
Literary Critic, Syria-France
Ghassan Hage
Professor of Anthropology and Social theory, University of Melbourne, Australia
Samira Haj
Emeritus Professor of History, CSI/Graduate Center, CUNY, USA
Yassin Al-Haj Saleh
Writer, Syria
Dyala Hamzah
Associate Professor of Arab History, Université de Montréal, Canada
Rema Hammami
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Birzeit University, Palestine
Sari Hanafi
Professor of Sociology, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Adam Hanieh
Reader in Development Studies, SOAS, University of London, UK
Kadhim Jihad Hassan
Writer and translator, Professor at INALCO-Sorbonne, Paris, France
Nadia Hijab
Author and human rights advocate, London, UK
Jamil Hilal
Writer, Ramallah, Palestine
Serene Hleihleh
Cultural Activist, Jordan-Palestine
Bensalim Himmich
Academic, novelist and writer, Morocco
Khaled Hroub
Professor in Residence of Middle Eastern Studies, Northwestern University, Qatar
Mahmoud Hussein
Writer, Paris, France
Lakhdar Ibrahimi
Paris School of International Affairs, Institut d’Etudes Politiques, France
Annemarie Jacir
Filmmaker, Palestine
Islah Jad
Associate Professor of Political Science, Birzeit University, Palestine
Lamia Joreige
Visual Artist and Filmaker, Beirut, Lebanon
Amal Al-Jubouri
Writer, Iraq
Mudar Kassis
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Birzeit University, Palestine
Nabeel Kassis
Former Professor of Physics and Former President, Birzeit University, Palestine
Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Presidential Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center, USA
Rashid Khalidi
Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University, USA
Michel Khleifi
Filmmaker, Palestine-Belgium
Elias Khoury
Writer, Beirut, Lebanon
Nadim Khoury
Associate Professor of International Studies, Lillehammer University College, Norway
Rachid Koreichi
Artist-Painter, Paris, France
Adila Laïdi-Hanieh
Director General, The Palestinian Museum, Palestine
Rabah Loucini
Professor of History, Oran University, Algeria
Rabab El-Mahdi
Associate Professor of Political Science, The American University in Cairo, Egypt
Ziad Majed
Associate Professor of Middle East Studies and IR, American University of Paris, France
Jumana Manna
Artist, Berlin, Germany
Farouk Mardam Bey
Publisher, Paris, France
Mai Masri
Palestinian filmmaker, Lebanon
Mazen Masri
Senior Lecturer in Law, City University of London, UK
Dina Matar
Reader in Political Communication and Arab Media, SOAS, University of London, UK
Hisham Matar
Writer, Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, USA
Khaled Mattawa
Poet, William Wilhartz Professor of English Literature, University of Michigan, USA
Karma Nabulsi
Professor of Politics and IR, University of Oxford, UK
Hassan Nafaa
Emeritus Professor of Political science, Cairo University, Egypt
Nadine Naber
Professor, Deptartment of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Issam Nassar
Professor, Illinois State University, USA
Sari Nusseibeh
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Al-Quds University, Palestine
Najwa Al-Qattan
Emeritus Professor of History, Loyola Marymount University, USA
Omar Al-Qattan
Filmmaker, Chair of The Palestinian Museum & the A.M.Qattan Foundation, UK
Nadim N Rouhana
Professor of International Affairs, The Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA
Ahmad Sa’adi
Professor, Haifa, State of Israel
Rasha Salti
Independent Curator, Writer, Researcher of Art and Film, Germany-Lebanon
Elias Sanbar
Writer, Paris, France
Farès Sassine
Professor of Philosophy and Literary Critic, Beirut, Lebanon
Sherene Seikaly
Associate Professor of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Samah Selim
Associate Professor, A, ME & SA Languages & Literatures, Rutgers University, USA
Leila Shahid
Writer, Beirut, Lebanon
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
Lawrence D Biele Chair in Law, Hebrew University, State of Israel
Anton Shammas
Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Yara Sharif
Senior Lecturer, Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, UK
Hanan Al-Shaykh
Writer, London, UK
Raja Shehadeh
Lawyer and Writer, Ramallah, Palestine
Gilbert Sinoué
Writer, Paris, France
Ahdaf Soueif
Writer, Egypt/UK
Mayssoun Sukarieh
Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, King’s College London, UK
Elia Suleiman
Filmmaker, Palestine-France
Nimer Sultany
Reader in Public Law, SOAS, University of London, UK
Jad Tabet
Architect and Writer, Beirut, Lebanon
Jihan El-Tahri
Filmmaker, Egypt
Salim Tamari
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Birzeit University, Palestine
Wassyla Tamzali
Writer, Contemporary Art Producer, Algeria
Fawwaz Traboulsi
Writer, Beirut Lebanon
Dominique Vidal
Historian and Journalist, Palestine-France
Haytham El-Wardany
Writer, Egypt-Germany
Said Zeedani
Emeritus Associate Professor of Philosophy, Al-Quds University, Palestine
Rafeef Ziadah
Lecturer in Comparative Politics of the Middle East, SOAS, University of London, UK
Raef Zreik
Minerva Humanities Centre, Tel-Aviv University, State of Israel
Elia Zureik
Professor Emeritus, Queen’s University, Canada


CFA Resolution on the Zoom Cancellation of a SFSU Zoom Classroom
https://www.calfac.org/item/cfa-resolution-zoom-cancellation-sfsu-zoom-classroom
WHEREAS the first amendment to the U.S. the Constitution defines free speech as the absence of laws and constraints “abridging the freedom of speech,” and

WHEREAS The 1940 AAUP statement explicitly says “teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject,”

WHEREAS institutions such as San Francisco State University are public institutions, and faculty members are public employees who have by law and shared governance declaration both free speech and academic freedom rights, and

WHEREAS on September 23rd 2020 a virtual open classroom titled “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice & Resistance: A Conversation with Leila Khaled” organized by our two colleagues and union members Prof. Abdulhadi and Prof. Tomomi Kinukawa, and sponsored by SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program and the Women and Gender Studies Department, and, was cancelled by Zoom, blocked by Facebook from livestream, and taken down twice by YouTube, and

WHEREAS by cancelling the event Zoom directly violated the CSU, SFSU, AAUP academic freedom policies, it challenged federal and state court law, and infringed on the preamble of the CFA contract which states that “the CSU shall support the pursuit of excellence and academic freedom in teaching, research, and learning through the free exchange of ideas among the faculty, students, and staff,” and

WHEREAS the reason for the censorship is that it featured a conversation with Leila Khaled, a Palestinian activist, connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – which the U.S. government has labelled as “terrorist”, and to two plane hijackings that took place in 1969 and 1970 which had no casualties, and

WHEREAS Leila Khaled was speaking as a feminist in a movement for national liberation, and several competent civil rights attorneys have asserted that Leila Khaled speaking to a classroom was in no way a violation of any criminal law despite the spurious campaign led by the Lawfare Project, and

WHEREAS many off-campus right-wing Zionist groups exerted tremendous pressure to force the university to cancel the event, and to prevent Leila Khaled from speaking to SFSU students in the open classroom, and

WHEREAS while President Mahoney defended the open classroom in a public op-ed in J-Weekly in the name of academic freedom: “this is the time in a student’s education when exposure to the views of their academic instructors challenges their intellectual capacity and brings about greater intellectual rigor;” on Friday, September 18th, the Provost emailed the two faculty organizers to convey a chilling message: that the SFSU administration had been alerted of a “claim of potential criminal activity”, for the participation of Leila Khaled in the event “would violate 18 U.S.C. § 2339B,” clearly stated that “a violation of the statute might result in a fine or other more severe penalties, such as imprisonment” and included a warning “you may want to seek legal advice from a knowledgeable attorney, ” and

WHEREAS the day before the open-classroom event, which had more than 1,500 registered participants, and had involved the active engagement and preparation by students, Zoom announced that the class was cancelled and no alternative was offered to hold the class, and

WHEREAS Prof. Abdulhadi, Prof. Kinukawa and the students refused to give up, and they did everything they could to hold the event and ensure the “continuity of instruction” our administration declared to be non-negotiable in Covid-19 times, such as trying live streaming the open classroom via Facebook, which blocked it and deleted the open classroom announcement, and attempting to broadcast it live on YouTube before the web giant took it down twice, therefore

LET IT BE RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU executive board strongly condemns the actions of Zoom, Facebook and YouTube, as censorship, and as unacceptable violations of our free speech and academic freedom rights, and

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU executive board considers that when the academic freedom of some members is threatened, the academic freedom of the ENTIRE university community that is at stake, and

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU executive board considers that free speech constitutional rights and academic freedom rights have legal and practical precedence over any agreement with a private company and that, as such the university should not engage in any business or legal agreement that would restrict in any way the academic freedom and free speech rights of SFSU faculty and students, and

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU executive board is launching a campaign and petition to ask the SFSU administration to either amend or cancel its current agreement with the private company Zoom to preserve and enforce our academic freedom and free speech rights, and

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU executive board asks the SFSU administration to immediately find options to develop our own public platform to teach so we are no longer to rely on private companies, and

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the CFA-SFSU executive board demands the SFSU administration to defend in action the academic freedom of faculty who have been censored and targeted, including providing legal support to defend them from spurious and unfounded legal charges.

NYC PSC CUNY Academic Freedom at SFSU & Attack On AMED

https://psc-cuny.org/sites/default/files/Resolution%20on%20Academic%20Freedom.pdf

Submitted by the PSC International Committee

Whereas the responsibility of universities to safeguard academic freedom is foundational to higher education in the United States, widely recognized in governance plans, and established by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in its 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure;

Whereas the AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure cautioned in the 2007 statement Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers, “college and university administrators have displayed an increasing tendency to cancel or to withdraw funding for otherwise legitimate invitations to non-campus speakers. Committee A notes with concern that these reasons for canceling outside speakers are subject to serious abuse, and that their proper application should be limited to very narrow circumstances that only rarely obtain. Applied promiscuously, these reasons undermine the right of campus groups to hear outside speakers and thus contradict the basic educational mission of colleges and universities”;

Whereas on September 23, 2020, an open virtual class, “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice & Resistance: A Conversation with Leila Khaled,” co-sponsored by San Francisco State University’s (SFSU) Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program and Women and Gender Studies Department, was cancelled at the last minute by Zoom, blocked by Facebook from livestream, and removed twice by YouTube;

Whereas the shutdown of the SFSU open virtual class on September 23, 2020, featuring international Black, Jewish, Zaneiki and Palestinian public intellectuals and former prisoners Ronnie Kasrils, Laura Whitehorn, Sekou Odinga and Rula Abu Dahou, Rabab Abdulhadi and Tomomi Kinukawa, usurped the university’s responsibility and stated commitment to academic freedom, subverted the California State University, SFSU, and AAUP principles on academic freedom, and violated the California Faculty Association’s Collective Bargaining Agreement;

Whereas Zoom proceeded to shut down an October 23, 2020, webinar in solidarity with and focusing on the censorship of the SFSU open classroom by Big Tech companies, hosted by the NYU AAUP chapter, co-sponsored by several NYU departments and institutes, featuring Leila Khaled along with other advocates for Palestinian rights, such as Fred Moten, Katherine Franke, Radhika Sainath, and Andrew Ross;

Whereas in rescinding their platforms for the SFSU and NYU events, Big Tech companies succumbed to a pressure campaign organized by Campus Reform, Campus Watch, the Anti- Defamation League, StandWithUs, and the Lawfare Project, equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, alleging that these events violated the Big Tech platforms’ terms of service, and threatening liability under 18 US Code 2339B (Providing Material Support or Resources to Foreign Terrorist Organizations); and

Whereas, the privatization of higher education has intensified dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with respect to out-sourcing of educational platforms to Big Tech companies. Private corporations are accountable to shareholders, not to an academic community whose norms and values enshrine the freedom to pursue research, teaching, and extra-mural speech on controversial matters; therefore, be it

Resolved, that that the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) unequivocally affirms its support for academic freedom in the context of online education and the accelerated privatization of platforms for teaching and learning;

Resolved, that PSC-CUNY joins the California Faculty Association’s condemnation of the censorship by Big Tech companies of the SFSU virtual class1 and joins the NYU-AAUP chapter in stating that the "shutdown of a campus event is a clear violation of the principle of academic freedom that universities are obliged to observe. Allowing Zoom to override this bedrock principle, at the behest of organized, politically motivated groups, is a grave error for any university administration to make, and it should not escape censure from faculty and students"2;

Resolved, that PSC-CUNY joins the AAUP in calling on college and university administrators to take affirmative steps to safeguard academic freedom in its online learning platforms. These steps should include but not be limited to: public acknowledgment of the threat to academic freedom posed by the institution’s reliance on private, third-party vendors; and review and renegotiation of contracts with Big Tech companies “to better protect the rights of faculty and students to engage with controversial ideas”3; and

Resolved, that PSC-CUNY urge AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure to investigate administrative responses at SFSU and NYU to these instances of suppression of the academic freedom of proponents of Palestinian rights.

1 https://www.calfac.org/item/cfa-resolution-zoom-cancellation-sfsu-zoom-classroom
2 https://academeblog.org/2020/10/23/statement-from-the-nyu-aaup-on-zoom-censorship-today/ 3 https://academeblog.org/2020/10/29/aaup-urges-nyu-president-to-address-zoom-censorship/

San Francisco State University’s (SFSU) Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program and Women and Gender Studies Department