In September, Dr. Cheney-Lippold became the object of a vicious attack by supporters of the Zionist regime for his refusal to write a letter of recommendation for a student seeking to study abroad in Tel Aviv, citing the academic boycott of Israel. These critics condemned the professor as being anti-Semitic. While neither the Board of Regents nor university administration have sanctioned Dr. Cheney-Lippold as of yet, the university has shown that it firmly stands on the side of its Zionist supporters. Board of Regents member Denise Ilitch, the daughter of Detroit real estate tycoon and robber baron, echoed the Zionist criticisms, saying that “This type of profoundly exclusionary conduct by a University of Michigan professor flies completely against our mission. Let’s call this what it really is: anti-Semitic" (http://record.umich.edu/…/schlissel-speaks-out-professors-r…). This is a common silencing-tactic employed by ruling class institutions across the country to denigrate critics of Israel. This smokescreen de-legitimizes criticism of Israel by equating the state of Israel with Jewish identity. Under this scheme, speech and actions in support of Palestinian self-determination become hate speech.
Additionally, a student at the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design created a Facebook post that attacked the university for “forcing” her to sit through a lecture given by the inimitable revolutionary artist and former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas, in which Douglas presented and discussed much of his tremendous corpus. One of the pieces included was a collage that compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler for their shared roles in perpetuating genocide. This post quickly gained traction and has spiraled into another Zionist media attack following shortly on the campaign against Dr. Cheney-Lippold. The attack on Mr. Douglas has a dual-pronged nature and seeks to silence him additionally because he represents a legacy of revolutionary African-American solidarity with anti-colonial struggles.
It is the duty of supporters of freedom, peace, and self-determination for Palestine to support the boycott of Israeli institutions, and it is a most important responsibility to defend tactics of academic boycott as part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign initiated by Palestinian activists. Academic institutions have a gruesome history of supporting imperialism and colonialism across the globe. Their roles range from performing military research and investing in companies that profit from imperialism, to acting as recruiting grounds for the intelligence and military apparatuses and providing critical intellectual support to ruling class think-tanks. Indeed, a full accounting of the universities’ role as a critical infrastructure of imperialism is beyond the scope of this statement. At UM in particular, the university has longed resisted any attempts by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) and other Palestinian solidarity groups to even begin an audit of the university endowment's investments in companies that profit from the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, let alone actually completely divest.
We unconditionally affirm the right of Professor Cheney-Lippold and Mr. Douglas to speak out in solidarity with Palestine and to righteously portray Israel's history as an illegitimate, genocidal, settler-colonial entity. We reject the attempts by the University of Michigan and its Zionist community to silence these two principled men. It is not only the right, but the imperative, for all who oppose Israeli genocide to uphold boycott as a means of exposing Israel’s crimes.
You may find the solidarity statement in support of Dr. Cheney-Lippold issued by SAFE at the University of Michigan here (https://www.michigandaily.com/…/solidarity-professor-cheney…).
Detroit, October 2018
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