KU News Release

KU leaders urge opposition to proposal to ban academic exchanges with Israel

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Richard Lariviere today joined with hundreds of other American and Canadian colleges and universities to condemn an effort in Britain to block academic exchanges with Israeli scholars.

“We are all students of the world. The academic exchange between scholars of different nations is an essential means by which we learn from each other and about each other. Any attempt to burden or ban any of these scholarly exchanges in order to make a political point will have a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas and severely hinder research in many fields, notably scientific discoveries and advancements in technology. Academic freedom among all institutions of higher education must be carefully nurtured, no matter the nation or existing political environment,” Hemenway and Lariviere said in a joint statement.

Britain’s University and College Union, which represents about 120,000 employees in higher education, recently called for imposing a boycott on cooperation with Israeli academics and institutions to condemn the “complicity of Israeli academia in the occupation” of the West Bank, Gaza and other disputed territories around Israel. The union aims to prevent Israeli and British university or college staff from working on joint projects or assisting each other in their work, which could affect student exchanges, grants, publication of research papers and participation in conferences. The union was created in 2006 out of a merger of the Association of University Teachers and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, both of which had previously adopted resolutions to boycott Israeli academics and universities.

More than 11,000 academics have signed a petition initiated by the U.S.-based Scholars for Peace in the Middle East calling on the union to reverse their decision to consider a ban.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.