I support the statement of Interim Chancellor William P. Kelly concerning the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israel’s higher-education institutions. The College of Staten Island has a proud history of international collaboration, including those with Israeli scholars and institutions. For example, our faculty have obtained grants from the United States Israel Binational Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and from the Fulbright Program of the Institute of International Education to support collaborations with Israeli scholars. This essential dialog will continue. Academic freedom, more essential than ever in times of conflict, embraces, at its core, serious conversation involving open and civil discussion and productive dialogue. I share the Chancellor’s repudiation of an academic boycott as contrary to this vision.
