University of Baltimore Law ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 2006 Scholarly and Scientific Boycotts of Israel: Abusing the Academic Enterprise Kenneth Lasson University of Baltimore School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, First Amendment Commons, and the International Humanitarian Law Commons Recommended Citation Scholarly and Scientific Boycotts of sI rael: Abusing the Academic Enterprise, 21 Touro L. Rev. 989 (2006) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. SCHOLARLY AND SCIENTIFIC BOYCOTTS OF ISRAEL: ABUSING THE ACADEMIC ENTERPRISE Kenneth Lasson • Veritas vos liberabit, chanted the scholastics of yesteryear. The truth will set you free, echo their latter-day counterparts in the academy. Universities like themselves to be perceived as places of culture in a chaotic world, protectors of reasoned discourse, peaceful havens for learned professors roaming orderly quadrangles and pondering higher thoughts-a community of scholars seeking knowledge in sylvan tranquility. The real world of higher education, of course, is not quite so wonderful. Instead of a feast for unfettered intellectual curiosity, much of the modem academy is dominated by curricular deconstructionists who disdain western civilization, people who call themselves multi culturalists but, in fact, are radical social reformers pushing their own narrow and sometimes extremist political agendas.