Proposed New AAA By-Law against Academic Boycotts: 

“AAA is an academic and professional association and a community of scholars who support open inquiry, free speech, and the unrestricted exchange of ideas on a global scale.  In furtherance of our commitment to academic freedom, the American Anthropological Association opposes and does not participate in academic boycotts." 

Rationale for the New AAA By-Law: 

The American Anthropological Association should uphold the sanctity of the principle of academic freedom that enables and protects the ability of scholars to write, teach, and pursue research. This right must be protected by recognizing that academic boycotts pose a threat not only to institutions, but to the students, scholars, and staff who work there and who are the lifeblood of universities. Where governments or institutions engage in unethical practices, including limiting academic freedom of their own students and faculty, those policies and truths should be exposed and critiqued, especially by scholars with regional expertise. Nonetheless, the AAA should not formally endorse a broad academic boycott of these institutions, whose human capital would be directly affected. Instead, in accord with the principles of academic freedom and open inquiry, the AAA should support open lines of communication, the free exchange of ideas, and a diversity of viewpoints among scholars globally. 

As the AAUP has stated, “The form that noncooperation with an academic institution takes inevitably involves a refusal to engage in academic discourse with teachers and researchers, not all of whom are complicit in the policies that are being protested. Moreover, an academic boycott can compound a regime’s suppression of freedoms by cutting off contacts with an institution’s or a country’s academics. In addition, the academic boycott is usually at least once removed from the real target. Rarely are individuals or even individual institutions the issue. What is being sought is a change in state policy. The issue, then, is whether those faculty or ideas that could contribute to changing state policy are harmed when communication with outside academic institutions is cut off and how to weigh that harm against the possible political gains the pressure of an academic boycott might secure.” 

The AAUP argued that the continued exchange of faculty, students, and ideas is more conducive to academic freedom in the long run than is an academic boycott. This freedom is what we share and treasure as academics, beyond specific ideologies or political views we might espouse as individuals. In accord with this rationale, a new By-law stating that the AAA does not endorse academic boycotts is warranted and necessary. 

We invite you to vote in favor of this new addition to the AAA By-laws. 

Please include your name below if you are a current member of the AAA and you support this proposed new By-Law.