George Leef has an interesting column in Forbes about a controversy involving the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement and the American Studies Association. The latter, which describes itself as a scholarly association that views U.S. culture from multiple perspectives, supports the former, which is a movement opposed to Israel and its policy toward Palestinians. This has led to a lawsuit by some of the members of the American Studies Association, filed with legal support from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights.
Brandeis Center president Kenneth Marcus says of the suit, “It’s about any association officer or director who is thinking about using their association as a tool to advance their own ideological agenda. This should send a signal that if association activists are not concerned that BDS resolutions are anti-Semitic and may be a violation of academic freedom, they should be concerned that they may violate corporations law.”