Varieties of Academic Boycott

Michael Dorf, in his follow-up post on the University of Illinois’s violation of academic freedom:

As Brian Leiter notes, there is a move afoot to boycott the University of Illinois in response to its un-hiring of Salaita. I dislike academic boycotts generally, and I think it especially odd to boycott an academic institution on free speech grounds. Better, it seems to me, to try to persuade (rather than coerce) the University to correct its error.

Since I signed the statement put forward by members of my discipline, I thought I should clarify exactly what this boycott entails. This is the statement in its entirety:

Dear Chancellor Wise: we the undersigned will not visit the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus until Professor Salaita is reinstated to the position offered him by the faculty and which he had accepted in good faith.

This can be fairly described as a boycott, but I don’t believe that it in any way conflicts with the principles of free speech and academic freedom at stake in this case. Nobody is under any obligation to accept a speaking invitation as an individual, and declining to appear on campus would often mean forgoing honoraria; the costs are not solely offloaded on the other party. This seems like a form of speech and persuasion to me.

Some form of academic boycotts do, I think, conflict with academic freedom. If the statement suggested that UI U-C scholars should be denied invitations to campus, or blacklisted from conferences, or have similar sanctions imposed, I would not have considered signing it. I can’t speak for the statements of other disciplines, but the political science statement is very narrowly drawn and I think it is clearly consistent with principles of academic freedom.