A communications academia group report alleging that “settler-colonial” Israel was attacking academic freedom with claims of antisemitism as part of a system of imperialist “whiteness” was criticized by American Jewish organizations on Monday.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) said in a joint statement that they were “deeply troubled” by the October 31 National Communication Association’s Task Force on Academic Freedom and Tenure final report, which asserted that false charges of antisemitism and terrorism support mobilization of donors and trustees – and that rules about “white” Western civility were used to attacking academics.
The report argued that the concept of academic freedom existed under a framework of “whiteness,” settler-colonialism, and US-centric Western chauvinism – and that academics and disciplines fell outside of these norms were supposedly ostracized and persecuted. Academic freedom and tenure were used to perpetuate “the extractive agendas of settler colonial knowledge production” and erase anti-colonial scholarship.
“The pathologization of critical conceptual terms such as ‘settler colonialism’ and ‘genocide’ lies at the heart of the mobilization of the targeted attacks on academic freedom,” read the report.
The concept of academic freedom was colonized by the “boundaries of whiteness,” according to the report, and an academic using their expertise to comment publicly about “the settler-colonial State of Israel and the genocidal violence being carried out in Gaza” was engaging in “decolonial tradition.” Those participating in the decolonization tradition were targeted, in the eyes of the task force, because the academic had “trespassed the narrow definitions of disciplinary expertise.”
“Both white supremacist and far Right Zionist attacks on the academic freedom of critical voices across campuses demonstrate the organizing power of settler colonialism,” the report said.
Accusations of antisemitism were supposedly a key strategy to deport international students and silence critiques of “Israel and its settler colonial practices.”
“The portrayal of international students participating in protests against the genocide being carried out by Israel as perpetuating antisemitic racism has formed a critical infrastructure of the targeting and deportation,” it said, also detailing elsewhere in the document that “Israeli settler colonialism mobilizes the trope of antisemitism to target and silence academics.”
Other pro-Palestinian students had supposedly been labeled as terrorism threats for engaging in activism, dismissing allegations about terrorism support as a “racist trope of terror.”
Minorities and non-Western demographic groups bore the burden of the trope because of the “racialized nature” of the allegations, and the report called for the development of strategies to challenge “tropes” about terrorism.
It was also suggested that the NCA develop a legal fund to support activist students facing deportation.
“Framing post-colonial and decolonial scholarship as terrorism has played a critical role in the far Right Zionist and white supremacist campaigns targeting critical academic voices speaking out in solidarity with Palestine,” the report read.
Another strategy that it detailed as used to target academics researching and teaching about “settler colonial violence” against Palestinians was the manipulation of authority figures. “The Zionist attack on academic freedom takes the form of powerful donors, trustees, and politicians exerting influence on universities to survey, target, and discipline academics,” read one passage.
Another source of denying academic freedoms for pro-Palestinian activists was related to the Western norms of conduct and civility. Rooted in “white culture,” civil professional conduct was framed as “racial gaslighting” and “rhetorical asphyxiation.”
“Critical academic voices questioning US settler colonialism, US imperialism, and Israeli settler colonialism are often targeted through the architectures of civility,” the report said. “Norms of politeness and civility are deployed to carry out campaigns seeking to fire tenured academics.”
The system of tenure in academia was criticized for being “colonial, racial capitalist, imperial, cis-normative, and patriarchal,” and limited by “narrow ideas of merit.”
“US imperialism” was deemed a threat to both tenure and academic freedom, due to its investments in the military industrial complex and support for “Zionist settler expansion.”
The US also supported the Israeli military operations against Hamas, which the report explained was an “Israeli genocidal campaign targeting Palestinian universities,” damaging academic infrastructure and killing academics.
The report recommended that the NCA engage in an advocacy campaign against international threats to academic freedom, including the exploration of partnerships to place pressure on Israeli institutions.
Jewish orgs. contend reports conspiracy theories
The ADL, AJC, and AEN said that the NCA task force had deviated from its mandate of analyzing challenges to academic freedom to advance a series of libels, contested rhetoric, and conspiracy theories to explain the current state of American universities.
“Despite extensive evidence of – and reports from – Jewish students, staff, and faculty facing harassment, exclusion from campus spaces, targeted intimidation at protests, classroom bias, property destruction, and physical threats, the report dismisses these documented harms as inventions or manipulations designed to suppress criticism of Israel,” the Jewish groups said.
“Instead of acknowledging that antisemitism is resurging, the report suggests that Jews (or “Zionists”) are weaponizing antisemitism claims to exert control. This narrative is not only false but dangerous, reinforcing harmful patterns of victim-blaming that excuse wrongdoing and shift responsibility away from perpetrators.”
The Jewish groups were alarmed about the report’s implications that Zionists were using “powerful donors” and other authorities to orchestrate attacks on academic freedom, asserting that the framing used antisemitic tropes about Jews secretly influencing institutions.
The call to pressure Israeli institutions was condemned by the Jewish groups as antithetical to the idea of academic freedom that the report had ostensibly been created to defend.
The NCA was called upon to reject the report and prevent stereotypes and conspiracies from being used in future scholarship and guidance materials.
“A legitimate defense of academic freedom, including the NCA’s, must steer clear of tropes that blame Jews for the issues currently impacting the field, which are indeed significant and require concerted and unbiased critical attention.”