MLA and BDS 2: Letter from former members of the MLA Executive Council to Current Executive Council on Blocking the Debate

Lake Michigan from MLA Hotel on January 6, 2019

Background headnote is here. 

December 17, 2024

 Dear Members of the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association,

We write to you as former Council members deeply concerned by your recent decision not to allow a resolution in support of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions to go forward to the Delegate Assembly. The Executive Council’s statement on the resolution, along with an FAQ, is now posted on the MLA website, and the rationale  summed up by the Executive Director in two recent articles.

 We respectfully disagree with the reasoning we find in those statements, and urge you to reconsider your decision.

The argument against allowing MLA members to consider the resolution in a practical manner is that there are many anti-BDS laws; some of these laws restrict state contracts (although no specific examples are given); two-thirds of the MLA’s operating budget comes from “sales of products to universities and libraries”; therefore, this resolution cannot even be discussed and brought to a vote.

 We understand from our own experience on the Council that as fiduciaries you are charged with protecting the organization and to do so conscientiously.  However, we feel that, especially at this time in history, the MLA must more carefully weigh hypothetical threats to its finances against the real danger of losing its credibility as a defender of the humanities.

 Your decision to not allow members to even debate and vote is, we believe, a breach of trust, a word that is, of course, the basis of the very term, “fiduciary.”  The MLA proudly declares:

 This is an especially important time for the MLA to define its values. The values on which the MLA bases its decision-making are

 Equity: The MLA supports and encourages impartiality, fairness, and justice throughout the humanities ecosystem.

 Inclusion: The MLA recognizes that all members should feel a sense of belonging within the association—that they are accepted, supported, and valued in word and in actions and that the association’s resources are accessible to them.

 Advocacy: The MLA champions intellectual freedom; fair working conditions; and the value of scholarship in, pedagogy of, and public engagement with the humanities.

 Sadly, your decision suggests that the “humanities ecosystem” and advocacy for “intellectual freedom; fair working conditions; and the value of scholarship in, pedagogy of, and public engagement with the humanities” excludes not only the basic human rights of Palestinians, but also its own members’ right to collectively act as advocates for a people whom the international humanitarian community has determined to be living (and dying) under an oppressive apartheid system and genocidal attack, as documented by the International Court of Justice, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem.

 The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights has expressed its alarm at Israel’s campaign of scholasticide against our colleagues in Palestine. Their findings are worth quoting at length:

‘With more than 80% of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as “scholasticide”,’ the experts said.

The term refers to the systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention or killing of teachers, students and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure.

 After six months of military assault, more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza, and over 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured – with numbers growing each day. At least 60 per cent of educational facilities, including 13 public libraries, have been damaged or destroyed and at least 625,000 students have no access to education. Another 195 heritage sites, 227 mosques and three churches have also been damaged or destroyed, including the Central Archives of Gaza, containing 150 years of history. Israa University, the last remaining university in Gaza was demolished by the Israeli military on 17 January 2024. Without safe schools, women and girls face additional risks, including gender-based violence. More than 1 million Palestinian children in Gaza are now in need of mental health and psychosocial support and will suffer the trauma of this war throughout their lives.

‘The persistent, callous attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza have a devastating long-term impact on the fundamental rights of people to learn and freely express themselves, depriving yet another generation of Palestinians of their future,’ the experts said. ‘Students with international scholarships are being prevented from attending university abroad,’ they added.

 To quote from an email sent to MLA leadership by a graduate student colleague in protest of the decision: “What does safeguarding our surplus resources matter, when our peers in Gaza do not even have the resources to stay alive and study in safety?”  And how can the MLA’s professed values be given any credence at all, given its silencing of its own members?

 We are not asking the Council to take a position on Palestine. We are asking you to let us, as members of the MLA community, debate on whether we wish, as a collective, to take a position. To disallow us from doing so not only erodes our trust in the MLA with regard to Palestine, but with regard to any other possibly controversial matters.  Will you stand strong as the Trump administration attacks things like Critical Race Theory, for example, or queer theory, trans literature? Surely the new administration will punish scholars in these areas and impose penalties on those who defend them. Can members trust you to stay strong?

 We understand that this was not an easy decision, but we urge you to make the right one.

 Signed,

Samer M. Ali, Associate Professor, Department of Middle East Studies and the Residential College, University of Michigan. MLA Executive Council member Jan. 2012–Jan. 2016, Jan. 2020–Jan. 2024

Esther Allen, MLA Executive Council member, 2021 - Dec 2024  

Michael Bérubé, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature, Pennsylvania State University. 2002–05, 2010–Jan. 2012 (VP), Jan. 2012–Jan. 2013 (P)

Rebecca Colesworthy, MLA Executive Council member, 2021 - Dec 2024

Margaret Ferguson, Distinguished Professor of English Emerita, University of California at Davis. MLA Executive Council member 1997–2000, Jan. 2012–Jan. 2014 (VP), Jan. 2014–Jan. 2015 (P)

Jean E. Howard, George Delacorte Professor Emerita in the Humanities, Columbia University. MLA Executive Council member Jan. 2018–Jan. 2022

Lisa Karakaya, Department of Modern and Classical Languages

Hunter College High School, CUNY.  MLA Executive Council member Jan. 2020–Jan. 2024

Mary Layoun, Professor of Comparative Literature Emerita, University of Wisconsin, Madison. MLA Executive Council member 2005–08

Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Marta S. Weeks Chair in Latin American Studies, University of Miami. MLA Executive Council member 2004–07

David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Stanford University. MLA Executive Council member Jan. 2015–Dec. 2017

Mary Louise Pratt, Silver Professor and Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures Emerita, New York University. MLA Executive Council member 1985–88, 2001–02 (VP), 2003 (P)

Rosaura Sánchez, Professor of Latin American Literature and Chicano Literature, University of California, San Diego. MLA Executive Council member 2003–04 

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, Professor of Latin American Studies, Washington U in St. Louis. MLA Executive Council member Jan. 2020–Jan. 2024