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vSFU
UNIVERSITY SECRETARIAT
S.07-1O1
TUNER
Simon Fraser University
8888 Universit
y
Drive
Burnaby BC V5A 1S6
Canada
tel ?
604.291.3495
fax
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604.291.4860
ATTENTION Senate
FROM
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Alison Watt, Director, University Secretariat and
Secretary. Senate Committee on Agenda and Rules
RE ?
Boycott Motion tabled at Senate meeting of 9 July, 2007
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4 Se p tember. 2007
• At the Senate meeting on 9 July, 2007, Senate voted to table a motion concerning the
boycott of Israeli universities. This item will return to the floor at the September 1 7th
meeting of Senate at which time Senator Btack has indicated he will move a motion to
withdraw the motion. His request is attached for your information.
The motion that Senate will consider will be:
Motion
That the motion concerning the proposed boycott by the University and
College Union of the UK be withdrawn.
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
THINKING OF THE WORLD
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Procedural Request from Senator Sam Black - August 28, 2007
I would prefer to withdraw the motion that was tabled (re. The Proposed UCU
Boycott) at last Senate meeting, subject to approval from the appropriate Senate
rules committee.
Rationale:
At the risk of oversimplification two issues appeared to be responsible for the defeat
of the amended motion:
1)
The motion's alleged overbreadth.
2)
The desire for a detailed discussion of the conduct of the Israeli state.
Regarding (1) overbreadth: the defeated motion was narrower than the tabled
motion since the former mentioned academic freedom within the text of the motion
(rather than merely in its accompanying grounds) while the tabled motion does not.
In fact, I do not believe that I can draft an amended motion that is more narrowly
tailored than the amended motion that was already defeated. Moreover, the
discussion at Senate provided few clues regarding what kind of amendments (if
any) would satisfy the members of Senate.
Regarding (2) I am unwilling to lead a discussion of the politics of the Israeli state.
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First, I believe that discussion to be irrelevant to the academic freedom issue at
hand.
Second, a discussion of that kind might also precipitate an amended motion that,
rejects the proposed UCU boycott on the ground that the Israeli state's policies are
not sufficiently egregious to trigger a justified boycott of its Universities. That
particular statement of principle is, however, unwanted. For it entails that states,
whose policies are sufficiently egregious, ought to have their schools and academics
boycotted. That principle would in turn imply (in my view) that SFU ought to
extinguish its various cooperative ventures with Chinese universities - at the risk of
appearing to apply a double standard to Israel. The policy of ending our present
cooperation with Chinese universities would (in my view again) be badly misguided.
A more pragmatic reason for permitting this motion to be withdrawn is that the
original motion has been overtaken.by
events. By now, at least 22 Canadian and
300 US universities have already condemned the proposed UCU boycott, as has
President Stevenson. If Senate does nothing that is not news. If Senate rejects the
motion now that potentially is news, and news of a kind that presents the
University in what is arguably an unflattering light. My preference is to withdraw
the motion.
Sam Black
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University
Associate Editor, Canadian Journal of Philosophy
