Statement by Steven B. Sample, President, University of Southern California, on the proposed British boycott of Israeli universities

July 3, 2007

A small minority of faculty in Great Britain is urging a boycott of Israeli universities. They are thereby betraying and undermining the foundational values of academia upon which their vocation rests: freedom of inquiry, freedom to take unpopular positions, and freedom to express those positions publicly. As an academic and the leader of an academic institution, I affirm the imperative to encourage and enlarge academic freedom, not diminish and restrict it. We owe no less to those we serve and to those who will follow in our steps. Such a boycott would be both counterproductive and inimical to academic values.