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<h1 id="reader-title">Women's studies professor harassed by
Israel-backed group</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/charlotte-silver"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Charlotte Silver</a></span><span
class="field field-blog"></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-09-15T18:19:13+00:00">15 September
2016</span></span><br>
</p>
<p>A professor of women’s and gender studies at the State
University of New York at Plattsburgh is the target of a
new campaign that she says <a
href="http://mesana.org/committees/academic-freedom/intervention/letters-north-america.html">threatens</a>
academic freedom.</p>
<p>Simona Sharoni, who has written extensively on gender
and the situation in Israel and the occupied West Bank
and Gaza Strip, says the harassment campaign was
triggered after she gave an interview in the spring to
the <a
href="http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/04/13/why-feminists-should-care-about-the-palestine-israeli-conflict/"><em>The
Establishment</em></a>, a publication funded and run
by women with the aim of creating more diverse media.</p>
<p>In the interview, Sharoni expands on the subject of her
current research: the relevance of the international <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds">boycott,
divestment and sanctions movement (BDS)</a> to
transnational <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/feminism">feminism</a>,
both concentrations of her own activism.</p>
<p>She highlights parallels between Palestinian victims of
Israeli violence and victims of sexual assault.</p>
<p>“Power is made invisible,” she says. “Focus is placed
on the relationship, not on the system.”</p>
<p>Following the publication of the article in April, an
outpouring of tweets and emails were sent to her, some
threatening violence according to Sharoni.</p>
<p>Several months later, on 6 September, Sharoni says she
was informed by a school administrator that an
individual had made five requests under New York’s
Freedom of Information Law asking for records on her
hiring, employment history and participation in academic
conferences.</p>
<p>According to Sharoni, Sean Brian Dermody, assistant to
the vice president for administration and director of
management services at SUNY Plattsburgh, asked Sharoni
to help with the request by locating the records and
turning them over.</p>
<p>The next day, Sharoni says, Dermody sent a follow-up
email asking her to give him all correspondence in her
possession related to her hiring. Sharoni began working
at SUNY Plattsburgh in 2007. She became a professor in
2010.</p>
<p>In a subsequent communication, Sharoni says Dermody
told her that the first individual to have made requests
is Debra Glazer, who identified herself as a part of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/standwithus">Stand
With Us</a>, an Israel advocacy group that has
received funding from the Israeli government.</p>
<p>The group is behind a number of campaigns targeting
activists and scholars who work with the Palestine
solidarity community in the United States.</p>
<p>Sharoni says Dermody also told her that a second
person, Jonathan Slosser, made an additional five
information requests.</p>
<p>In the latest update, Sharoni says she was informed
that a request was made to disclose all of her travel
authorizations and records of what she did and who paid
for it.</p>
<h2>Intimidation</h2>
<p>On Monday, the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mesa">Middle
East Studies Association of North America (MESA)</a>
wrote a <a
href="http://mesana.org/committees/academic-freedom/intervention/letters-north-america.html">letter</a>
to SUNY Plattsburgh’s president, provost and dean in
support of Sharoni.</p>
<p>“It appears to us that these [Freedom of Information
Law] requests are part of the continuing campaign to
harass and intimidate Professor Sharoni because she has
expressed certain political views,” MESA president Beth
Baron and executive director Amy W. Newhall state.</p>
<p>Sharoni is a member of MESA, which has no formal
position on BDS.</p>
<p>“We also believe that SUNY Plattsburgh has a clear
responsibility to defend Professor Sharoni and all of
its other employees from threat and intimidation, in
keeping with the constitutionally protected right of
free speech and with the principles of academic
freedom,” the letter adds.</p>
<p>It also advises university officials to “exercise
extreme caution and responsible judgment in reviewing
and approving [Freedom of Information Law] requests for
records pertaining to Professor Sharoni, so as not to be
complicit in furthering the campaign of harassment being
waged against her.”</p>
<p>Ken Knelly, a spokesperson for the university, stressed
to The Electronic Intifada that the administration must
follow the law. “We are subject to the New York State
Freedom of Information Law,” which he says was created
to ensure that the government and its institutions are
responsive to the public. “The law is based on a
presumption of access.”</p>
<p>In response to concerns that the requests may be part
of a campaign of intimidation and harassment, as Sharoni
and MESA argue, Knelly said the school will review the
requests. “Based on the content of individual records
requested, we can restrict access if exemptions apply in
accordance with state law.”</p>
<p>“We need to follow the law,” he said.</p>
<p>Bob Freeman, executive director of New York’s Committee
on Open Government, told The Electronic Intifada that
according to precedent dating back to the beginning of
the Freedom of Information Law, public records are
accessible to anyone without regard to the nature of
their interest.</p>
<p>Freeman noted that a request can only be denied if it
meets the standard of an “unwarranted invasion of
privacy.” He remarked that if every government employee
could protest that a Freedom of Information request was
intended to intimidate them, then not many requests
would be granted.</p>
<p>But Sharoni and MESA are not alone in believing that
faculty members should be protected from what could be
chilling and frivolous open records requests.</p>
<p>In 2012, a joint task force on academic freedom at the
University of California, Los Angeles published a <a
href="https://www.apo.ucla.edu/policies-forms/academic-freedom">Statement
on the Principles of Scholarly Research and Public
Records Requests</a>, in response to what it calls a
“great concern that faculty at public universities
throughout the country are increasingly the objects of
requests through state and federal public records acts
for emails, notes, drafts and other documents.”</p>
<p>“These requests have increasingly been used for
political purposes or to intimidate faculty working on
controversial issues,” it states.</p>
<p>The task force concludes by arguing for a distinction
between academic public institutions and other
government bodies: “The academic enterprise is
intrinsically different from other enterprises conducted
for the benefit of the public. Its product, <em>knowledge</em>,
is intangible, yet it informs all of society in
countless tangible ways, including technology, medical
care, ecology and art. Academia can only make these
tremendous contributions to the quality of our lives if
it operates according to the standards that <em>have</em>
ensured its freedom from bias and its unwavering
devotion to truth, whatever that truth may be.”</p>
<p>Palestine Legal told The Electronic Intifada that the
information requests were part of a campaign against
Sharoni based on her support for Palestinian rights and
BDS, and “must be recognized as an intimidation tactic.”</p>
<p>“The school has a legal obligation to respond to
[Freedom of Information Law] requests,” the legal
advocacy group added, “but it also has an obligation to
prevent the ‘unwarranted invasion of personal privacy’
of its employees, including by disclosing their
employment histories.”</p>
<p>Palestine Legal said the university must “carefully
consider the request against Sharoni’s privacy rights,
especially given the clear intent of the [information
request] to damage her reputation and employment.”</p>
<h2>Alarming trend</h2>
<p>Following the publication of MESA’s letter, SUNY
Plattsburgh President John Ettling sent a campus-wide
email on 14 September affirming the school’s commitment
to principles of free speech and academic freedom.</p>
<p>Though Ettling did not refer to Sharoni or any specific
issue, he emphasized the need to protect these
principles in the case of unpopular positions.</p>
<p>“Consistent with regulations of the SUNY Board of
Trustees, the College seeks to encourage and preserve
freedom of expression and inquiry within the entire
college community,” Ettling said.</p>
<p>“Some of these expressions may contradict widely held
or popular values, theories and beliefs. We have a
special commitment to protect these expressions and
should not attempt to repress a particular view because
it is considered morally or personally offensive to
members of the college community or the general public.”</p>
<p>But Sharoni, who says she hopes that the administrators
stand by the president’s statement and do not release
the requested information, rejects the idea that her
speech has been controversial.</p>
<p>“There is nothing controversial or radical about
advocating justice for Palestinians or supporting BDS,”
she told The Electronic Intifada. Sharoni noted that her
hiring, promotion and tenure advanced smoothly at all
stages of the process.</p>
<p>“My administration’s utter silence on the matter until
today,” she added in reference to Ettling’s email,
“underscores an alarming trend in higher education of
appeasing external political entities by curtailing the
free speech and academic freedom of faculty and students
who according to administrators work on ‘controversial
issues.’”</p>
<p>Sharoni, who is an Israeli citizen and the daughter of
a Holocaust survivor, doesn’t believe the current
campaign is about her. “It is an attempt to undermine
and discredit scholarly work on Israel/Palestine that
includes calls to hold Israel accountable for its
systemic human rights violations and repression.”</p>
<p>But Sharoni has no intention to retreat from her work.
“I am going to deal with my sense of insecurity and
vulnerability by speaking up even louder on these
issues, by refusing to let administrators define support
for justice in Palestine as controversial and by letting
colleagues who don’t work on these issues know what are
the broad implications of the loss of academic freedom.”</p>
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