<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://mlaboycott.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/against-canary-mission-statement-condemning-the-blacklisting-of-pro-bds-student-activists/">https://mlaboycott.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/against-canary-mission-statement-condemning-the-blacklisting-of-pro-bds-student-activists/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Against Canary Mission: Statement
Condemning the Blacklisting of pro-BDS Student Activists</h1>
</div>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page"
xml:base="https://mlaboycott.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/against-canary-mission-statement-condemning-the-blacklisting-of-pro-bds-student-activists/">
<div class="entry-content">
<p>October 5, 2016<br>
</p>
<p>A milestone in the global BDS and Palestine solidarity
movement was achieved in the last week of September 2016
when more than 1,000 University faculty across the world
signed a published petition condemning the Islamophobic,
racist and sexist website Canary Mission: <a
href="http://againstcanarymission.org">http://againstcanarymission.org</a></p>
<p>As r<a
href="https://mlaboycott.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/defend-campus-free-speech-oppose-canary-missions-blacklisting-of-students-and-scholars/">eported
previously</a> on the MLAboycott website in August,
Canary Mission is an anonymous on-line website dedicated
to smearing, blacklisting and harassing Palestine
solidarity activists.</p>
<p>As of this writing, more than 500 University students,
and more than 50 Professors, including many who are
members of the Modern Language Association, have been
“profiled” by Canary Mission. The site explicitly
states its intention of discouraging employers from
hiring student activists once they graduate. Canary
Mission tactics include “tweeting” messages to employers
where advocates for Palestinian civil rights, or BDS,
may work accusing students of anti-semitism or
Islamophobia.</p>
<p>The letter and petition condemning Canary Mission
published this week was undertaken by a grassroots
coalition of students, professors, and BDS activists.
The statement was specifically intended to discourage
Universities from using Canary Mission as a source for
evaluating applicants for graduate study. The petition
stated:</p>
<p>As faculty who serve, have served, or are likely to
serve on an admissions committee at graduate and
undergraduate university programs across the country, we
unequivocally assert that the Canary Mission website
should not be trusted as a resource to evaluate
students’ qualifications for admission. We condemn
Canary Mission as an effort to intimidate and blacklist
students and faculty who stand for justice for
Palestinians.</p>
<p>Signatories to the petition included members of the
Modern Language Association Paul Lauter, Trinity
College; David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University; David
Lloyd, University of California Riverside; Rosaura
Sanchez, University of California-San Diego; Alex Lubin,
University of New Mexico; Barbara Foley, Rutgers
University; Colin Dayan, Vanderbilt University and
Gayatri Spivak, Columbia University. Other prominent
signatories including Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished
Professor of History & Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in
United States History; Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus
of Law, Princeton; and Marc Lamont-Hill, Distinguished
Professor of African-American Studies, Morehouse
College.</p>
<p>Canary Mission emerged in February, 2015 primarily to
try to combat the widespread effectiveness of the
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement against Israel
on college and University campuses. Since 2013, the
Association of Asian American Studies, American Studies
Association, National Women’s Studies Association,
National Association of Chicano/a Studies, Critical
Ethnic Studies Association and several other academic
organizations have all passed resolutions to boycott
Israeli Universities.</p>
<p>Canary Mission’s targeting of students is a direct
response to the emergence of more than 200 Students for
Justice in Palestine chapters, which have often led the
fight for passage of dozens of student government
resolutions in support of boycott or divestment from
Israel. The tactics used against students have been
particularly vicious. For example, more than 30 times
Canary has “tweeted” messages to employers, including
Harvard and Bank of America. Canary Mission has also
tweeted at the FBI.</p>
<p>Canary Mission has profiled more than 500 students; a
disproportionate number of them are Muslims or
Palestinians. A survey of students profiled on Canary
Mission website revealed that Palestinian students in
particular worried that material on Canary Mission could
make it harder for them to return to Palestine. As
reported by <a
href="https://socialistworker.org/2016/09/28/bds-wont-be-silenced-by-their-blacklist">Sofia
Arias and Sumaya Awad in Socialist Worker</a>, one
former student and Palestine solidarity activist
described her reaction to seeing her Canary Mission
profile this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>As a non-citizen and a recent graduate, I knew my
future was threatened by this ominous and libelous
website labeling me a “terrorist threat.” Work I am
proud of was maliciously presented, distorted and
maligned. Taking a stand against oppression,
violations of international law, inhuman conditions
and an end to apartheid was labeled as a sign of
sympathy with terrorists.</em></p>
<p><em>The setup of the site also allows contributors to
help sustain the efforts to suppress Palestinian
activists while being guaranteed protection by the
anonymity of the site.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another another student quoted in the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/1000-scholars-condemn-pro-israel-blacklist-site"><em>Electronic
Intifada</em></a> similarly noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Canary Mission was created to make students like
me feel atomized and threatened, to push us away
from activism, to make it difficult for students to
mobilize.</em></p>
<p><em>Though I was timid about speaking up, faced with
the threat of giving the site more ammunition to use
against me, I realized that Canary Mission will
continue to grow as more and more people support the
boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for
Palestinian freedom.</em></p>
<p><em>Only through activism and continuous, collective
struggle against this site and other blacklists,
whether they target Muslims or BlackLivesMatter
activists, can these tactics of intimidation and
harassment be stopped.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>University of Hawaii Professor and MLA member <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/1000-scholars-condemn-pro-israel-blacklist-site">Cindy
Franklin, who helped to author the petition, told the<em>
Electronic Intifada</em></a> the statement against
Canary Mission is “a reassurance to students that
faculty have their back on this.”</p>
<p>“I really think it is incumbent on faculty to stand
strongly in support of students and to do that in a very
visible way, especially those of us with tenure,”
Franklin said.</p>
<p>The AgainstCanaryMission petition follows <a
href="https://academeblog.org/2016/08/01/another-blacklist-emerges/">the
condemnation of the on-line website by Hank Reichmann</a>,
Professor of History at California State University East
Bay, and chair of the Association of American University
Professors Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, who
called Canary Mission a “blacklist, pure and simple. It
echoes the long-discredited and horrific blacklists of
the McCarthy era”</p>
<p>More importantly, the petition represents a blow to
efforts by pro-Israel supporters to resort to ad
hominem, personal, slanderous, and anonymous attacks
against supporters of Palestinian civil rights and BDS.
The mass support for the petition represents another
tipping point in the defense of academic freedom, free
speech, and the constitutionally protected right to
boycott Israeli universities.</p>
<p>Supporters of the MLA resolution to boycott are
encouraged to sign the petition if they have not do so
already and circulate it widely.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>