Letter to CSUN President Asking Her to Remove “Boycott Israel” Webpage in Light of Her Statement Condemning the Boycott of Israel
January 9, 2014
Dear President Harrison,
AMCHA Initiative commends you on your statement denouncing the academic boycott of Israeli institutions as undermining academic freedom — “the very heart of the academic enterprise,” and your affirmation of Chancellor White’s assertion that “academic boycotts violate the basic tenets of higher education, including academic freedom.”
In light of your very clear statement and that of Chancellor White, that academic boycotts undermine academic freedom and are antithetical to the academic mission of the university, we urge you to reexamine Prof. David Klein’s CSUN-hosted webpage promoting the academic, cultural, and economic boycott of Israel:
http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/boycott.html
As you are aware, according to California Government Code 8314, state university employees are prohibited from using state university resources for personal purposes, which the law defines as anything which is not “state business”. Given Prof. Klein’s promotion of an academic boycott of Israel that “violate[s] the basic tenets of higher education, including academic freedom,” we believe Klein is clearly using the CSUN webserver for “personal” purposes, in violation of state law.
Prof. Klein should be immediately instructed to move his personal webpage to his personal web server, instead of misusing state resources to promote a boycott that undermines “the very heart of the academic enterprise.”
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin
Co-founder, AMCHA Initiative
Leila Beckwith
Co-founder, AMCHA Initiative
CC: CSU Board of Trustees
CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White
CSU Interim General Counsel Andrew Jones
Attorney General Kamala Harris
Deputy Attorney General Stepan Haytayun
Senior Assistant Attorney General Douglas Wood
California Speaker of the Assembly John A. Perez
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson
California State Senator Alex Padilla (Northridge)
California Senator Carol Liu, Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Education
California Assembly Member Joan Buchanan, Chair of the Assembly Education Committee
U.S. Congressman District 30 Brad Sherman
California Jewish community leaders