2 min read
What are we to make of recent events at the School of Oriental & African Studies, where a ballot of students and staff appears to have resulted in a 73 per cent majority in favour of "a full academic boycott of Israel?" The ballot was organised by the SOAS students' union, with the support of two campus trade-union branches known for their anti-Zionism, the University & College Union and Unison.
Those entitled to vote included all SOAS students and employees, both academic and non-academic, including contract workers. The ballot paper asked whether those voting felt that SOAS should "join the BDS call for an academic boycott of Israeli universities". In all, 2,056 votes were cast: 1,504 votes supported the proposition; 552 did not.
These figures need to be put in context. SOAS has well over 5,000 students, with another 3,600 or so taking SOAS-accredited distance-learning programmes worldwide. So the 1,283 student votes cast in favour of a boycott amount to only 15 per cent of the current SOAS student enrolment. According to its latest accounts, SOAS has over 800 staff, of whom more than 400 are academics. So the 182 staff members (excluding contract workers) who supported the boycott account for only 22 per cent of all SOAS employees. Thus the boycott proposal attracted the support of a mere 25 per cent of those entitled to vote, and of only 15 per cent if we include distance learners.
We then have to ask what the result of the ballot actually means. And the answer is that, in practical terms, it means nothing. To begin with, the ballot was not authorised, sponsored or supported by those charged with the governance of the institution, meaning the governing body and the director, Professor Paul Webley. SOAS, which will celebrate its centenary next year, has always had a close relationship with the British government. At present, one member of its governing body is appointed by the foreign secretary. I find it difficult to believe that a governing body so constituted would endorse a boycott of any particular Israeli university - let alone every Israeli university - because both David Cameron and Ed Miliband have rejected any such stratagem.
But there are other factors at work here. Currently, there is an almighty stand-off between Cameron's government and university vice-chancellors following the passage into law, last month, of the Counter-Terrorism & Security Act. Under the provisions of the Education Act of 1996, universities are already obligated to "ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured for members, students and employees" of universities "and for visiting speakers". So if a SOAS academic (or student society, such as its Jewish Society) invited a speaker from an Israeli university, Professor Webley would need to ensure such an event went ahead irrespective of any boycott motion.
The boycott was agreed with only 25 per cent in agreement
Inciting violence or condoning acts of terrorism are already criminal offences. The Counter-Terrorism Act seeks to place a further duty upon universities, namely to "prevent people from being drawn into terrorism".
Now, the government wants to agree with the vice-chancellors a list of speakers whom they would be obliged to ban from university premises. And if agreement cannot be reached, such a list would still be drawn up and imposed.
The criterion for inclusion would be holding and purveying views which, even if non-violent, are deemed to be "extremist". Such a list is certain to include Islamist preachers (even if they have never incited violence) and it could well include apologists for Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Against this background, the possibility that SOAS would arouse further controversy by formally endorsing a boycott of Israeli universities is exceedingly remote.
The spectacle of Jewish students at SOAS complaining to its director that, because of the vote, they feel too afraid to attend lectures cannot have pleased him, and is probably not what the sponsors of the vote wanted. What they wanted was certainly publicity, but not of the sort that has revealed them as the bigots they are.
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