Gary Goodyear request for a second review of the grant-in-aid

Professor Mamdouh Shoukri, President

S949 Ross Building

York University

4700 Keele Street

Toronto, ON  M3J 1P3 Canada

 

Dear Professor Shoukri,

 
On behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), I am writing to you to express our strong support for resisting calls to cancel the international academic conference entitled “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” to be held at York University next week. CAF applauds your defence of the principles of academic freedom and university autonomy in the context of a general campaign of intimidation and interference by pro-Israel groups and federal politicians against your and other institutions of higher education in Canada.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 3000 members worldwide, including 133 members at universities across Canada. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere. 

The conference program contains an extraordinary slate of Israeli and Palestinian, North American and European scholars, many of whom are leaders in their fields of study and others of whom are promising younger scholars. In spite of the organizers’ unequivocal commitment to ensuring that “neither anti-Semitism, nor any other form of racism, has any place in this forum” and that it “will inform both the conference and all aspects of its planning process,” pro-Israel groups have alleged that the conference statement of purpose is smoke-screen for anti-Semitism and hate. CAF commends you for refusing to be intimidated by such baseless fear-mongering and for upholding the integrity of academia.

Sincerely,

Virginia H. Aksan

MESA President

Professor, McMaster University


Gary Goodyear, Minister of State, Science and Technology

117 Confederation Bldg

House of Commons

Ottawa, On, K1A 0A6

Canada

 

Dear Minister Goodyear,

On behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF)of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), I am writing to express our dismay at your public interference in a major international academic conference to be held at York University on June 22-24, 2009 by requesting a second review process of the grant-in-aid it secured from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). It is unprecedented for a minister, especially one from a department that funds granting councils, to question the integrity of SSHRC in general and its acclaimed independent peer review system, its grant policies and procedures in particular. This intervention constitutes a gross violation of academic freedom and of the autonomy of scholarly inquiry from political expediency.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 3000 members worldwide, including 133 members at universities across Canada. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere. 

The conference “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” fields an extraordinary slate of Israeli and Palestinian, North American and European scholars, many of whom are leaders in their fields of study and others of whom are promising younger scholars. The conference is based on a public commitment to “respecting the rights to self-determination of both Israelis/Jews and Palestinians.” The organizers’ statement of purpose further assures SSHRC and the general public on the conference website that they are committed to ensuring that “neither anti-Semitism, nor any other form of racism, has any place in this forum.” This commitment, they insist, “will inform both the conference and all aspects of its planning process.” Finally, the organizers explicitly state that the conference’s goal is to seek “to systematically measure models based on two states or a single binational state, federal and con-federal approaches, and other models in between and beyond.” To insinuate that there are anti-Semitic motivations behind these goals is entirely groundless and constitutes fear-mongering of the most reprehensible kind. 

You announced in a June 5 statement that “some of the speakers have, in the past, made comments that have been seen to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic” and raise “concerns that the event is no longer an academic research-focused event.” You base your concerns on nameless “individuals and organizations.” But your announcement appears to have been prompted by pressure from Meir Weinberg, the national director of the Jewish Defense League in Canada and other pro-Israeli lobby groups.

Your vigilance against the spread of anti-Semitism is laudable. But at the risk of stating the obvious, criticism of Israel should not be conflated with anti-Semitism. You may not be aware that this conflation is part and parcel of the tactics of intimidation practiced by a few well-organized groups which are motivated not by finding equitable and peaceful solutions to the Israel/Palestine conflict but by a desire to insulate Israeli policies from all criticism. For many of these groups, advocating Palestinian statehood is ipso facto anti-Semitic. You have thus elevated the rumours and slander of the Jewish Defence League, an organization which represents a small fringe element among the Israeli and wider Jewish public, to the level of Canadian government policy. 

Your allegation that “since funding was provided, the organizers of the conference have added a number of speakers to their agenda” is patently illogical and suggests that you are not familiar with the logistics of getting an international academic conference off the ground and funded. SSHRC, like many other bodies that fund international conferences, typically issues a “call for papers” as a condition for eligibility. While some senior international speakers are confirmed before the application deadline, thereby helping to convince the grant-giving institution of the academic merit of, and scholarly interest in, the proposed event, the actual vetting of the submitted papers occurs after the conference organizers are sure of the financial viability of the project. Given this, it would have been more appropriate for you to communicate any concerns you may have had with SSHRC directly, before raising them in public 

In a June 15 statement, the SSHRC has reiterated its confidence in the proposed York conference and its commitment to independent peer review.  We have written to Professor Chad Gaffield commending SSHRC for its swift response to the baseless allegations, and to York President Mamdouh Shoukri to commend him for his strong support of academic freedom.

We urge you to publically retract your request for a second peer review of the application concerning the York University conference in order to restore the confidence of the scholarly community in your commitment to Canadian academic freedom.

Sincerely,

Virginia H. Aksan

MESA President

Professor, McMaster University

 


Chad Gaffield, President

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1610

Ottawa, ON   K1P 6G4, Canada

 

Dear President Gaffield,

On behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), I am writing to express our grave concerns about a recent public exchange which took place between you and the Minister for Science and Technology, the Honourable Gary Goodyear, regarding an upcoming SSHRC-funded academic conference entitled “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace”, scheduled to take place at York University 22-24 June 2009.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 3000 members worldwide, including 133 members at universities across Canada. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere. 

CAF wishes to publicly acknowledge your defence of SSHRC’s “commitment to independent peer review and its grant policies and procedures” in response to Mr. Goodyear’s demand that SSHRC review its funding of this event. However, we remain deeply troubled by the minister’s unprecedented level of interference in SSHRC’s decision-making processes. We were dismayed by your suggestion in a June 11 statement on SSHRC’s website that, in light of the minister’s concerns, SSHRC might re-examine its support for the conference in order to ensure that the organizer has not violated any “post-award procedures.”  

We strongly believe that this particular conference deserves the same unequivocal support SSHRC extends to all its grant recipients and that critical scholarship on controversial issues of our times such as the Israel/Palestine conflict can only proceed with the support of non-partisan, scholarly institutions such as SSHRC. We are therefore satisfied by your statement dated June 15 that “SSHRC has accepted [York University’s] assurance that planning for the conference is proceeding in a manner consistent with provisions of the Grant Holder’s Guide for the program.”

In his statement dated 5 June 2009, Mr. Goodyear demanded that SSHRC reconsider its funding for the “Israel/Palestine” conference, and strongly recommended that SSHRC subject this proposal to an unprecedented “second review process” in order “to determine whether or not the conference still meets SSHRC’s criteria for funding of an academic conference”. According to Mr. Goodyear, such a request was justified because, since funding was granted, several speakers were added to the programme whose names were not included in the initial proposal. Mr. Goodyear argued that “several individuals and organizations have expressed…concerns that some of the speakers have, in the past, made comments that have been seen to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic”. He also noted that some people worried “that the event is no longer an academic research-focused event.” 

In your 11 June response, you correctly refused to subject the conference to a “second review process” on the grounds that the conference had already been “peer reviewed by an independent multidisciplinary committee of scholars, using established criteria”. This was a necessary and laudable response because it protects the professional vetting standards that SSHRC stands for internationally from a general politicization.

Nevertheless, in that same statement, you said that, “in this particular case” in light of “public discussion”, SSHRC would investigate “whether or not there had been significant changes to the conference since the application was submitted in November 2008”. Such a review of “post-award procedures” was deemed necessary in this case in order to ensure that SSHRC’s “policies and procedures” had been duly followed.

Both the decision and the language in which it is framed are of deep concern to us. We see no evidence of “public discussion” of this matter and the minister has withheld the names of the alleged sources on which he bases his demands. This, therefore, seems an instance, not of legitimate public discussion, but of political interference at the highest level. The government seems to have attempted to force the hand of an independent academic institution. The minister’s concerns are political, not scholarly, and SSHRC does not have a mandate to make political judgments or to respond to those kinds of concerns. Institutions like SSHRC are required to protect researchers from political expediency and the pressures of partisanship. Allowing unnamed “individuals and organizations” to influence SSHRC’s review processes is a potential violation of SSHRC’s mandate.

We therefore commend you for issuing the June 15 statement in which you defend SSHRC’s “unwavering in its commitment to independent peer review and its grant policies and procedures” and clear the conference organizers of Minister Goodyear’s malicious charges and insinuations. You took an important stance on academic freedom in Canada.

We have written to Minister Goodyear to urge him to retract his request for a second peer review of the conference in order to restore the confidence of the scholarly community in his commitment to Canadian academic freedom, and to York President Mamdouh Shoukri to commend him for his strong commitment to academic freedom.

Virginia H. Aksan

MESA President

Professor, McMaster University

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