BY HANK REICHMAN
The following joint statement was issued March 9 in English, Ukrainian, and Russian:
As international professional associations that foster the study of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian peoples and cultures, ASEEES, BASEES, and AATSEEL* are committed to promoting international communication among scholars of all countries and identities across the humanities and social sciences. Open exchange and mutual respect among our members are fundamental to our principles.
We have all expressed our unequivocal condemnation of Russia’s war on Ukraine. We oppose Putin’s assault on Ukrainian sovereignty. We are horrified by the Russian military’s unconscionable assaults on civilians and the escalating refugee crisis unfolding before our eyes. Since we have choices about our actions that people living in fear under attack do not have, we join those who call for cutting our formal ties with institutions and with academics who are actively supporting the Russian war effort.
We want to do everything we can to show our support for Ukrainian scholars and students. At the same time, we are concerned about calls for blanket bans on the participation of individual Russians and Belarusians in scholarly events and scholarly exchange.
We strongly oppose the vilification and exclusion of our Russian and Belarusian students and colleagues. Banning Russians and Belarusians based solely on their citizenship goes against our fundamental principles of scholarship, open communication, and dialogue. Such sanctions have the potential to harm those living in authoritarian regimes who are opposed to the war. We encourage all members of our community who stand against the war in Ukraine to come together and support our students and colleagues.
*Board of Directors, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
*Committee, British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES)
*Presidents and Executive Director, American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL)
This is an important and powerful statement, especially its final paragraph. That said, however, I cannot help but acknowledge my confusion about the implications of this sentence: “Since we have choices about our actions that people living in fear under attack do not have, we join those who call for cutting our formal ties with institutions and with academics who are actively supporting the Russian war effort.”
Is this a call for an academic boycott of Russian institutions? And, if so, what constitutes “active support” for the Russian war effort? And which “formal ties” might be cut? This remains unclear. Moreover, precisely because those “living in fear” in both Ukraine and Russia may not have the choices we have, how can we ensure that “cutting ties” (boycotting?) institutions will not have undesirable impacts on innocent individuals associated with such an institution? What, for instance, about Russian scholars at universities that as agencies of the state have been compelled to publicly support Putin’s aggression, but who as individuals oppose — maybe even bravely resist — that aggression but whose ties with international scholarship are necessarily mediated through their institutional affiliations? What if they use institutional travel funds? What if they communicate with foreign colleagues via the university’s zoom account? What if they use university funds to research and publish in a foreign journal, perhaps on a topic distant from Ukrainian-Russian relations? At best, the sentence is imprecise.
This, of course, raises the troubling question of whether an academic boycott (as opposed to an economic boycott) of Russian higher education is appropriate. This issue was addressed in a thoughtful piece in the Times Higher Education, republished in the US on Inside Higher Ed. The article calls attention to “mounting examples of blanket freezes on academic ties by countries and the ending of specific research partnerships by institutions,” in response to calls by “academics within and outside [Ukraine]—as well as many other scholars horrified at the terror inflicted by Russian forces.” Such calls, the article continues, “are also raising fundamental questions about international research collaboration, academic freedom and the flow of knowledge that always come alongside the prospect of scientific sanctions, although perhaps never against the backdrop of a war of this scale and type.”
The author then goes on to quote at length from Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk. That organization has issued a strong statement of “Solidarity with the people of Ukraine and Ukrainian higher education,” but has not called for breaking ties with Russian institutions. Quinn acknowledged that SAR does “not have a formal policy on the breaking of academic ties for political reasons, it was ‘fair to say it is among the most extreme actions that can be taken and, therefore, should only be [done] with the utmost of care and really narrowest of circumstances.’”
Quinn highlighted two core “valid” reasons where such action could be warranted, with the “clearest” one being where it seeks to cut off “complicity” with the violations taking place and the other where, for a limited period, halting ties aids the education of colleagues, in this case in Russia, about what is really happening.
But boycotts or sanctions can also sometimes be initiated for what he believes are two “invalid” reasons: to “punish people who are not involved in the violations or aggression” or to deliberately cause “collateral damage” to research or institutions in the country involved.
The challenges come, Quinn explained, when these valid and invalid reasons overlap in ways that it might be hard to discern, and in particular when there is a gray area around what he calls the “super-elastic application of the concept of complicity.”
Sometimes, he said, those in favor of a boycott might try to “justify it by saying any contact with anyone, in any institution” in a particular place or country “is by definition complicity.”
“I think that, from my perspective, is such an elastic application of complicity that it risks swallowing up all academic freedom, and I think we just have to be very, very careful about that,” he said.
The AAUP has, of course, made similar arguments in its criticism of the academic boycott of Israel. “Colleges and universities should be what they purport to be: institutions committed to the search for truth and its free expression,” the Association concludes.
Members of the academic community should feel no obligation to support or contribute to institutions that are not free or that sail under false colors, that is, claim to be free but in fact suppress freedom. Such institutions should not be boycotted. Rather, they should be exposed for what they are, and, wherever possible, the continued exchange of ideas should be actively encouraged. The need is always for more academic freedom, not less.
This position has, of course, been controversial and not all AAUP members agree. Moreover, the Association has often had to spend more energy defending the rights of boycott advocates than it has in opposing the academic boycott of Israel itself, which, in my opinion, has more often than not been more symbolic than real. But this is full-scale war. Is the situation therefore different? On one level, it must be, for it is hard to imagine that US or European scholars will even have much opportunity to continue or initiate projects with Russian colleagues, irrespective of those colleagues’ personal views. In fact, international collaboration with Russian scholars was relatively limited (and declining) even before the conflict began. Still, as Maia Chankseliani, associate professor of comparative and international education at the University of Oxford, told the THE reporter, individual scholars and researchers “drive collaborations,” while “academics are also gatekeepers of academic journals and conferences. Hence, individual academics’ collective decisions can have wide-ranging impact.”
“Ruptures are less likely to impact long-standing ties,” she added while those who study in Russia-specific fields, especially in the social sciences or the humanities, “will have to continue forging links … otherwise they will lose touch with the reality on the ground and/or access to data sources they require.”
All that said, the joint statement by the three organizations is a welcome addition to the litany of resolutions by scholars who study the region condemning the Russian invasion, many of which I posted previously on this blog. As the statement emphasizes, no matter how strong and fully justified our anger and outrage at the brutal actions of the Russian state and army, we must reject “calls for blanket bans on the participation of individual Russians and Belarusians in scholarly events and scholarly exchange.”
Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and president of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019. His Understanding Academic Freedom has recently been published.
