Middle East Studies Association // Exposing Canary Mission: A Resource for College and University Leaders

19.4.18

Middle East Studies Association: Canary Mission is a secretive but clearly non-academic political organization that uses its website to engage in defamatory attacks against college students who advocate for Palestinian rights, against student and other organizations engaged with this issue, and against faculty who teach, or speak publicly, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Canary Mission’s tactics threaten students’ right to pursue an education without harassment as well as the employment prospects of those whom the website targets by name, including undergraduate and graduate students but also untenured and contract faculty.

Its campaign of vilification should alarm educators who value academic freedom and free speech rights in their classrooms and on their campuses, along with deans and other university leaders whose job it is to ensure the safety and well-being of their students and to help them secure decent jobs after graduation. The Middle East Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom, which strives to combat threats to and violations of academic freedom in North America as well as in the Middle East and North Africa, believes that educating U.S. college and university leaders, faculty and students about Canary Mission’s goals, methods and impact is an urgent priority.