• Lawsuit claims censorship as Arizona State University caught up in Israel boycott controversy
    3 replies, posted
[url]http://azdailysun.com/news/local/lawsuit-claims-censorship-as-asu-caught-up-in-israel-boycott/article_23ba07bb-549c-5aeb-87ee-001c1d6d205a.html[/url] [quote]PHOENIX -- Claiming censorship, attorneys are claiming that Arizona State University is illegally blocking a Muslim academician from speaking on campus because of his political beliefs. The lawsuit filed in federal court here says the university won't allow Hatem Bazian to speak on campus about the "boycott, divest, sanction'' movement aimed at pressuring Israel to change its policies, particularly in regard to Jewish settlements on the West Bank. That's because Bazian won't sign an agreement certifying that he will not engage on a boycott of Israel. That agreement language comes directly from a 2016 state law that bars state and local governments -- and publicly funded universities -- from doing business with any firm that won't do business with Israel. ASU, for its part, is calling the whole issue a "misunderstanding.''[/quote]
What I'd like to know is what their grounds are for blocking him. If they think he'll engage in hate speech, it's understandable. If he's given no indication of such and merely wants to criticize Israel's more apartheid policies in a public setting, shame on them. Because the article makes it sound like it was an agreement to stonewall anyone who called for a boycott of Israel for any reason, no matter how justified.
[QUOTE=archangel125;53193607]What I'd like to know is what their grounds are for blocking him. If they think he'll engage in hate speech, it's understandable. If he's given no indication of such and merely wants to criticize Israel's more apartheid policies in a public setting, shame on them. Because the article makes it sound like it was an agreement to stonewall anyone who called for a boycott of Israel for any reason, no matter how justified.[/QUOTE] [quote]That agreement language comes directly from a 2016 state law that bars state and local governments -- and publicly funded universities -- from doing business with any firm that won't do business with Israel.[/quote] I think it's unfair for ASU to be a target in this case. They are (apparently) abiding by a completely ludicrous state law, something that is out of their control. What I'm really curious is why the fuck this law exists in the first pla-- Oh, Republicans sucking Israel's dick for some inexplicable reason. A timeless American tradition. Carry on then!
Supposedly they gave him the wrong contract, as he's not representing a business and so that law shouldn't actually apply to him, but it seems they still didn't let him speak, so I'm not sure what the deal is, exactly.
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