Our network grows out of a series of shared commitments and beliefs:
Academic freedom, free speech, and the right to non-violent protest at colleges and universities are essential to the defense of human rights and resistance against political violence. We vigorously support freedom of inquiry and expression in the face of a rising repression that threatens pluralistic and inclusive scholarly discourse.
Our scholarship and activism must work to counter structures and practices of racism (including but not limited to antisemitism, anti-Blackness, anti-Palestinian racism, and anti-Muslim racism), ethnonationalism, misogyny, queer and trans exclusion, ableism, and red-baiting, among other forms of social exclusion and political authoritarianism.
It is necessary to refuse and contest the increasing instrumentalization of antisemitism accusations, including through the IHRA Working Definition, which wrongly equates critique of Israel’s policies with antisemitism. Such instrumentalization silences political dissent, enables deportations and firings, serves as a vehicle for advancing authoritarian and nationalist agendas, and exploits feelings of vulnerability. It also endangers Jews, cynically divides the Jewish community, and drives a wedge between Jews and other minority and civil society groups.
We believe historical analogy and collective memory are powerful resources for understanding and mobilizing opposition to persecution, war, forced population transfer, and genocide against anyone, yet we remain vigilant about the ways they can be deployed to justify violence and reproduce forms of ethnonationalism and racial supremacy.
We recognize the Nakba as a mass atrocity crime that demands both scholarly attention and justice. Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies should engage with Palestinian scholarship and perspectives on the Nakba, as well as broader global conversations around violence, displacement, and their legacies. As scholars and teachers, we unconditionally oppose the destruction of educational institutions, archives, cultural heritage, and memory; and we believe all who live between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea—Palestinians, Israelis, and others—deserve justice and equality.