Anti-Defamation League asks MSU to reconsider Tutu
In a letter sent last week, the Anti-Defamation League asked Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon to reconsider the invitation extended to Archbishop Desmond Tutu to give the university’s commencement address next month.
The Jewish advocacy organization said the South African cleric, whose opposition to Apartheid earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, had made statements about Israel that “conveyed outright bigotry against the Jewish homeland and the Jewish people.”
It said he supports a cultural and academic boycott of Israel “based on ideas that are anti-Semitic and should be anathema to any institution of higher learning truly committed to academic freedom.”
Simon responded earlier this week. She said no.
While noting that university leaders had publicly opposed such a boycott, she wrote in a letter dated Monday, “Michigan State University rejects the notion that free intellectual exchange and scholarly activities should be casualties of political disagreement.”
4 years ago