State of New York

Senator Jeffrey D. Klein

1250 Waters Place, Suite 1202 Bronx, New York 10461 (718) 822-2049 Fax (718) 822-2321 Jdklein@NYSENATE.GOV Legislative Office Building 913 Albany, New York 12247 (518) 455-3959 Fax (518) 426-6887 http://klein.nysenate.gov/

Assemblyman Dov Hikind

1310 48th St. Brooklyn, NY 11219 (718) 853-9616 Fax: (718) 436-5734 Legislative Office Building 551 Albany, NY 12248 (518) 455-5721 Fax: (518) 455-5948 http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/Dov-Hikind/

Legislature

December 27, 2013

Nancy Zimpher SUNY System Administration, Chancellor State University Plaza Albany, New York, 12246 Chancellor Zimpher, We are writing to you regarding an alarming situation that has developed in the past few days. As you may or may not be aware, the American Studies Association (ASA) has just adopted an academic boycott of Israel. This anti-Israel academic boycott amounts to discrimination on the basis of national origin as Israeli academics will be subjected to verification procedures not applicable to academics from any other nation. This anti-Israel academic boycott has far reaching implications for SUNY as many of the SUNY campuses engage in exchange programs with Israel as well as having distinguished Isreali professors come to lecture at their campuses. In fact back in 1976, SUNY was one of the first institutions to formalize the ways and methods for an exchange of faculty and students between Israel and SUNY campuses. This agreement signed at the Haifa University was regarded as a great development in education as it established a distinguished Israeli visiting scholars program to honor outstanding representatives of Israeli institutions of higher learning and to enable the SUNY campuses to benefit from visits of distinguished teachers and researchers. Given SUNYs strong history and cooperation with the Israeli academic community, it is with great urgency that we write to you to ensure that no SUNY campus or professor engages in this boycott which could be classified as nothing more than sanctioned discrimination. While we are aware of SUNY having one its past presidents be a past ASA president, and currently having some of its campuses contributing their good name and dues to ASA, we felt it was imperative we make you aware of this situation, We feel it is also imperative to point out that no other nation with human rights and academic freedom records far worse than what ASA has accused Israel of, is subject to this boycott by ASA. We ask that SUNY formally denounce participation with ASA through membership and indirect funding of ASA through covering the costs of attending annual meetings. To be a participant in this egregious breach of academic freedom and national origin discrimination would surely be a disservice to the great work SUNY engages in on behalf of the State of New York.

Respectfully,

Jeffrey D. Klein New York State Senator President Pro Tempore 34th Senate District

Dov Hikind New York State Assemblyman 48th Assembly District