[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 106 (Thursday, July 17, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H7025]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        ANTI-SEMITIC SENTIMENTS ON RISE AMONG BRITISH ACADEMICS

  (Mr. MILLER of Florida asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to draw attention 
to the unsettling increase of anti-Semitic sentiments of many academics 
in the United Kingdom. Over the past year, a growing number of 
university professors in the U.K. have engaged in a boycott of scholars 
and research from Israel. Most recently, a professor at Oxford denied 
the admittance of an Israeli graduate student based solely on his 
Israeli citizenship.
  So what has fueled this rise in academic anti-Semitism? One only 
needs to look at the policies of the Association of University 
Teachers, one of Britain's largest associations for higher education 
professionals. The AUT Web site states, ``We also support the call by 
academics in the U.K. and elsewhere for a moratorium on European Union 
and European Science Foundation funding of Israeli cultural and 
research institutions until Israel abides by U.N. resolutions and opens 
meaningful peace negotiations with the Palestinians.''
  The ``academics'' in the U.K. have taken a giant step backward from 
the tradition of teaching individual rights and liberties and free 
thought. This boycott of Israeli academics and philosophy, ideas that 
originate in the Middle East's only true democracy, is a clear 
indication that the values that gave birth to our own American free-
thinking principles are no longer practiced by many of the U.K.'s 
educators.

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