Dukes Persistent Stonewalling and the next PSM campus intrusion at Georgetown

Submitted by Robert Gutman (United States), Jan 1, 2006 at 11:24

After allowing PSM/ISM to meet and recruit on Duke Campus in October 2004, Duke welcomed ISM again in November 2005. There ISM again recruited Duke Students to join ISM's dangerous (recall Rachael Corrie) and often illegal anti-Israeli activities in Israel.

Seven times, specific questions have been put to the Duke Administration on the question of University policy in allowing ISM recruitment, and seven times there has been no response or only stonewalling of the issue. Instead of addressing the question, Duke has often replied with soliloquies about "academic freedom" and "freedom of speech." The local press of Duke's home town hosted two guest columns on this subject to which Duke was utterly unresponsive. Three letters to Duke, including to the Trustees, have privately asked the same question and were again either ignored or answered without reference to the issue.

These instances followed Duke's original reply to the Commentary Magazine account of the 2004 meeting in which Duke ignored the statement that they had allowed recruitment to occur. It appears that Georgetown University has accepted the ISM/PSM meeting for February 2006, and that decision appears to have been made only weeks after Georgetown accepted a major donation from Prince Talal of Saudi Arabia. When PSM is welcomed onto their campus, Georgetown will have their own opportunity to prohibit ISM recruitment of their students to dangerous and often illegal activities.

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