'TAU restricts freedom of speech'

Zoe Fox
JPost
12 May '10

A Tel Aviv University board member is set to resign Wednesday following university President Joseph Klaffter’s refusal to bring a proposal he drafted to a vote. Mark Tanenbaum had proposed a resolution to the board of governors, requesting that the university senate investigate the political activity of professors who use the school’s name.

Tanenbaum’s proposal comes as a response to outspoken TAU professors advocating an academic boycott of Israel and the university. The proposal cites faculty bylaws “Breach of Discipline” restriction on faculty listing their affiliation with TAU on any document or statement of a political nature when participating in any domestic or international forums of political nature.

Tanenbaum described Klaffter yelling into the microphone that he would not tolerate any infringement on academic freedom within the university immediately after the proposal was read. Klaffter’s decision not to bring the proposal to a vote came at the end of a heated debate between the board members concerned about the university restricting freedom of speech.

“While he was blathering on about the right to free speech, he ironically denied me, a member of the board of governors, a former student, whose late father was one of the founding members of Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University the right to free speech, and that is absolutely unacceptable,” Tanenbaum told The Jerusalem Post.

Tanenbaum on Wednesday will announce his resignation from all of his posts at TAU and his decision to join Bar-Ilan University. Until Tuesday, Tanenbaum had been a member of the TAU Board of Governors, the board of directors for the American Friends of Tel Aviv University, and the board of international Overseers of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

He is involved in a number of other philanthropic Israel-oriented organizations, both in Israel and in Miami. He describes himself as an “ardent Zionist who’s not embarrassed to use the word Zionist.”

(Read full story)

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