Academic Boycott: A Qualified Defense

Recent decades have seen the open letter and the call to boycott installed as regular fixtures of academic life. Each passing quarter (or so) brings some new call to refrain from associating with persons who are at least nominally our colleagues for some moral reason or other.

Perhaps most recently, medical researchers called for a boycott of the Journal of the American Medical Association (hereafter, JAMA) for its handling of a podcast episode discussing systemic injustice in medicine. After the podcast aired, the journal tweeted, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?” It seems that the rhetorical question was a ham-fisted attempt to raise the possibility that there might be racism in healthcare, even if no racist doctors existed. Structural racism does not, after all, require any individual racists.

Nevertheless, the journal’s Twitter followers read the journal’s question as a flat-footed denial of racism in medicine. Compounding problems, the podcast’s host (Edward Livingston) suggested in the episode that perhaps talk of racism in these contexts was ill-advised—alienating people rather than motivating them to fix very real problems. In turn, his guest defended the idea that the language of racism was appropriate. Outraged, a number of researchers called for their colleagues to refuse to submit to or review for the journal until the editorship changed hands. Howard Bauchner (the journal’s editor in chief) was placed on leave, pending an investigation.

The recent proliferation of calls to action of this sort is itself a call to reflection. How should we, as academics, receive them? When, if at all, ought we to join in the collective effort to boycott?

Some scholars (e.g. Martha Nussbaum and Stanley Fish) have a way of suggesting academic boycotts are beyond the pale, particularly when academics are not just the boycotting agents, but also those targeted by the boycott. But this is too strong. We might admit (with Fish) that many actual academic boycotts amount to “third grade stuff” and deny that academic boycott is always misguided, all things considered. Everything turns on the details. Or so I will argue.  

Clearing Ground

It helps to begin with a definition. (Speaking of third grade stuff, when was the last time you organized a discussion around a dictionary’s definition? For me, it’s been too long.) Here’s what Merriam-Webster says:

Boycott: to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (a person, a store, an organization, etc.) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions.

Existing philosophical analysis (see here here here and here) hasn’t strayed too far from this account and I see no reason that it should have.

Understood along these lines, boycott crucially involves means and ends. Regarding ends, boycotting is for something—according to Webster, one boycotts in order to express disapproval or force change. To this short list, we might add that boycotts are helpful for drawing attention to a cause, signaling something about oneself (perhaps one’s values or one’s place in a community), refusing to be complicit in injustice, punishing wrongdoers, and other things in the neighborhood. Regarding means, boycott essentially involves refusing to have dealings with the boycotted entity to realize these ends.

Because the notion of boycott has this structure, it is reasonably easy to get purchase on what kinds of questions are relevant to determining the moral status of any particular boycott.

First, we can ask about the boycott’s goal, its end-game: does it aim at something worth aiming at?  

Second, we can ask about the relationship between its agents’ goal(s) and the means they’ve selected to achieve it (them): is boycott a good (the best?) way of getting where we want to go? Or is there reason to worry that it will be ineffective or worse? Generally, our actions must meet minimal constraints of practical rationality in order to come recommended. Self-defeating action—especially that which intentionally sets back others’ interests—rightly strikes us as irrational.

Finally, we can ask about the means in isolation—is there some reason that having dealings with the boycotted entity is required in ways the boycott rules out? Are third parties affected by the boycott such that we should attempt to achieve our goals by other means? Is there something about the agent’s position or social role that implies that they ought not participate in boycott generally, or in this specific boycott in particular?

Grappling with these questions is crucial for understanding the normative status of any particular boycott and I will be supposing that they are the right questions for approaching the special case of academic boycotts too. In the remainder of this post, I’ll attempt general, abstract answers to the three questions identified above regarding this special case.  In the course of doing so, I will assume that an academic boycott is simply a boycott in which people who occupy academic posts are the boycotters, the boycotted or both.

One upshot is that there is no a priori answer to the question “is academic boycott permissible?” This seems to me clearly right.  After all, there is nothing inherently special about academics such that they should be refused the right to boycott while ordinary citizens are granted such right. By the same token, academics are not constitutively free of the kinds of flaws that might occasion others (including other academics) to wish to boycott them. Let’s begin.

Impermissible Ends?

As I mentioned above, sometimes boycotts pursue bad ends. Academic boycotts that pursue bad ends are wrong to the degree that the end they pursue is bad. (Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s no low-hanging fruit in philosophy.)

If I pressure my academic senate to boycott another academic (or group thereof) strictly because the results of her rigorous research are repugnant with my political ideology and I wish to see it stigmatized (independent of the merits), it is not a tough call whether I am acting permissibly. I am not, even if I have the right to act as I do and even if no one could stop me.

No argument is necessary to the conclusion that academic boycotts can aim at good ends. Whereas the badness of a boycott’s end is sufficient to recommend it, the goodness of the same is only the first step toward evaluating it overall. (We must ask of it the other two questions.)

More complicated are cases in which the end of the boycott is a good one, but the end of the boycotter is a mean one, like self-promotion (e.g. the boycotter loudly calls for a boycott not because she cares but because she wants to earn status for herself).

In these cases, we may want to say that the boycotter’s end (in distinction with the end of the boycott) matters for evaluating whether she should participate. But we may also want to say that, if the boycott is all-things-considered justified, people should join in, even if their aims are impure.

What is sure is that the tendency to seek status through facially moral behavior is hardly a unique feature of university employees. If status-seeking isn’t a knock-down objection against boycott in general, why think it rules out academic boycotts?

One might worry, I suppose, that academics are unusually prone to indulging these self-promotional (or protective) purposes. If so, and if an individual boycotter’s motivational set determines her standing to participate in boycotts, then more individual academics will lack such standing.

But this stops short of showing that all academics always lack standing to boycott.  Surely sometimes, when academics engage in boycott, their interest in the cause is genuine. For instance, it is a worthy end to stop human rights violations. Academics have engaged in boycotts to promote this end (boycott of the Apartheid government in South Africa is a clear example. Boycott of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is arguably another.) So though perhaps academics should reflect for longer on the reasons for their activism, there is no sense in which their (presumed) proneness to status-seeking bars them in-principle from being justified in boycotting.  

Just as clearly, there is nothing blocking the possibility that one can pursue worthy ends by targeting academics with boycott. For instance, one might wish to stand with survivors of exploitation and sexual abuse by boycotting academics with histories of predatory behavior.

(One might say that academic work ought to be evaluated on its merits, rather than on the moral qualities of its producer. But this is a question of whether boycotting academic work is appropriate, not a question of whether such boycotts can have worthy ends.)

Poor Means-Ends Rationality?

Suppose that a given academic boycott has a worthy end. It might nevertheless be impermissible to call for or participate in it. For generally speaking, as they seek to deprive persons of the benefits of association, boycotts that command our support must meet certain standards of efficacy. What standards?

It would be too strong to say that boycotts need to be likely to achieve massive change in order to pass the bar of permissibility. After all, sometimes boycotters boycott to avoid complicity in wrongdoing. This might be achieved without achieving any great change. More plausible is the suggestion that permissible boycotts must be sufficiently likely to achieve their ends as to make them worth a try. Is there any unique reason for thinking that academic boycotts will usually fail in this?

There is some reason for thinking the reverse is true. Academics might not always have the kind of influence that they’d like to have. (In a way that puzzles me, some of my colleagues think they should have the ears of powerful agents everywhere.) Still, as a general matter, academics enjoy a louder megaphone than most citizens. In view of this, they can be in a unique position to agitate for change, especially when the change they target is close to home (as the boycott of JAMA shows).

In sum, boycotts that originate in the academy might be more likely than ordinary grassroots efforts to achieve their ends (but note that this is not obvious). And perhaps their high level of reflectiveness and desire for standing in their communities makes academics likelier to atone in response to boycott than are non-academic targets.

Still, if the worries about counter-productiveness and unintended consequences that apply to all boycotts are mitigated in the case of academic boycott (a big if!) then they are merely mitigated, not eliminated.

Suppose that one means to take a stand for climate justice by encouraging one’s university to divest from fossil fuel investments. Suppose the boycott successfully induces the university to move its investments now to something yet more harmful to the environment. Something like this happened with plastic straw boycotts: they induced purveyors of coffee to use strawless lids for their ice beverages. The new lids used more plastic than the lid-straw combo that they replaced. From one angle, the boycott was effective: it forced change. From another (better) angle, the boycott was a massive failure: what the activists really cared about was securing more environmentally friendly policy. The boycott did the reverse.

Without sufficient care, academic boycotts might end up being counterproductive relative to the broader goals of the boycotters precisely insofar as they are likely to be effective in achieving their narrower, more immediate goals.  These worries amplify when one expands the ends from those in some way implicated in the boycott to those that boycotting agents are committed to more generally.

For all this, there is no reason for thinking these reasonable concerns apply uniquely to academic boycotts. Ordinary, non-academic boycotts regularly result in sympathizers crowdfunding the boycotted, for example. If anything, academics should possess the training and technical knowledge necessary to anticipate these kinds of unintended consequences and the foresight to avoid them. It is fair to say that many existing proposals to boycott have not exhibited such virtues. It stretches credibility to say that it is in principle impossible that future academic boycotts might.

What about boycotts that target academics? As we noted above, boycotting other academics can backfire insofar as it can weaken the (typically progressive) voices of those targeted and thereby inhibit beneficial change. Moreover, as Rodin and Yudkin point out, if the boycotter of the academic group is itself a group of academics, boycotts can also impede cooperation that might otherwise be instrumental in more productively addressing shared problems. Finally, in the case of boycotts targeting the work of an academic or group thereof which is perceived to be problematic, the publicity of the call to boycott can draw attention to precisely the work that one finds objectionable by means of the Streisand effect.

These considerations make clear the burden that needs to be met in order to justify targeting academics with boycotts. Still, to articulate an activity’s burden of justification is not to deny that it can be met. And it is difficult to rule out that some boycott targeting academics might really be effective (at low cost).

When the aim of a boycott is to get some specific academic to apologize for some wrongdoing, for example, these worries about ineffectiveness seldom apply. Of course, such boycotts might have various other undesirable features. For example, they may risk (i) eliciting an apology that is not genuine or comes about for the wrong reasons; (ii) inviting stigma that does not dissipate after a genuine apology is issued; and (iii) imposing costs in severe excess of what’s justified by the original wrong. Again, however, if boycotts generally can overcome these kinds of worries, then academic boycotts might, too.

Inappropriate Means?

And yet the fact that a boycott is a potentially effective means for achieving a worthy goal stops short of showing that it’s justifiable to deploy it. It would be morally suspect to gain information to win a just war by means of gratuitous torture, even if the chances of success were high. Perhaps academic boycotts are just in-principle objectionable as means for the effective attainment of desirable ends.

As above, there are two questions: First, are there special reasons for thinking that boycotts are not appropriate tools for academics to use? And second: are there special reasons for thinking that academics ought not to be on the receiving end of boycotts? Let’s take these in turn.

We might notice that boycotts sponsored by academics are often organized by means of academic senates, unions, or other kinds of professional associations. When the decision to boycott happens by means of majoritarian decisions by these kinds of organizations, there are almost always dissident minorities who do not wish to go along with the boycott. When they’re on the losing end of the vote, however, go along they must. If indeed academics are more likely than others to organize their boycotts collectively in this way, they will more frequently force people to associate with causes they loathe. But notice two things.

First, the problem has less inherently to do with the academy and more to do with group agency generally. When non-academic boycott comes about through group agency, identical concerns apply.

Second, as McGill’s Daniel Weinstock notes, these sorts of worries can be mitigated by ensuring that the following two conditions are met: (i), the association’s decision to boycott comes about by a supermajoritarian procedure and (ii) boycotting activity and activism more generally are written into the bylaws of the relevant association. The latter condition ensures that those joining the organization understand that membership might involve disfavored political activity. The former gives members assurance that when such activity enjoys the support of meagre majorities, it will not move forward.

A second concern arises regarding about the kinds of social pressure that advocates can bring to bear on the call to support some boycott. And while academics are hardly unique in deploying social pressure to gain adherents to their preferred measures, one might worry that social pressure is out of place in the academy. After all, social pressure can compromise academic freedom by making it costly to articulate contrary views. Since we have reason to want to keep the costs of dissent low in places of research, we might be wary of passionate calls to boycott.

And yet respecting academic freedom cannot demand making everyone feel perfectly comfortable expressing their views. (Some will never feel this way!) We rightly expect that academics will cultivate the courage to pursue the truth in the face of strenuous objections. What respecting academic freedom demands instead is respecting our colleagues’ right to speak, write and publish without fear of formal punishment by their academic institutions. Thus a commitment to academic freedom entails a prohibition on boycotting other academics for their research with the aim of eliciting formal, institutional sanction (except in cases of specifically academic misconduct). But it cannot mean that academics must always refrain from pressuring their colleagues to engage some cause or other.

Again: morally sensitive people deploy such pressure sparingly and academics have a special duty to keep to norms that facilitate productive disagreement. One powerful objection to the JAMA boycott is that it aims at securing professional sanctions for tolerating dissent on certain highly contentious issues. But these considerations impose (at best) constraints on how one calls to action and which actions can be called for, not on whether one may issue such calls at all.

A distinct worry is that, when academics engage in activism, they may do so in abdication of their most important professional responsibilities. First, their taking strong, public stands on matters of international controversy can alienate students. Alienating students can in turn help to undermine the educational mission of universities. Moreover, as Bas van der Vossen points out, engaging in controversial activism can bias research and compromise the research mission of universities.

But even those who articulate a duty against descending from the ivory do not hold that the duty is absolute. Rather, it can—under the right circumstances—be defeated. Why wouldn’t the same be true when the activism takes the form of boycott? We are left again wanting a strong argument for thinking boycott is special.

Turning our attention now to boycotts of academics (either by other academics or by laypersons), notice that academics participate broadly in a system of cooperation aimed at the production of knowledge. When academics become the targets of boycotts, this can compromise that system of cooperation by excluding qualified practitioners who might help us uncover the truth.

We should accept that this is a grave concern and deny that it proves that there are no cases in which boycotting academics is permissible. When the latter are narrowly tailored and due diligence reveals a high likelihood of success, a boycott might be worth the risk.

Naturally, when entire academic institutions (or nations thereof) are targeted, the boycotts are sure to harm innocent parties. Some of those affected may even support the aims of the boycott and be working actively to redress the harm that the boycott aims to redress.

But this just another perfectly general feature of boycotts: if I boycott Chick-fil-A for its unsavory political donations and find success, this will leave workers innocent of (even opposed to) those donations out of a job. Despite these risks, most people tend to think that ordinary boycotts can be permissibly carried out. Again academic boycotts seem not to be all that special.

A further concern is that some of the most influential boycotts of academic institutions are indirect. They target an institution not obviously guilty of any wrongdoing (a university, say) in order to pressure another party (a government, say) to do something about it. There is a presumption against targeting the innocent with sanctions. But (1) some non-academic boycotts also violate this presumption; and (2) under extreme conditions (where the targeted institution is complicit in wrongdoing and stands a real shot of ending it) it is generally thought that boycotts which have this feature might be justified. Why not in the academic case?

Even if one wants to rule indirect boycotts altogether, note that one can make academic personnel the target of boycotts without in any way involving innocent parties. This will be true, e.g., when the academic on the receiving end of the boycott is targeted for her own behavior. To say that this kind of boycott will not carry risks of harming innocent parties is not to say it is easy to justify. It is important to avoid boycotting good work that advances science and human understanding for the sake of punishing those who produced it for unrelated or irrelevant character flaws. But not all boycotts aim at irrelevancies.

Conclusion

Much like ordinary boycotts, academic boycotts risk having bad goals; they risk being poor means of achieving good goals; they risk being good means of achieving bad goals; and they risk being inappropriate means for pursuing worthy ends. Confronting these risks means—as others have noted—that justifying boycotts of and by academics requires significant due diligence. For all that, due diligence may sometimes find that the risks are worth taking. When it does, it’s hard to see why academics must, for reasons of principle, abstain from pursuing their moral goals by boycott’s means.

My defense of academic boycott has been both abstract and qualified. I have not argued that any existing academic boycott is all-things-considered permissible. Moreover, I have said nothing to change your mind if you think boycotts generally are impermissible or that academics can under no conditions be activists. And yet it is not nothing to have determined that, so long as academics may be activists and boycott is generally justifiable, there is no principle barring them from involvement. For my part, at least for now, it’s enough.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Linda Radzik and Claudia Mills for a fascinating discussion of these issues at the Pacific APA and to Sven Bernecker for organizing a panel on this topic.