A university president in California was placed on leave Wednesday after sending a controversial email to the campus community on Tuesday announcing an agreement to boycott Israeli institutions — apparently without authority.
Sonoma State University President Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee said Tuesday that he had agreed to a demand by pro-Palestinian activists to boycott Israeli institutions. The decision thrilled anti-Israel protesters — and distressed Jewish students.
On Wednesday, Lee was placed on leave by Sonoma State. The Press-Democrat reported:
In that Tuesday memo … Lee announced details of an agreement with the students and community members who’d been camped on the school’s Person Lawn since April 26, mirroring scenes at other universities across the nation protesting the Hamas-Israel war.
Among the four “points of agreement” was for the school to disclose university vendor contracts and seek “divestment strategies,” Lee said in his email.
In another section, under the heading “Academic Boycott,” Lee detailed how the school will not pursue formal collaborations that are “sponsored by, or represent, the Israeli state academic and research institutions.”
In a statement, California State University Chancellor Mildred García explained the reasons for Lee’s suspension:
On Tuesday evening, Sonoma State University President Mike Lee sent a campuswide message concerning an agreement with campus protesters. That message was sent without the appropriate approvals.
The Board’s leadership and I are actively reviewing the matter and will provide additional details in the near future. For now, because of this insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave. I want to thank Dr. Nathan Evans, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs and Chief Academic Officer, for serving as acting president of Sonoma State University effective immediately.
Our role as educators is to support and uplift all members of the California State University. I want to acknowledge how deeply concerned I am about the impact the statement has had on the Sonoma State community, and how challenging and painful it will be for many of our students and community members to see and read. The heart and mission of the CSU is to create an inclusive and welcoming place for everyone we serve, not to marginalize one community over another.
As Breitbart News has noted, boycotting and divesting from Israeli universities violates California’s laws against the anti-Israel (and antisemitic) “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement, also known as “anti-BDS” laws.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.