The Justice

Correction Appended:

University President Jehuda Reinharz was one of nearly 300 American college presidents who recently signed their names to a statement condemning a proposed British boycott of Israeli institutions.

Reinharz also helped organize the response. The presidents' names and the statement were released Wednesday in a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.

"I felt that I should be part of this," Reinharz said Wednesday evening.

Reinharz, a native of Israel, has focused his scholarship on Israel studies.

The United Kingdom's University and College Union, which represents over 120,000 academic professionals according to its Web site, passed a motion condemning Israel last May.

Delegates at the UCU's conference backed the motion denouncing Israel for its "denial of educational rights" to Palestinians in a card vote of 158 votes to 99, with 17 abstentions, BBC News reported in May.

An official vote on the boycott is expected next year, BBC reported.

The ad's statement is printed beneath the headline, "Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too!" It conveys an extreme disapproval in the UCU's delegates disregard for academic integrity in supporting the boycott.

Written by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, the statement calls the boycott one of "such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education."

The American Jewish Committee, a Jewish advocacy organization, sponsored the advertisement.

"As a university professor and president, I find this idea utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment…Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish," the statement reads.

The latest UCU resolution equates the Israeli government with an "apartheid" system of government, Prof. Shulamit Reinharz (SOC) wrote in a column printed in The Jewish Advocate Wednesday.

Reinharz, the founder of the Women's Studies Research Center and the University President's wife, criticized the "British bullies" leading the boycott.

In her column, Reinharz proposed that all U.S. academics "become auxiliary members of Israeli universities.

"Let all U.S. academics resign from editorial boards of British academic journals, decline invitations to lecture in Great Britain, and refuse offers to participate in joint research projects. Let grants from U.S. government agencies and foundations be suspended in light of the action taken by the British professors' union," she wrote.

Tom Hickey, a Philosophy lecturer at Brighton University, proposed the UCU's motion in May. He told the BBC that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is "barbaric."

"What are we to do with this? Are we to look away? If we do we make ourselves complicit in it," he said.

A wide range of institutions support the statement, including Brigham Young University, a Mormon institution; several Universities of California; liberal arts colleges; a couple of historically black colleges; Ivy League universities; and several rabbinic seminaries.

Correction: The UCU has not officially passed the boycott yet, as originally reported. The UCU has passed a motion condemning Israel and plans to vote next year.