Manzar Foroohar: The California Faculty Association’s Secret Weapon

Investigative journalist Lee Kaplan, writing for Campus Watch, reports on the professor behind the California Faculty Association’s 2009 anti-Israel resolution, Manzar Foroohar, and warns that a boycott and divestment resolution may soon follow. His article appears today at Frontpage Magazine; it begins like so:

When the California Faculty Association (CFA) adopted a resolution in 2009 condemning Israel for its military incursion into Gaza, it reinforced the fear that academic unions would be the next front in an ongoing propaganda offensive against the Jewish State. Amidst the ensuing controversy, one of the key players in the resolution’s formation—Manzar Foroohar, an Iranian immigrant and history professorspecializing in the modern Middle East and Latin America at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo—came to the fore. However, the extent of her involvement was never publicly acknowledged. In fact, Foroohar authored and championed the resolution, which was presented by the CFA Peace & Justice Committee (Committee), unanimously adopted by the CFA Board of Directors on February 7, 2009, and passed by the CFA General Assembly in Sacramento on April 4-5 that same year.

. . . the campaign to delegitimize Israel through the CFA didn’t stop with the 2009 resolution. It may have opened the door for a future resolution to boycott and divest from Israel, which union leadership—responding to this author’s interview requests during and after the closed-door 74th CFA Assembly in San Francisco on April 8-9, 2011—refused to confirm or deny is in the works.

To read the entire article, please click here.
Cinnamon Stillwell analyzes Middle East studies academia in West Coast colleges and universities for Campus Watch. A San Francisco Bay Area native and graduate of San Francisco State University, she is a columnist, blogger, and social media analyst. Ms. Stillwell, a former contributing political columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, has written on a wide variety of topics, including the political atmosphere in American higher education, and has appeared as a guest on television and talk radio.
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