January 16, 2026
To the members of the MLA Executive Council,
American Jewish Committee (AJC) writes to convey our grave concern over a recent member resolution narrowly passed by the Delegate Assembly on Saturday, January 11th at the MLA’s annual conference in Toronto. The resolution begins by noting - quite correctly - that there have been escalating attacks on academic freedom in the United States, attacks that endanger all members of the academic community but particularly those who are professionally vulnerable. However, the resolution also contains several misrepresentations, beginning with the allegation that attacks on academic freedom have “weaponized allegations of antisemitism” and used those allegations to “silence protests against the US-sponsored Israeli genocide in Gaza.”
Antisemitism has risen dramatically in the United States, as documented by the FBI’s hate crime statistics, which make clear that, per capita, American Jews are at greater risk of experiencing hate crimes than any other group. According to AJC’s State of Antisemitism in America report, one in three Jewish college students last year reported personally experiencing antisemitism during their time on campus. In the post-October 7th era, it would be reasonable for the higher education community to resolve to combat antisemitism through a commitment to consequential reform and transparent action and the enforcement of existing civil rights laws that protect members of the Jewish community. Indeed, a wide swath of representative higher educational groups, along with AJC, pledged to do just this in May of 2025. It is alarming that the resolution advanced at the MLA Delegate Assembly instead opted to treat antisemitism dismissively, as a manipulative tactic rather than a serious problem that merits concerted action. Moreover, the resolution’s claim that antisemitism has been weaponized contains a troubling omission: to whom is this weaponization being attributed? One wonders why the resolution’s drafters failed to specify whether their concern was over the federal government’s handling of campus antisemitism or whether they meant to silently point fingers at Jewish campus community members and thereby invalidate their experiences of anti-Jewish discrimination.
Equally troubling, this resolution asserts a claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a highly contested charge that is far from a settled fact. Whether literature scholars have anything substantive to contribute to a conversation about international law is one question worth asking, but the more pressing one is whether the Modern Language Association constitutes an appropriate venue for politically charged resolutions about issues that are topically and organizationally irrelevant to the professional study of literature, and about which there are deeply divided opinions amongst members. Other academic societies’ executive councils, notably and most recently the American Historical Society’s, have opted to veto these ill-advised member statements on the grounds that they unduly politicize and thereby damage the organization. We urge the MLA Executive Committee to take a similar tack here.
Resolutions like these that accuse Israel of genocide or advocate for a boycott of Israeli universities, have a typical downstream effect within academic communities wherever they appear: they sow deep division amongst members about issues that have little or no relevance to their fields of study, but do often have deep personal relevance for small minorities of community-members. They therefore have the effect of alienating those members - in this case, Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli scholars - who frequently are made to face informal litmus-tests on these issues or disclaim essential parts of their identity and faith to gain advancement. Such statements also have the effect of chilling engagement and speech within the field when they, as this resolution recommends, enlist the entire member organization in their condemnation. Such statements convey that a community of scholars in its totality, vast and diverse as it is, tolerates only one set of political or ideological perspectives in its midst. We hope that the MLA Executive Council will take seriously the threat that such statements pose to open scholarly inquiry and civil debate.
On a personal note, I wish to also convey that I was once a member of the MLA and spent decades of my life studying, teaching, and researching Shakespeare, working my way up to a tenured professorship before shifting over to education advocacy work with AJC. This is not the first time that a resolution focused on condemning Israel has been debated or passed at MLA during my lifetime, and I recall how alienating the experience was when I was still a graduate student hoping to advance my career in a setting that seemed poised to attend and, at times, bend to the loudest, most politically extreme voices.
Attacks on academic freedom are indeed worrisome. Antisemitism is also worrisome. Both are things that merit separate and sustained consideration and advocacy. We appeal to you to veto this ill-founded resolution and make clear to your members that the MLA will not be led into politically divisive activism.
Sara Coodin, Ph.D.
Director of Academic Affairs, American Jewish Committee
