Pitzer College Closes Its Exchange Program With Haifa University

Pitzer plaque (Photo – pitzer.edu)

On Monday, April 1, 2024, following a long campaign, Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges officially closed its study abroad program with the University of Haifa based on its nonalignment with Pitzer’s Core Values of “social responsibility” and “intercultural understanding.”

By News Desk

The closure follows a long-term campaign at Pitzer in support of the Palestinian-led call for U.S. colleges and universities to support Palestinian freedom by suspending institutional relations with Israeli universities.

Pitzer College stands as the first U.S. higher education institution to enact a significant measure of academic boycott of Israel.

This Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) decision reflects the February nearly unanimous vote (34-1)  of Pitzer’s Student Senate to suspend all institutional ties with Israeli universities. In Fall 2018, the Faculty of the College voted 20-3 for a similar motion. The following semester, Spring 2019, Pitzer’s most inclusive governance body, the College Council, composed of the faculty, students and staff representatives, voted 67-28 for this policy.

Pitzer students, faculty, and staff have heeded the specific calls from the Right2Education campaign at Birzeit University in the West Bank and the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), demanding Pitzer College suspend institutional ties with Israeli universities.  Heads of all Palestinian universities also have been called to boycott Israel’s academic institutions

On April 1, 2024, the administration of Pitzer College responded to the sustained campaign by the Claremont Colleges chapters of Students for Justice for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace to end study abroad programs with Israeli universities. Throughout this campaign, student activists have been supported by faculty allies, now organized as Claremont Faculty for Justice for Palestine.

In this academic year, an additional source of pressure on the Pitzer administration came from Pitzer Alums for Social Justice, which obtained over 430 “no donations to Pitzer until BDS” pledges from alums and parents. The pledge not to donate until Pitzer fully adopts boycotts and divestments from the Israeli state and its institutions, in accord with the guidelines of the Palestinian-led BDS movement.