Amit Baishya
Overview
Amit Baishya [Amit R. Baishya] is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies for the English Department at Oklahoma University (OU).Supporting BDS
Baishya is a signatory to a faculty petition calling on the TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, College Retirement Equities Fund) to divest from its holdings in Israel.In 2016, Baishya signed an open letter calling for the academic boycott of Israel.
In January 2017, the MLA Delegate Assembly approved a resolution (2017-1) acknowledging “the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contradicts the MLA’s purpose” and conflicted with another resolution (2002-1), that condemned boycotts against scholars. Therefore, the Assembly “resolved that the MLA refrain from endorsing the boycott.”
Baishya signed an open letter published on April 19, 2015, expressing support for the cultural boycott of Israel.
The 2015 letter condemned the decision to feature French intellectual Monique Canto-Sperber as the keynote speaker of a “Night of Philosophy” event, because of her pro-Israel activism.
Signatories of the letter stated that “we find it incumbent upon ourselves to register our profound disappointment and to protest in the strongest terms possible that one of the key people you have selected to promote free speech at your Night of Philosophy has been an open practitioner of denying the same to Palestinians and their supporters.”
In March 2015, Baishya signed an open letter calling for the adoption of BDS by the MLA.
The letter, signed by members of the MLA, accused Israel of “Detentions without trial, torture and war crimes, and use of deadly force by the Israeli military against non-violent protesters” and called upon Israel to “Honor the right of Palestinian refugees to return.”
Baishya also signed a 2009 USACBI open letter, calling for former U.S. President Barack Obama to join the BDS movement.
After charging Israel with inflicting “one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times,” the signatories called upon Obama to join in the BDS movement.
It went on: “That the United States has stood so often alone in defending Israel before the court of world opinion in the United Nations is not a sign of its virtue, but of the obstinacy and arrogance of its stance.”
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks
University Website: https://www.ou.edu/cas/english/about/faculty/a-baishya
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- Oklahoma
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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