John David Zuern

Overview

John David Zuern is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He has also expressed support for an anti-Israel activist and defended disgraced anti-Israel Professor Steven Salaita.

As of February 2020, he was a professor in the Department of English at the University of Hawai’i (UH).

Supporting BDS

As of February 2020, Zuern was a signatory to a list of endorsers of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI). 

In February 2014, Zuern signed an open letter condemning the administration of the University of Hawaii (UH), for expressing its opposition to the American Studies Association’s (ASA) recent endorsement of the academic boycott of Israel.

Signatories of the letter, signed by Zuern, charged that opponents of the academic boycott of Israel “support academic institutions that participate in the denial of human rights, including the right to education, experienced by Palestinians who, like Native Hawaiians, live under conditions of occupation.”

The letter went on to charge: “our administrators nowhere in their statement acknowledge Palestinian existence, let alone ways Palestinians’ academic and human rights are violated by Israel and with the support from the US of over three billion federal tax dollars a year in direct aid alone.”

Supporting an Anti-Israel Activist

Zuern signed a petition, published on October 8, 2018 in the University of Florida student newspaper, expressing support for anti-Israel activist Lara Alqasem.

In October 2018, Alqasem was detained at Ben Gurion airport after trying to enter Israel, because of her anti-Israel activism and, specifically, her support for the BDS movement. Alqasem was granted entry into Israel after appealing to the Israeli Supreme Court.  

Defending Steven Salaita

In 2014, Zuern reportedly signed a letter to the Board of Trustees from UH staff, in support of a “boycott of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) until you reinstate Dr. Steven Salaita.”

Zuern signed a petition published by the BDS movement on August 21, 2014, titled: “A Call to People of Conscience Not to Speak at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Until Chancellor Wise Honor [sic] the Contract to Hire Professor Steven Salaita.”

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

Social Media and Weblinks

University Website:http://english.hawaii.edu/faculty/john-zuern/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/100001144604824

Twitter:https://twitter.com/john_zuern [Private]