Leong has signed her name to a list of individuals endorsing the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).
Leong served as a National Council member and former President of the American Studies Association (ASA) when the Council unanimously adopted a resolution in December 2013, exclusively singling out Israeli universities for academic boycott.
In a December 16, 2013 interview, former ASA President Curtis Marez acknowledged that the ASA never before called for an academic boycott of any nation’s universities, but claimed “one has to start somewhere.” No other academic boycott of any other nation has since been introduced at the ASA.
On April 20, 2016, a lawsuit was filed by ASA members against ASA officers who advanced the anti-Israel boycott. The plaintiffs accused the defendants of hijacking the ASA for personal political purposes and perverting their duties as officials of the ASA.
At the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference in April of 2013, Leong signed the proposed resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions which it alleged have “been directly and indirectly complicit in the systematic maintenance of the occupation.”
The petition called for the AAAS to join in “opposing US military occupation in the Arab world and U.S. support for occupation and racist practices by the Israeli state” and went on to call upon the organization to “honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
