[10] Israeli officials and the Anti-Defamation League reacted by stating that political and academic debates should not be mixed and accused the ASA of discrimination against Israel and "Orwellian antisemitism",[7] a charge denied by supporters of the boycott such as George Bisharat,[11] David Lloyd and Colin Dayan.
[12][13] The Israeli ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, stated, "Rather than standing up for academic freedom and human rights by boycotting countries where professors are imprisoned for their views, the A.S.A.
"[20][28][29] In January 2014, they put forward an anti-BDS law that would have banned universities and colleges from funding organizations that "have undertaken an official action boycotting certain countries or their higher education institutions."
"[35] Eight past ASA presidents have signed a letter which described the boycott as "antithetical to the mission of free and open inquiry for which a scholarly organization stands."
"[36] Curtis Marez, the president of the American Studies Association and an associate professor and chair of the ethnic-studies department at the University of California at San Diego has responded to critics of the boycott by arguing that the ASA is "targeting Israeli universities because they work closely with the government and military in developing weapons and other technology that are used to enforce the occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, while university-associated think tanks develop political and communications strategies to advance government aims and defend them internationally."
[4] Speaking to The New York Times, Marez argued that America has "a particular responsibility to answer the call for boycott because it is the largest supplier of military aid to the state of Israel."
Marez acknowledged that the United States has previously, and is currently, the largest supplier of military aid to many governments, including some with poor human rights records, but explained that Israel is the only country in which "civil society groups" had specifically asked the ASA to launch a boycott.
"[37] Marez has written on the organization's long-standing commitment to social justice, and the ASA's belief in nonviolent strategies as a tool to effect change.
Marez goes on to note that the United States Supreme Court holds these kinds of boycotts, ones which "aim to effect 'political, social, and economic change," to be constitutionally protected speech activities.
Angela Davis, a distinguished professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote that “[t]he similarities between historical Jim Crow practices and contemporary regimes of segregation in Occupied Palestine make this resolution an ethical imperative for the ASA.” Professor Eric Cheyfitz of Cornell University, who is Jewish and has a daughter and three grandchildren who are Israeli citizens, wrote that “just as the myth of American exceptionalism seeks to erase the genocide and ongoing settler colonialism of Indigenous peoples here in the United States so the myth of Israeli exceptionalism seeks to erase Israeli colonialism in Palestine and claim original rights to Palestinian lands.”[15] In April 2016, four American studies professors, Simon J. Bronner, Michael Aaron Rockland, Michael Barton, and Charles Kupfer,[39] sued ASA.
[40][41] The named defendants were Lisa Duggan, Curtis Marez, Avery Gordon, Nerferti Tadiar, Sunaina Maira and Chandan Reddy.
The lawsuit alleged that the boycott fell outside the scope of the ASA's corporate charter and stated mission, a type of legal argument known as ultra vires.
[citation needed] The lawsuit was dismissed in 2019 when the judge ruled that plaintiffs lacked standing because they could not demonstrate that their injuries exceeded $75,000 which would have been required for federal litigation.
"[46] Two related cases brought forward by David Abrams of the Zionist Advocacy Center in the state of New York had previously been dismissed for "[demonstrating] neither injury nor standing to sue.