The rules for motions and resolutions, prepared by William Gedney and Ilse Lehiste and approved by the Executive Committee at its June 1973 meeting, specify all motions initiated from the floor at the annual business meeting, if they receive affirmative vote of a majority of members voting at the meeting, are to be submitted by the Executive Committee to a mail ballot in the next issue of the LSA Bulletin. The following resolution, drafted and forwarded to the Resolutions Committee by the Executive Committee, was approved by a majority of those attending the Atlanta, GA, business meeting (3 January 2003) and is now submitted for your consideration. Passage requires: (1) a majority of those voting, and (2) that the total of those voting in favor must be at least 2.5% of the personal membership (or approximately 100 members).
Over a two-month period in 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense discharged seven Arabic and two Korean language specialists (i.e. linguists, translators, and interpreters). All of these highly trained personnel were discharged for revealing their sexual orientation and thus violating the military's current "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy. Meanwhile, the government's General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that the military is facing a 44% shortfall in filling positions in critical language areas, including Arabic and Korean.
In 2001, the Department of Defense discharged a total of 1, 273 servicemen and women under the military's DADT policy. Of these, 30% were women, who comprise only 14% of military personnel. The GAO estimates that these DADT discharges cost the government, and therefore, the U.S. taxpayer, over $36,000,000.
The sponsors of the resolution feel that the LSA should make known its opposition to the U.S. military's DADT policy, as it has had a domonstrably deleterious impact on linguists, translators, and interpreters in the Armed Forces. Not only is the DADT policy unjust on general principles of fairness, equality, and nondiscrimination, but we also feel that in this time of national crisis it threatens our national security.
Resolution 1:
WHEREAS linguists, translators, and interpreters serving at the Defense Language Institute have made important contributions to the nation's defense since the Institute's inception;
WHEREAS language specialists fluent in Arabic and other critical languages are especially vital to U.S. national security at this time;
WHEREAS the General Accounting Office reports that there is currently a serious shortage of such linguists in the military;
WHEREAS the military's recent dismissal of highly trained and highly skilled language specialists who are gay or lesbian presents a significant risk to national security;
WHEREAS sexual orientation is irrelevant to one's job performance, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unjust;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Linguistic Society of America make known its opposition to the U.S. military's policy of dismissing linguists, translators, interpreters, or other members of the armed forces on the basis of their sexual orientation.
MEMBERS WHO RECEIVE THE LSA BULLETIN ONLINE ONLY AND WHO WISH TO VOTE MUST CONTACT THE SECRETARIAT (lsa@lsadc.org) FOR AN OFFICIAL PAPER BALLOT.
Ballots must be postmarked no later than 1 July 2003.
The rules for motions and resolutions, prepared by William Gedney and Ilse Lehiste and approved by the Executive Committee at its June 1973 meeting, specify all motions initiated from the floor at the annual business meeting, if they receive affirmative vote of a majority of members voting at the meeting, are to be submitted by the Executive Committee to a mail ballot in the next issue of the LSA Bulletin. The following resolution, drafted and forwarded to the Resolutions Committee by the Executive Committee, was approved by a majority of those attending the Atlanta, GA, business meeting (3 January 2003) and is now submitted for your consideration. Passage requires: (1) a majority of those voting, and (2) that the total of those voting in favor must be at least 2.5% of the personal membership (or approximately 100 members).
Last spring, Steven Rose, a biologist at the Open University in London, and his wife, Hilary Rose, a sociologist at City University in London, called for a temporary suspension of EU funding to Israeli universities, an academic boycott of Israeli universities, and sanctions against people working at Israeli universities, in protest of the Israeli assaults on the West Bank and Gaza. In June, Mona Baker, the head of a translation and cultural studies institute at the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology, dismissed two Israeli researchers, Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University and Gideon Toury of Tel Aviv University, from the editorial boards of two journals which she edits. This caused a massive storm of protest. In December, the six ex-presidents of the Linguistic Association of Great Britain, led by Dick Hudson, published a letter in The Guardian expressing support for Baker, claiming that her civil liberties were being threatened, while taking an agnostic stand on the legitimacy of her actions and the boycott. Citing their past presidencies, they claimed to "speak for a large body of opinion in our field." In response, several linguists in Britain requested that the LSA consider a resolution condemning academic boycotts.
Two other incidents play a role as well. In December, the administrative council of University of Paris 6 adopted a motion demanding an end to agreements of scientific cooperation between the EU and Israel; this resolution was however subsequently rejected by the president of the university. Finally, Joshua Fishman submitted a complaint to the LSA Committee on Social and Political Concerns that the journals he edits were being boycotted.
The resolution as stated is broad enough to reject academic discrimination against Muslims of all nationalities as well as Israelis. It is distinguished from calls for divestment, in that it addresses discrimination against individuals and institutions whose fates are of little interest to the governments against which the boycotts are ultimately directed.
Resolution 2:
WHEREAS there have been calls for and instances
of boycotts of individual scholars (faculty, students, and administration) and
their universities, in response to the actions and policies of the governments
of the countries or regions where these scholars work, or to the scholars' religion
or ethnicity,
LET IT BE RESOLVED that the Linguistic Society of America opposes all discrimination
and political sanctions against scholars in any aspect of professional life
(such as employment, publications, promotion, conference participation, educational
exchanges, and research collaboration), where such discrimination is based not
on the conduct of the scholars themselves, but solely on the scholars' religion
or ethnicity, or on the actions or policies of the countries or regions in which
these scholars live and work, or of which they are citizens. Such boycotts violate
the principle of free scientific interaction and cooperation, and they constitute
arbitrary and selective applications of collective punishment.
MEMBERS WHO RECEIVE THE LSA BULLETIN ONLINE ONLY AND WHO WISH TO VOTE MUST CONTACT THE SECRETARIAT (lsa@lsadc.org) FOR AN OFFICIAL PAPER BALLOT.
Ballots must be postmarked no later than 1 July 2003.