Jewish groups criticized the American Association of Geographers after its members pushed for an academic boycott of Israel at the organization’s annual meeting, which featured overwhelmingly one-sided presentations against the Jewish state.  

The Anti-Defamation League and Academic Engagement Network highlighted biased programming including sessions called “BDS and the AAG,” “Mapping and Counter-Mapping Genocide” and “No Geographic Technology for Apartheid” at the AAG’s March 17-21 conference in San Francisco. 

The sessions, which were organized by an unofficial group of AAG members called Geographers for Justice in Palestine, “did not appear to encourage balanced discussion or meaningful debate, and in some cases exhibited a marked erosion of scholarly standards,” the Jewish organizations said in a joint statement on Tuesday. 

Some Jewish members began to feel alienated from the association during last year’s annual meeting in Detroit, which also featured programming that was hostile to Israel. 

“I was deeply disturbed by the inclusion and promotion of sessions that allowed for inflammatory, biased and harmful rhetoric, far removed from academic rigor or geographic inquiry,” Liora Sahar, an Israeli-American member of AAG, told Jewish Insider last year. 

Shira Goodman, vice president of advocacy at the ADL, and Miriam Elman, executive director of AEN, said they raised concerns with the organization last March following its meeting and expressed worry that anti-Israel programming has become a pattern within the association. 

“At that time, we urged AAG leadership to review its session selection and vetting processes. The apparent lack of progress on these matters raises serious questions about the association’s commitment to maintaining academic integrity and ensuring that its convenings reflect the highest standards of scholarship and discourse,” said Goodman and Elman.

“Academic conferences should be spaces that foster rigorous inquiry, respectful debate, and the exchange of diverse perspectives. While critical discourse — including criticism of government policies — is a legitimate and essential component of academic life, we are concerned that these standards were not upheld at the recent AAG Annual Meeting, where some sessions lacked factual accuracy, intellectual openness, and a commitment to civil engagement,” continued Goodman and Elman. 

They warned that the “continued pattern of programming that lacks civility, disregards factual complexity, and promotes exclusionary academic practices risks causing reputational harm to the association and to the broader academic community it represents.” 

The groups called on “AAG leadership to take these concerns seriously and implement meaningful reforms.” 

Over the summer, AAG joined a growing list of professional associations facing pressure to adopt a boycott of Israel after a member petition urged the association “to endorse the campaign for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”

Last month, AAG said there has not yet been a vote on the petitioners’ demands. 

AAG did not respond to a request for comment from JI asking about this year’s conference.