PACBI and BDS at CPC
In 2024 Chicago Poetry Center conducted a community process and vote to formally adopt the guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) as an organization, after over a decade of informal adoption. The process involved hearing from teaching artists, board, and staff, building a process, conducting community discussions, and ultimately holding an internal all-community vote facilitated by external partners.
The process and outcome of the vote reflected overwhelming unanimity across community constituencies. As a result, we have developed the following practices that we strive to uphold or refrain from in our implementation of PACBI and BDS at CPC.
- We boycott institutions and organizations, not individuals. We do not condone the boycott of individuals based on identity (such as citizenship, race, gender, or religion) or opinion. PACBI is rooted in the precepts of international law and universal human rights and, therefore, rejects such boycotts of individuals inherently. The affiliation of Israeli cultural workers with Israeli cultural institutions is not grounds for applying the boycott to them.
- We refrain from participation in any form of academic or cultural complicity. This includes but is not limited to refraining from participation in any event partially or fully sponsored by the state of Israel and any events that are complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation or denial of basic Palestinian rights.
- We refrain from hosting or circulating any events or cultural products operating under the auspices of “normalization” or which advance a false symmetry between oppressed and oppressor. We hold our own programs to standards that ensure we do not implicitly or explicitly the occupation.
- We support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support. For example, we do not seek to create false symmetry by requiring that a Palestinian writer be platformed side by side with an Israeli writer.
- Purchasing power: We boycott companies that are complicit in Israel’s apartheid. We do not purchase materials from companies listed on the consumer BDS boycott.
- Divestment and Sanctions. CPC does not currently have investment or sanctions power. Should that change, we commit to adhering to the Divestment and Sanctions guidelines of the BDS campaign.
