Academic boycott of South Africa

The academic boycott of South Africa comprised a series of boycotts of South African academic institutions and scholars initiated in the 1960s, at the request of the African National Congress, with the goal of using such international pressure to force the end to South Africa's system of apartheid. The boycotts were part of a larger international campaign of "isolation" that eventually included political, economic, cultural and sports boycotts. The academic boycotts ended in 1990, when its stated goal of ending apartheid was achieved.

An academic boycott isolates scholars by depriving them of the formal and informal resources they need to carry on their scholarship. An academic boycott can include:

Both during and after the apartheid era, there was debate whether academic boycotts were an effective or appropriate form of sanctions. Even within anti-apartheid circles there was debate over whether the boycotts were ethically justified, and whether they hurt liberal scholars more than conservative ones. Campus libertarians criticized the ban because they believed it interfered with academic freedom, and conservative groups worldwide criticized the boycotts simply because they "disliked such anti-apartheid initiatives".

Subsequent research in the post-apartheid area has claimed that the boycotts were more a "symbolic gesture of support" for anti-apartheid efforts rather than a direct influencer of the situation. Additionally, the academic boycott was perceived by the targets of the boycott, South Africa scholars, as unjust and discriminatory.

The African National Congress first called for an academic boycott to protest South African apartheid in 1958 in Ghana. The call was repeated the following year in London.

In 1965, 496 university professors and lecturers from 34 British universities signed the following declaration in protest against apartheid and violations of academic freedom. They referred to the bans against Jack Simons and Eddie Roux, two well-known progressive academics who had been banned from teaching and writing in South Africa because of their political beliefs.

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