We are living in a global society driven by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. Success depends upon free access to information and unfettered research by scholars. Yet targeted academic boycotts are increasingly common, throwing more and more roadblocks on the way to progress.

Earlier in May 2013, the decision by the world-renowned British cosmologist Stephen Hawking to withdraw from a major academic conference in Israel reignited discussions among scholars on whether or not such boycotts are ethical. Professor Hawking had accepted the invitation to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference, a prestigious conference sponsored by President Shimon Peres, and the Hebrew University.

Prof. Hawking’s employer, University of Cambridge, first attributed his decision to health concerns. However, later the University made the curious announcement that Hawking’s decision was made “based on advice from Palestinian academics.”

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a campaign of several Palestinian non-governmental organizations directed against Israel. Started in 2005, BDS has actively advocated boycotts of Israeli academics. BDS has successfully gained support among several world-renowned academics including Professors Noam Chomsky at MIT and Malcolm Levitt at University of Southampton. According to the Guardian, Professor Chomsky was among a group of pro-BDS academics that lobbied Hawking to boycott the conference.

Palestine, of course, is not alone in their anti-Israel stance. Israeli and Iranian politics have been at the forefront of global news, particularly since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that Israel should be “wiped off” the map. Nonetheless, Iran has its own share of academic boycotts. In late April, the academic publisher Elsevier informed their editors and staff about the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations on Iran. In summary, Elsevier announced that submissions where any author is based in Iran (and is not at an academic and research institution) cannot be handled by US-based editors, US Elsevier staff, US reviewers, or any US citizens based outside of the US. The restrictions include Iranian authors with dual affiliations (e.g., university and government). Reviewers were asked to use the following text when rejecting manuscripts which fall under this OFAC regulation:

“As a result of OFAC sanctions all editorial staff who are US-based/US nationals are unable to handle scientific manuscripts which are authored by Iranian scientists, employed by the Government of Iran. Based on this OFAC regulation we are unfortunately unable to handle your manuscript. We wish you success with your submission to another Journal.”

Of course, this does not mean that any such submissions should be rejected right away and Elsevier asks its editors to send submissions that fall under OFAC regulations to non-US reviewers. However, in its communication with editors and staff, Elsevier includes the following items which speaks to the practical aspects of the review processes (i.e., many rejections in practice):

• If your journal workflow involves all submissions being handled by US-based Elsevier staff, they will reject these manuscripts outright before they reach you.

• Should there be no suitably qualified editor or reviewer, please reject the manuscript outright.

Fortunately, not many major publishers have followed Elsevier’s interpretation of Iran sanctions so far. However, there have been a series of academic sanctions affecting Iranian scholars over the past few years and Elsevier’s recent decision may not be the last of them. In 2002, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) stopped member benefits and services to its Iranian members (as well as those in Cuba, Libya and Sudan) due to OFAC regulations. All the IEEE services (with the exception of print subscriptions to IEEE publications) for Iranian members were withheld until April 2004 when OFAC clarified that “no licenses were needed for publishing works from Iran and that the entire IEEE publication process including peer review and editing was exempt from restrictions,” according to Wikipedia’s notation from IEEE. In a similar incident, in 2006, more than 80 Iranian attendees of the 4th International Reunion and Conference of Sharif University of Technology Association (SUTA) in Santa Clara, CA, were denied entry into the US even though they had been granted valid US entry visas.

The academic sanctions affecting Iranian and Israeli academics, although very different in nature, both infringe on the principle of science and human rights as stated in United Nation’s Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Article 15 requires states to:

1) recognize the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications conserve, develop, and diffuse science
2) respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research, and
3) recognize the benefits of international contacts and co-operation in the scientific field.

The short- and long-term effects of academic sanctions and boycotts are not well studied. However, the loss of academic freedom and other potential destructive effects of such boycotts (e.g., weakening of higher education in the sanctioned country, or society’s lack of access to scientific and technological advancements) conflict with Article 15.

One of the earliest examples of academic boycotts dates back to the 1960′s. The academic boycotts of South Africa were enforced by many international institutions and individuals at the request of the African National Congress, and as part of a larger international campaign for isolating the apartheid regime of South Africa. Ended in 1990, the academic boycott of South Africa is argued to have adverse effects on the victims of apartheid but little effects on the government. For example, Lancaster and Haricombe argued that:

“… ideas and knowledge should be treated differently than tangible commodities, that obstacles to information access could actually hurt the victims of apartheid (for example, retard medical research and, ultimately, reduce the quality of health care), and that an academic boycott (in contrast to economic, trade, or political boycott) would not even be noticed by the South African government. Change is much more likely to occur by providing information than by withholding it.”

The case of South Africa is often used as a model for the academic boycott of Israel.

Similar arguments regarding the adverse effects of boycotts and sanctions on the people of the sanctioned states may be applied to the case of Iran sanctions that are affecting scholarly research and activities, technology and communication, and information access. Seemingly recognized (at least partially) by the U.S. Government, certain communication technologies were recently exempted from the sanctions in the wake of this Friday’s Iranian presidential elections and in an effort to achieve “smarter” sanctions.

According to Lucie Morillon, Head of Research with Reporters Without Borders, this Friday’s Presidential election in Iran will be very difficult to follow because:

The Iranian regime recently cut off access to the Internet. The current Iranian government with a record high number of imprisoned journalists, routinely censors the national press and stops foreign journalists getting into the country.

Governments and political groups (governmental or non-governmental) should recognize that sharing information freely and promoting research is in their (and their followers) self-interest by stimulating local and ultimately global economies and advancing every aspect of our lives. This is increasingly important in a world that is no longer bounded by geographical limits and societies are increasingly interconnected.

A version of this article was published at The Huffington Post.

Appreciation from the President of the United States is one of the highest honors any American can receive. No, it wasn’t me, but the best part is that it was one of our students.

I have been very fortunate in my own education having learned from two mentors awarded the National Medal of Science (Prof. Tobin J. Marks and Prof. Stephen J. Lippard.) Each received a hearty handshake from President George W. Bush. Perhaps some of my work in their labs helped get them there, along with a cast of hundreds.

But then there was the hug from President Barack Obama, a sign of appreciation to Manik Rathee for his design work on the BarackObama.com website. Manik graduated from our University, and he spoke on our campus last Friday at the Thinking Creatively Conference. He shared his journey responding to the clarion call by Teddy Goff, Digital Director, Obama For America: “We are being out-spent 4 to 1. If we don’t make up the gap, we will lose this election.” Perhaps some of my work helped get Manik there, along with a cast of hundreds. Manik’s creativity contributed to a grassroots social media campaign leading to President Obama’s reelection.

This journey came full circle last Friday when I congratulated Manik for his hard work and creativity with a heart-felt handshake. When you’re an educator, it’s the best feeling in the world when you see one of your students fly to great heights. Thinking of handshakes, hugs and joy reminded me of the whimsical exuberance of the Harlem Shake. Since I am a U. Va. Alumnus, I feel compelled to share their own version, introduced by one of their Deans. I know how he feels. Watch this 30 second video; I guarantee you’ll smile!

A version of this article was published at The Huffington Post.

Social media has figured out how to harness this ineffable power, now called crowdsourcing (share a task – check out Ushahidi), crowdfunding (share funds), even crowdwisdom (share knowledge – check out MIT’s EdX). I am utterly smitten by its power. Already it has been used in disaster relief, from the 2010 earthquake in Haiti to the tsunami in Japan. Universities are being swept away – or will be soon – by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

You’re probably wondering about that $10. Think of it as one of those specks. It can be blown away in the wind, a will-o’-the-wisp. But it can also converge with other specks forming a beautiful mosaic. Most crowdfunding sites work this way, for the ambitious entrepreneur (think Kickstarter, for supporting human rights (Justice International) or jump starting an ambitious science project.

Turns out my “Turn $10 into $5,000 in Less Than One Month” might even be an underestimate. Crowdfunding raised $1.5 billion in 2011, supporting more than one million campaigns. Our University has tipped its toe into this exciting venture, by posting a campaign to support at risk youth in Newark, New Jersey, a program called Par Fore. We raised 30% of our goal in four days, and this is only the beginning. Think of the impact that this could have, one life at a time, preventing gang violence by giving kids a new path to learn discipline, manners and how to respect one another. Par Fore could be one of those programs that makes sure that the Wes Moore in each of those kids does not turn into the Other Wes Moore:

Two kids with the same name living in the same decaying city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and a business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison for felony murder.

You can be part of our crowdsourcing venture here ; I’m not asking you to donate, although that would be great; I’m asking that you share this link as broadly as possible, to help those specks converge to transform lives.

Washington and the talk shows are captivated by talk of the “fiscal cliff”: the combination of automatic spending cuts and revenue increases scheduled to take effect at the end of the year. Unfortunately, this is the wrong conversation for America to be having.

The fiscal cliff is an artificial crisis created by renegades who used America’s statutory debt limit to hold the nation hostage in August of 2011. (How absurdly irresponsible to say we will teach ourselves a lesson by not paying our debts!) Just as the cliff was created by a vote of Congress then, it could be dispensed with by a vote of Congress today. Yet negotiators in Congress and at the White House are continuing to operate within the narrow, artificial framework imposed by last year’s hostage-taking: debating, for example, whether cuts to Medicare should be balanced with an appropriate increase in marginal tax rates to 39.5 percent.

We would do better to put today’s challenges in their proper context. From time to time in our history America has faced very large public debts before, most notably after the end of Word War II. Each time, we got to work, worked hard as Americans always do, and built the economy by building and doing things. We did not wring our hands over what America cannot do, but rather set about doing what we can do. There’s no question that the debt is an important problem – but the United States is not, as some would have us believe, defined by its debt. It is defined by its people, its infrastructure, its creativity, its innovation, its drive. We are not a “poor debtor nation,” as one might think listening to the debate this month. Our budget deficit is not an existential crisis.

Remember that, as recently as a decade ago, the United States had a balanced budget and was paying down the debt – not because of a gimmick or a response to a perceived crisis or a constitutional balanced-budget amendment, but because of rational lawmaking and policies that led to a thriving economy. We are still the richest, most productive, most capable country in the world. We should be asking how we will set about making certain that all Americans have food, housing, schooling, jobs, and vibrant culture. If we do those things, the resulting growing economy will make our fixation on a phony fiscal crisis recede into the past.

Those renegades held us hostage in 2011; we shouldn’t hold ourselves hostage today by arguing within the false framework they set then.

What do you think?

But then there were the dirty, rotten scoundrels. One day after the hurricane, a local gas station suddenly raised their price from $3.79 to $5.59 per gallon, a shameless violation of New Jersey’s anti-gouging law prohibiting price hikes of more than 10 percent during emergencies. That same station had lines of desperate drivers waiting well beyond two hours.

After several days of no power, our laundry piled up and I was lucky to find a laundromat, jam packed with weary neighbors waiting for their turn, happy to be in a place with heat, light and electrical outlets. Like everyone else, I zoned in on an unused outlet for my near-dead cell phone. The manager at first seemed to be smiling, pleased with an opportunity to provide a much needed service for the storm-ridden.

This perception turned out to be wrong, when I saw a hand written sign nearby each outlet — “$2 per device.” An argument broke out between the manager and one of the customers refusing to pay the extra fee because his cell phone had died and he had no way to contact his wife in the hospital.

Manager (with a smirk): “What’s the problem? This is capitalism as its finest. I have the supply, you have the demand.” (These were his exact words; you can’t make this stuff up.)

Flummoxed customer: “Are you kidding me? I’ll never come back here again.”

Manager: “Good luck with finding another place. You’re not paying an electric bill, are you? I am. You don’t like $2 per device? Come back tomorrow, and it just may be $5 each.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but was too weary to care — I needed clean laundry for my family. Stories like these were no doubt common amongst the millions of families like us. People like this manager deserve any number of labels, but dirty rotten scoundrel is a good one, if not too generous. Now that things are returning to pre-Sandy normalcy, I am not only grateful for what had been taken for granted, but would rather focus on those selfless, wingless angels capable of thinking beyond themselves to help those in circumstances worse than their own. Could Sandy teach us to be better neighbors with a deeper appreciation of our riches? Probably not, but a man can dream.

What, really, do our children learn in school?

While standardized tests and teacher accountability are the buzzwords of the day, our schools may be missing one of the most important lessons our children must master in order to reach their highest potential: how to get along.

After all, the playground and cafeteria can be more challenging — and interesting — than the traditional classroom. These are places where children learn how to understand each other’s emotions and motivations, how to join a conversation, fend for themselves, be a good friend and how to establish themselves as leader or follower.

None of this is easy. Children need guidance in mastering these skills. The payoff is far more than becoming sociable or likeable. Children can learn to solve problems together, to collaborate, to become an invaluable member on a team designed not to score touchdowns or goals, but to learn something new together.

An MIT study showed that members of groups skilled at collaboration and reading each other’s emotions are better problem solvers, achieving what the study called “collective intelligence.” Without these skills, the Manhattan Project or first landing on the moon would have been impossible. And according to the MIT study, such achievements would have been even greater had there been more women, and therefore more diversity, on these teams.

How can this play out in the classroom? We believe that collaborative learning can be used to supplement traditional lectures. When children are taught in appropriately planned and managed cooperative learning groups, they enjoy learning more, develop more skills — including empathy — and retain material better. In one study, retention improved a whopping 18-fold when comparing to traditional lectures. Groups with greater diversity benefit, because problem solving that engages the perspectives and shared lenses of others whose life experiences differ from their own raises the achievement level of the group.

The recent teacher accountability movement has led some 26 states to establish different learning standards by race and ethnicity, as a strategy to help meet No Child Left Behind federal law standards. We can’t help but question if those engaged in this seemingly self-defeating trend have failed to fully appreciate the important role that diversity plays in proper collaborative learning techniques.

All of us share the goal of eliminating the achievement gap, but we differ about the solution. There is no single answer. Applying different standards could back fire by lowering a student’s self-esteem. Collaborative learning can lead to better student retention and ultimately a more satisfying experience for teachers and parents.

Embracing collaborative learning means school boards and administrators need to be more flexible as to how our children are taught, and some teachers will need professional development. But it is a smart investment, because if our children really learn how to get along to get ahead, everyone benefits as a result of our differences, not in spite of them.

A version of this article was published at The Huffington Post.

On Election Day, New Jersey voters will be asked:

Do you approve the “Building Our Future Bond Act?” This bond act authorizes the state to issue bonds in the aggregate principal of $750 million to provide matching grants to New Jersey’s colleges and universities. Money from the grants will be used to build, equip and expand higher education facilities for the purpose of increasing academic capacity.

Cranky taxpayer: Are you kidding me? New Jersey is already in debt. And you want me to say “Yes” to $750 million to help colleges? Fugetaboutit. What good is a college degree, anyway? I got my job after high school and am doing OK. Well, sort of.

College student: Hold up. That $750 million could help almost 50 colleges and universities. You want to talk about debt? How about an investment that could pay back in one year in increased GDP for the state and create 10,000 new jobs? And what good is a college degree? Don’t get me started.

Cranky taxpayer: So. That sounds like a cheap sound bite crafted for election season. I’m sick of it.

College student: Fine. Here it goes. My family came from the Dominican Republic and I’m the first one to go to college. I have to work two jobs just to keep my head above water. I wouldn’t be able to study at college if it weren’t for the state’s support. And get this, cranky taxpayer. A Georgetown University study reported that workers with a bachelor’s degree earn 84 percent more during their lifetimes compared to those with a high school diploma. And more education means less unemployment. Unemployment rates are 12 percent for workers with less than a high school dipoma, 9 percent for those with a high school diploma, 7 percent for those with some college education, and 4 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Cranky taxpayer: Yeah, sure. That may be true, but I don’t want to have to pay for it. Pay for it yourself.

College student: I wish I could. But here’s the deal. According to a Governor’s Task Force on Higher Education, by 2018, New Jersey will be second only to Massachusetts with jobs that require a bachelor’s degree. And most of these jobs will be in areas like healthcare, computer technology, business management and education. Then I can reach a level no one in my family has ever seen before, to support them, and inspire my children. I’ll be making more than you, cranky taxpayer. Plus, we all know that no matter who our next president is, I’ll be paying more taxes the more successful I am. And one more bonus — I’ll be more happy, and less cranky, than you.

Cranky taxpayer: Good luck with that.

This was originally published at The Huffington Post.

Every four years, I am inspired by the Olympic portrayal of the best of human strength and spirit that brings together nations unlike any other event. Thanks to Canadian sprinter Jenna Martin, I found this astounding example of an Olympic Fall. It is a race emblematic of the value of falls, and failures in our life. It is a must see!

Last month, a young American woman was blocked from purchasing an Apple product at a local store in Alpharetta, Georgia. After overhearing her speaking Farsi, the second generation Iranian-American was informed that selling the product to her went against the company’s policy. Apple’s export compliance policy states that direct or indirect sales of Apple goods to any embargoed country are prohibited, apparently categorizing domestic sales to Iranian-Americans as an indirect channel of distribution — but such policies are essentially unenforceable. Current embargoed countries include Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. By such logic, corporations would turn away any consumers who are Cuban-American, Syrian-American — you get the idea.

Although the Apple store incident could be minimized and considered a misinterpretation of Apple’s policy by an individual location or clerk, the incident is just the newest in a series of unfortunate misapplications and misinterpretations of sanctions legislations towards Iranians and Iranian-Americans, many of which have had stronger implications against the inherent freedom of intellectual engagement.

In 2003, Iranian scholars, scientists and writers faced discrimination when the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) imposed a ruling of the Berman Amendment that prohibited U.S. publishers from engaging in any publishing activity with an author from a sanctioned country without first applying for a special license. This broad interpretation of sanction legislation directly affected a sensitive demographic; those authors, scientists and activists who were already victims of oppression from their native governments and sought to expand their freedoms under the protection of U.S. policy.

Nobel Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, honored for her work on human rights and free speech in Iran, was one of the first writers to be affected. Ebadi criticized the regulations as contrary to the free exchange of ideas claimed to be valued by the U.S., as it hindered her ability to work with a U.S. literary agent on a book proposal. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the American Chemical Society (ACS) were two professional societies affected by the OFAC regulations, reluctantly forced to temporarily revoke membership and deny publication benefits to their Iranian scientists.

The Association of American University Presses and co-plaintiffs filed a suit against OFAC in 2004 arguing that its interpretative ruling of the Berman Amendment was illegal as it violated the First Amendment right to select, process and publish information without restriction. The plaintiffs successfully resolved the lawsuit three years later, only after OFAC revised the regulations and eliminated the need for prior licensing.

Impacts of sanction legislation, however, are not limited to the scope of property and information. With the Iranian economy deteriorating under the ever increasing sanctions, Iranian students studying or having the aspiration to study abroad are shouldering the burden of sanctions as they are often unable to access currency, transfer funds or afford tuition due to spiraling inflation. Despite encouraging statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging Iranian students to attend American universities, the sanction restrictions that ban transactions between Iranian banks and U.S. financial institutions prohibit students from making direct payments to educational institutions, encouraging black market growth as students are forced to solicit brokers to bypass sanctions laws.

Even the recent initiative taken by the Obama Administration to allow multiple entry visa options for Iranian students has incurred problems from its own policy restrictions. Outside of the financial burden and risk attributed to returning to Iran to reapply for a visa, this new policy limits issuance of multiple entry visas to those in the non-sensitive, non-technical fields of study and research. Considering the ban imposed by the regime forbidding students from taking social science and humanity courses at domestic universities in Iran, this policy restriction creates additional obstacles for student exchange. According to a recent survey, out of a sample of 148 successful student visa applications issued to Iranian students between July and December 2011, only20 percent were issued as multiple entry visas.

While these sanctions are currently preferred to more severe alternatives in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program dilemma, these so-called “smart sanctions” are increasingly violating the basic human rights and inherent freedoms of the Iranian people. The sanctions and resulting regulations that restrict the free flow of information and ideas are contradictory to the authors’ intended goals of protecting American security. As the promotion of democracy coincides directly with a population’s ability to freely access information and facilitate meaningful exchanges, policy makers must be careful that sanction legislation is not so broad or undefined that it becomes self-defeating and prohibits the very freedoms it serves to protect.

A version of this article was published at The Huffington Post.