Former United States ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro has criticized an instructor at the University of Michigan for refusing to write a letter of recommendation for a student who intended to study at Tel Aviv University, saying that to do so was forbidden by an academic boycott of Israel pledged by many university departments.
The school has expressed disappoinment with the instructor, denying that any department has taken a position departing from the university's opposition to boycotting Israeli schools. Shapiro wrote on Twitter, "This is nuts. What a terrible disservice this professor is doing to his student. Academic boycotts of Israel utterly unjustified and incompatible with the open inquiry that should be at the heart of academia."