Originally Published: June 2007
Updated (with addition of third paragraph): July 2026
PEN America is an organization founded on the principle that the unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations is essential for human coexistence and understanding. It believes that literature, works of art, and ideas must remain common currency among people despite political or international upheavals, and that political and national passions should not prevent or interrupt intellectual and cultural exchange.
In this spirit, PEN America emphatically opposes any efforts to inhibit the free international exchange of literature, art, information, or knowledge, including academic and cultural boycotts. We believe that such boycotts threaten the free expression rights not only of those associated with the boycotted institutions but also of those in the countries where the boycott is practiced, and that the universally guaranteed right of all to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers includes the right to engage in direct, face-to-face discussions, debates, challenges, and collaborations.
PEN America also recognizes that participating in or advocating for boycotts is an exercise of free expression and protected political speech. We defend the rights of writers and academics who engage in or advocate for or against cultural and academic boycotts to be protected from retaliatory efforts to silence their voices or otherwise punish them. We see no contradiction between opposing boycotts ourselves, and defending the right of others to engage in them.
