The president of PEN America, the novelist Dinaw Mengestu, has resigned from his position in part because of an article published by the organization about Israeli and Jewish writers denouncing cultural boycotts. Mengestu said in an interview with The New York Times that he didn’t agree with the publication of the article because it could cast the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as discrimination instead of protected political speech. Mengestu said, “We have the responsibility to be conscious and aware of how our work can impact and influence those debates, and especially if that means producing work that might actually restrict or limit or suppress what is constitutionally protected speech.” In an email to the Times, PEN America said, ”PEN America has long opposed cultural and academic boycotts, but we have always drawn a clear line between disagreeing with a tactic and defending the right to use it.”