President Reid has joined more than 280 other college and university presidents, the U.S. Congress and scholars around the world who have endorsed Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's public statement condemning the call by Britain's University and College Union for a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. MSU President Lou Anna Simon and U-M President Mary Sue Coleman also have endorsed the Bollinger statement, which terms the boycott "intellectually shoddy and politically biased." President Reid called the proposed boycott "a fundamentally indefensible action."