4 MAY 2014 - Global civil society alliance, CIVICUS and the US-based Defending Dissent Foundation are alarmed at proposed legislation in the United States to reduce official funding to academic institutions that support the boycott of Israel.
“Israel remains one of most serious violators of human rights on the planet,” said Mandeep Tiwana, Head of Policy and Research at CIVICUS. “It is indeed ironic that legislation would be proposed in the United States to limit freedom of expression when a fundamental pillar of US foreign policy is supposed to be support for human and democratic rights.”
The “Anti- Boycott Bill” (number A 08392A) introduced in the New York State Assembly on 6 February 2014 prohibits the use of state funds by any college to provide assistance to any ‘academic entity’ that supports a boycott of a country or its academic institutions either through an official statement or public resolution. The bill covers support to any university, college or professor including through financing of travel to meetings or membership of organisations that support boycotts.
The anti-boycott bill - currently under legislative consideration but opposed by a diverse coalition of New Yorkers - is in response to the decision by the American Studies Association (ASA) to support the academic boycott aspect of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeted at Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine and its treatment of the Palestinian people. The full membership of the ASA, a US academic organisation voted in December 2013 to support the academic boycott. The international BDS campaign is backed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a number of US-based civil society groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild and Defending Dissent.
“Inherent in any legislative threat to stop the funding of institutions that endorse the cultural and academic boycott of Israel, is the abuse of freedom of expression enshrined in the US Constitution’s First Amendment,” said Sue Udry, Executive Director of Defending Dissent. “Prescriptions by the state to any academic institution is not only a violation of academic freedom but also patently un-American.”
CIVICUS and Defending Dissent urge lawmakers and government officials in the United States to uphold constitutional values by voicing their opposition to legislation that penalises activists and organisations that speak out against the commission of gross human rights violations both at home and abroad.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Similarly motivated legislation has also appeared elsewhere in the US since the American Studies Association vote. In Pennsylvania, the legislature adopted a House resolution in March 2014 which condemned academic boycotts of Israel as “anti-Semitism” and called upon Pennsylvania colleges not to participate in them. In Florida, a bill denouncing academic boycotts of Israel as “biased and hypocritical” was approved by the Florida Senate in April 2014. However, in Illinois, a resolution condemning all academic boycotts was successfully blocked on 1 April 2014. And in Maryland language was included in that state’s budget that is critical of the academic boycott but does not have the force of law behind it.
The issue has been introduced at the federal level through the draft ‘Protect Academic Freedom Act’ which seeks to amend the High Education Act of 1965 to prevent academic institutions from receiving any form of financial assistance if the Secretary of Education determines that they are participating in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions or scholars.