Israel’s Lawfare against BDS in the US Backfires

Israel’s Lawfare against BDS in the US Backfires

 The New York Times Editorial Board condemned attempts in the New York Legislature to pass a bill that would bar state financing for academic groups, like the ASA, that have taken official action to boycott higher-education institutions in Israel: “The New York bill is an ill-considered response to the American Studies Association resolution and would trample on academic freedoms and chill free speech and dissent.”

 Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger issued a statement saying that the “misguided legislative effort” would undermine academic freedom, adding: “My fellow Columbia faculty members had it precisely right when they argued in their letter to the Assembly that the curbs on free speech contained in the anti-boycott legislation appear to violate the U.S. Constitution, as it has been interpreted for decades, and would degrade the academic freedom long cherished not only at Columbia but across all of American higher education.”

 The Association of American University Professors (AAUP) condemned the anti-BDS bill introduced in Maryland arguing:

 “[T]his legislation undermines constitutionally protected academic speech and debate in order to promote a particular viewpoint. If enacted, such legislation will set a deplorable precedent for future legislation that might further reduce academic speech. In case after case, the US Supreme Court has upheld the rights of university faculty to speak publicly on matters both national and international. In one of many cases, the Court declared “our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom” (Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 US 589, 684 (1967).”

 Many other liberal organizations have issued similar statements rejecting anti-BDS bills as violations of academic freedom and of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.