The University of Massachusetts Amherst on Wednesday said it had banned an anti-Israel boycott at an upcoming academic conference, a move a Jewish legal advocacy group hailed as a precedent in the struggle against anti-Zionist activity on campuses.
The annual conference, hosted by the Coalition of Women in German (WiG), a feminist German literature association, takes place at UMass Amherst in November in partnership with the university.
The group said in January that it was adopting a resolution in support of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The resolution said the group would not collaborate “with organizations or scholars who are receiving funding for that event from an Israeli institution.”
“WiG will refrain from participating in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration, or joint projects with Israeli institutions,” said the statement, which urged other organizations in the field of German studies to do the same.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish advocacy group, sent a letter to the university last week saying the BDS policy would effectively bar the participation of Israeli scholars, in violation of the university’s anti-discrimination policy.
The BDS policy “prohibiting attendees and participants from using ‘funding from an Israeli institution’ is a fig leaf for unlawful national origin discrimination against Israelis themselves,” the letter said. “The policy’s intent, purpose, and effect are to deny Israelis the same access, opportunities, services, and benefits that WiG offers to citizens and residents of every other country on earth.”
UMass Amherst policy bars discrimination based on national origin. Federal civil rights law also bans discrimination based on national origin for entities that receive federal funding, such as universities.
The university said that, when it learned of the conference’s BDS policy, it opened a legal and policy review. The investigation found that the conference’s ban on Israeli institutions, and its policy of limiting attendance to association members who are subject to the BDS rules, were exclusionary and violated the university’s policies. UMass Amherst shared the findings with the academic group, a university spokesperson told The Times of Israel.
“No academic event should, by design or effect, be exclusionary in nature, and the university will not sponsor an event that violates its policies,” the spokesperson said.
The university said the academic group must suspend its BDS rules during the conference and not limit attendance to the association’s members. The group must also make clear on its website that there are no restrictions on participants, the university said.
The university received assurances from the Coalition of Women in German that it will suspend its restrictions for the conference, the statement said.
The development marked an “important precedent that other universities must follow,” said Kenneth Marcus, the head of the Brandeis Center.
“Other universities should follow suit and ensure that organizations with BDS policies disavow that policy’s application prior to any activity,” Marcus said. “University anti-discrimination policies were created for a reason, and outside conferences or events cannot circumvent these protections.”
UMass Amherst, in central Massachusetts, is the largest school in the University of Massachusetts public system, with around 23,000 undergraduates.
The Coalition of Women in German, founded in 1974, says it is “dedicated to eradicating discrimination.”