More Anti-Israel UC Resolutions Coming in December

The University of California will see a slew of new anti-Israel resolutions on campus before the year is through. The United Automobile Workers (UAW) Local 2865 is considering whether to join the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) has launched a charge to prevent the union from embracing hatred toward Israel. 

Local 2865, which will vote on December 4 on the resolution banning academic institutions and scholars from doing business with Israeli universities, boasts more than 12,000 graduate student employees. The ACLJ wants the union to cancel its vote or urge its members to condemn unlawful discrimination.

David French, Senior Counsel of the ACLJ, stated, “Academic boycotts of Israel are discriminatory and disgraceful. The union is attempting to enlist its members in an unlawful, ideological crusade that will harm students, professors, and the university system itself.”

The ACLJ wrote to the University of California, the UAW, and the student union’s local chapter, attesting that voting for BDS would fall outside the purview of the union normal job: negotiating the terms and conditions of employment, and would place California graduate students outside state law and university policies because they would be evidencing open discrimination on the basis of national origin. 

The union is also reportedly urging its constituency to teach anti-Israel propaganda in the classroom, thus violating the academic freedom of students as well as exploiting the use of classrooms to purvey a rabid agenda.

ACLJ has asked the University of California to protect Israeli scholars and students from discrimination; it has also asked the UAW to prevent its local chapter from being discriminatory. 

In October, the ACLJ convinced the American Studies Association (ASA) to ease its anti-Israel boycott, albeit temporarily. The ASA had scheduled a convention at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in Los Angeles, but the ACLJ warned the hotel and the association that enforcing the anti-Israel boycott at the meeting would leave the hotel open to charges of discrimination on the basis of national origin, race, and religion, contravening California law.