Do Professors Have a Right to Boycott Israeli Institutions and “Zionists”?
I was asked this question at a panel of the recent Israeli American Council national conference, and here is how I responded:
As a rule, the act of boycotting is not constitutionally protected, because it’s considered an economic act, not a matter of free expression. That said, as a general matter, anyone is free to advocate a boycott, because advocacy is protected speech. In any event, regardless of constitutional considerations, no one is going to force a professor to submit a paper to an academic conference held at Tel Aviv university. So in that sense, professors are free, for example, to boycott Israeli universities as much as they want.
But a problem arises when a professor is acting on behalf of his institution.
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement advocates boycotting Israeli universities, which is against policy at all majo
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