The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law’s Student Government Association passed a resolution on December 2 endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting campus groups like Hillel.
The resolution states: “Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the occupation and colonization of Palestine and the state’s violence against Palestinians by developing military hardware, weapons, drones, and surveillance technologies; offering military training courses and posts for high-ranking military officers; declaring, via their leaders and other surrogates, their support for Israeli military offensives; discriminating against Palestinian students; and repressing voices in support of Palestinians and their struggle for self-determination."
It also accuses CUNY Law of being “directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people through its investments in and contracts with companies profiting off of Israeli war crimes."
It goes on to claim that “a number of student organizations across CUNY receive money from the State of Israel, or from organizations lobbying on behalf of the State of Israel, and whose mission includes support for the State of Israel, and whose practices include surveillance, intimidation, [and] harassment of Palestine solidarity activists on campuses. These organizations include Hillel, CAMERA, StandWithUs, Bulldogs for Israel, Israel Independence Day Committee, United 4 Israel, Israel Student Association, [and] Students Supporting Israel at City College of New York.”
The resolution ended with a call for the university to divest from companies that conduct business with Israel, cease all Israeli exchange programs and “to cut all ties with organizations that repress Palestinian organizing and end its complicity in the ongoing censorship, harassment, and intimidation of Palestine solidarity activists, including through ending contracts, [and] academic collaborations, and refusing to be complicit in the targeted harassment and silencing of Palestine solidarity activists.”
Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, slammed the resolution.
“We are alarmed and concerned that CUNY Law Student Government is calling on CUNY Law School to ‘cut all ties’ with Hillel, the premier Jewish student organization on college campuses, and several other Zionist and predominantly Jewish student groups,” ADL New York/New Jersey regional director Scott Richman said in a statement.
“Combined with the call to end all CUNY Israeli exchange programs, this BDS resolution has the effect of ostracizing and alienating a large majority of Jewish students on campus," he said. "It does nothing to help foster Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution. We hope that the CUNY administration will take swift action in condemning this resolution.”
The resolution comes just days after NYU Law's premier legal journal expressed their firm commitment to the BDS movement.
CUNY and CUNY Law school have not released statements on the matter.