academic freedom

Press Release

Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel calls on individuals and groups to oppose the Executive Order by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that prohibits New York State agencies from dealing with companies and institutions that support the boycott of Israel.  

Boycott is an effective moral strategy that has been used to advocate for justice from Montgomery, Alabama to the fields of California, from Arizona to North Carolina to South Africa. Just two months ago Governor Cuomo himself effectively acknowledged boycott’s power to support human rights by banning taxpayer-funded trips to North Carolina to oppose the state’s discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Whether struggling for freedom for African Americans, farm workers, immigrants, trans people, South Africans, or Palestinians, we must stand together to affirm our right to engage in political action.  

The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement calls on people to refuse to do business with institutions that profit from or are complicit with Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. It is both unconstitutional and outrageous that Governor Cuomo has committed the State of New York to punishing those who wish to support basic human rights for the Palestinian people. We must fight together to reverse Governor Cuomo's dangerous decision. 

ACTION ALERT

In December 2013, the American Studies Association (ASA) voted to endorse the academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. This decision is perhaps the largest victory of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States, and it has provoked a major backlash by university officials and politicians.