CHICAGO — A movement to pressure and isolate Israel gained further ground among American academics on Saturday, when the Modern Language Association took a step toward approving a resolution calling on the State Department to contest what it characterized as Israel’s discriminatory “denials of entry” to American scholars seeking to visit the West Bank to work at Palestinian universities.

After nearly three hours of fractious debate and procedural maneuvering, the group’s delegate assembly voted 60 to 53 to adopt the resolution, which will be submitted to the group’s nearly 28,000 members after review by its executive council. If it is approved, the Modern Language Association would be the fourth, and by far the largest, such group to endorse a measure critical of Israel in the past year.

The travel resolution did not call for a boycott like the one announced last month by the American Studies Association, which has prompted a backlash, including statements from more than 100 university presidents criticizing boycotts as a threat to academic freedom.

The group’s delegate assembly also voted against considering a second resolution, introduced by its Radical Caucus, to condemn the “attacks on the A.S.A.” and defend the right of individual scholars and groups to “take positions in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against racism.”