Israeli students study at a university in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel in this photo from Feb. 2, 2010. Moti Milrod/File/AP

In response to the American Studies Association (ASA) passing a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, the New York state Senate passed a bill this week that would prevent universities from allowing funds to be spent on ASA activities.

The bill still needs to be signed into law by the governor, but if it is, New York universities and colleges will be prohibited from funding organizations, such as the ASA, that “have undertaken an official action boycotting certain countries or their higher education institutions,” according to the legislation.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jeff Klein, passed by a vote of 56-4.

“This legislation sends a very simple message, which is that we should never ask taxpayers to support religious, ethnic or racial discrimination,” Klein’s office said in a release.

“I will not allow the enemies of Israel or the Jewish people to gain an inch in New York.”

Klein’s bill would prevent academic institutions from using state aid to pay for membership fees to organizations like the ASA or to reimburse state employees for travel or lodging associated with ASA travel.

It would not, however, prevent the use of state money to boycott any countries that are “state sponsors of terrorism, or are engaged in an ongoing labor dispute or are engaged in an unlawful discriminatory practice as determined by New York state law.”

The ASA argues their boycott is in solidarity with Arab Israeli and Palestinian scholars and students who have been deprived of their academic freedom and says Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the state's crimes.



Arab and Jewish citizens are highly segregated in Israeli society and Palestinians in the occupied territories are often prevented from attending school by checkpoints, segregated roads and Israeli military presence.

ASA president-elect Lisa Duggan said the New York Senate legislation is a thinly veiled attempt to hide Israel’s “ongoing violations of international law and human rights.”

“This law’s supporters claim to oppose discriminatory boycotts, but they have designed their legislation to let Israel off the hook for restricting the academic and other freedoms of Palestinians, while punishing those who protest those injustices,” Duggan said in an emailed statement to Al Jazeera.