A motion proposed at last year’s UCU congress to debate the possibility of an academic boycott of Israel sparked international outrage and both sides are squaring up for a fight at next week’s event in Manchester.
The motion due to be debated calls on members to be “asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating”.
It also suggests Ariel College, “an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal greylisting procedure”.
But legal advice published today by the Stop the Boycott campaign, which launched in protest at last year’s boycott motion, claims it would be unlawful for the union to pass the motion.
“In our view… it would be unlawful for the union to pass the motion, in as much as [it] calls on the members of the union to undertake certain actions in relation to ‘Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating’ as well as expressly mandating the union via the national executive committee to take steps towards so-called ‘greylisting’ of another academic institution, Ariel College,” the advice states.
Lawyers say the motion would “expose Jewish members of the union to indirect discrimination” and could make the UCU liable for an “act of harassment on grounds of race or nationality”.
“In our view, the union and its officers are undertaking substantial legal risks if they resolve to pursue the motion in its current terms,” the opinion says, calling for the motion to be withdrawn.
They say the UCU is entitled to “freedom of expression to debate the political issues surrounding the Israel/Palestine question”, but “aspects of the motion which are in substance a call to the membership to impose some form of sanction on Israeli academics and/or institutions exceed acceptable limits”.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “It is not for UCU to comment on legal advice received by other organisations, especially since we have neither seen the instructions the advice responded to nor do we know the context or purpose for which the advice was given.
“UCU delegates at our conference will have the opportunity to debate and set policy for the union on a host of issues. There is no call for a boycott; the motions to congress call for a wider debate about what is happening over there and members will initiate that debate, as is their right, at congress.
“I have made it quite clear on a number of occasions that my personal view is that a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions is not the best way to promote a just peace. For the record, once again, that position has not changed.”