UMass Amherst Tells Academic Group to Discontinue Policy That Excludes Israeli Scholars

UMass Amherst Tells Academic Group to Discontinue Policy That Excludes Israeli Scholars

It is amazing that this group had to be made to do this. Do they understand basic civil rights?

Campus Reform reports:

UMass Amherst Requires Academic Group to Drop Policy Excluding Israeli Scholars

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has required an academic organization to drop a policy that would have effectively excluded Israeli scholars from participating in a campus conference this fall.

The controversy began when UMass partnered with the Coalition of Women in German (WiG) to host its annual academic conference in November. According to the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), WiG had adopted a policy prohibiting anyone from using funding from “Israeli institutions”—including universities and cultural organizations—to attend its programs.

That rule meant that Israeli academics relying on standard institutional travel or research funds would have been barred from attending. The policy also extended to anyone using support from Israel’s International Science Relations Fund, which provides financial assistance for scholars to present research at international conferences.

After the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law notified UMass about the issue, the university reviewed the situation and determined that the WiG policy conflicted with its own nondiscrimination rules. UMass policy prohibits “unlawful discrimination…on the basis of … national origin” in any of its programs, events, or partnerships.

In response, the university required WiG to suspend its BDS-related funding restriction as a condition for hosting the event on campus. According to JNS, UMass officials made clear that the conference could not proceed under the terms of the group’s original policy.

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