The faculty of Rutgers University is set to vote in early December on a BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) referendum that aims to have the school pull out of its collaborations with Tel Aviv University, stop investing in companies that do business with Israel and in Israel Bonds.

Spearheading the vote is the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT), the union that represents more than 5,000 employees at Rutgers. The union is led by Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers professor in the media department, who also serves as the president of the national AAUP.

The national AAJP in August reversed a longstanding policy that opposed academic boycotts, saying that such boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.”

David Greenberg, a professor of history, and journalism and media studies at Rutgers and an executive committee member of the Jewish Faculty, Administrators and Staff (JFAS) group at Rutgers, called the vote “divisive.”

“Already you see on campus faculty who are having a hard time talking to each other. It creates an air of hostility and acrimony on campus,” he said.

“People who have a deep misunderstanding or ignorance of what Israel is or what Zionism is are riding high in the saddle and using the university to fan the flames of hatred,” Greenberg continued. “Passing this resolution will further fan those flames and signal that it is OK to be viciously anti-Israel and that is somehow acceptable.”

In its BDS resolution, the union claims that there is “scholasticide in occupied Palestine” and that Israeli universities “play a key role in supporting Israel’s system of apartheid rule.”

According to Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of AMCHA Initiative, which works to combat antisemitism at colleges and universities nationwide, the December vote will make the Rutgers AAUP chapter the first to consider implementing academic BDS since the national body changed its stance on the measure.

“The Rutgers chapter is able to use the national organization’s prestige to buoy its call for academic BDS and make it harder for fellow faculty or administrators to object,” said Rossman-Benjamin. “The fact that Rutgers AAUP-AFT president Todd Wolfson is simultaneously serving as the president of the national AAUP will make it even easier to use the national organization’s clout to help them advance their chapter’s BDS goals.”

The Jewish Link reached out to the AAUP for comment but did not hear back. The Jewish Link also reached out to the media office representing university President Jonathan Holloway but did not receive any response.

The State of New Jersey has laws that prohibit organizations and companies that divest from Israel from doing business with the state government. Rutgers is a state-funded school.

“State-supported institutions like Rutgers are governed by various boards established in law,” said State Assemblyman Gary Schaer. “These institutions are supported by taxpayer dollars. New Jersey tax dollars should be spent on education, not indoctrination or foreign policy mistruths. I am committed to fostering a strong Israel-New Jersey partnership. I will continue to denounce BDS and combat antisemitism in all of its manifestations.”

In advance of the voting, JFAS issued a 15-point rebuttal to the pending BDS resolution, noting, “Most Rutgers AAUP-AFT members did not join the union to undertake activist political campaigns relating to the Middle East. They belong to ensure fair working conditions, fair pay and good benefits. The time, money and human energy being poured into the union’s inappropriate foreign-policy agenda is hamstringing its ability to work on the issues of central concern to all members.”

One of the main components of the BDS resolution is the call to end any ties to Tel Aviv University (TAU). Rutgers and TAU signed a memorandum of understanding in late 2021 to increase collaborations between the two schools and establish a TAU “presence” at Rutgers’ J Innovation & Technology Hub, now dubbed the HELIX, which is under construction in New Brunswick.

Rossman-Benjamin explained that this “is an attempt to implement an academic boycott of Israel (academic BDS), which shuts down the educational and research opportunities of Rutgers students and faculty and incites virulent antisemitism.”

The JFAS counterpoint to the resolution echoes that claim noting that cutting ties with TAU “would not only restrict creating new partnerships but would terminate and prohibit existing academic opportunities for members of both universities on the basis of political ideology and cultural identity. This prohibition would also illegally discriminate based on nationality.”

While there is little to no chance the resolution will change things on the ground at Rutgers, the vote sends a “horrible signal,” said Greenberg.

“It tells Jewish and pro-Israel faculty you don’t count,” he said. “Your convictions, your identity, your status is [so] unimportant to us that we are prepared to go with the presence of a radical political agenda over trying to represent and be inclusive of everyone.”