Four hundred thirty of the 645 voting members of New York University's graduate student union Graduate Student Organizing Committee moved to support a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions caucus resolution calling on the body and its parent union, the United Auto Workers, to pull out its investments in companies in Israel.
Fifty-seven percent of the voting members of the 2000-member strong GSOC also committed to a personal pledge to boycott the Israeli government and most of its democratic institutions including its universities.
Additionally, the document also calls the administration of New York University to cut ties with Tel Aviv University in the Middle Eastern nation, effectively closing its program in the Israeli school as the organization believes it does not conform to the American university's non-discrimination policy.
According to Forward, the student union will support the boycott as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestine and refuses to recognize the full rights of citizenship of Palestinians.
Maya Wind, a Ph.D student and union member, lauds the action of the committee as a "reclaiming" of the organization as an active voice in worldwide political and social justice issues, referring to the Israeli occupation as "one of the defining political issues of our time."
The boycott, however, is not consistent with New York University's own policy regarding the matter. NYU spokesman John Beckman describes the vote as "at odds with the principles of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas."
The union's parent organization earlier declined to support a different resolution against Israel passed by the University of California Student Workers Union, UAW Local 2865, a local chapter made up of at least 13,000 student workers in the University of California system.
Just this month, two other graduate student unions, the Graduate Employee Organization of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and City University of New York Doctoral Students Council, approved an academic boycott against Israel, reports Salon.
