Final student union votes to join UQÀM boycott of Israel
Members of the management sciences student union at the Université du Québec à Montréal voted in favour of adopting a mandate to boycott Israel on Thursday.
With the vote, UQÀM becomes the first university in Canada to have all its student unions adopt boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) mandates against Israel, student leaders said.
The movement at UQÀM was spearheaded by the group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SDHPP), which has been advocating on campus since 2017 for student unions to adopt the mandates. The management student union became the seventh to adopt the mandates at the school since then.
“The adoption of this resolution testifies to the UQÀM student community's commitment to justice and the people's right to self-determination, making our university the first in Canada to have adopted a BDS mandate in all its student unions,” the SDHPP wrote in a statement on Instagram, calling it a “historic victory.”
The BDS movement stems from a declaration issued in July 2005 — signed by about 100 Palestinian organizations — calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel that mirror those levied against South Africa for apartheid in the 1980s. Since then, student unions worldwide have signed on in what have often been contentious votes on campus.
The aim is to pressure universities into adopting an academic boycott against Israeli universities — ending exchange programs, joint projects and other connections with Israeli universities and the Israeli government — to support social justice for Palestinians. The SDHPP and other Palestinian rights groups argue that Israeli universities are “accomplices of the Israeli regime.”
University administrations are not obliged to change their policies based on student union votes.
Concordia University's undergraduate student union representing 35,000 students voted narrowly in favour of endorsing the BDS movement in 2014, but only 2,580 students cast ballots. Soon after, Concordia president Alan Shepard made clear that “the result of the vote is independent of the university.”
“In my view, a boycott barring us from contact with other universities and scholars would be contrary to the value of academic freedom that is a pillar of Concordia and of universities all over the world,” Shepard wrote at the time. “That freedom — to think the thoughts we want to think, to test ideas however controversial — is the bedrock of university life. Boycotts by definition foreclose all opportunities for such a free exchange of ideas and perspectives.”
After the Student Society of Mcgill University voted in favour of the BDS movement in 2016, Mcgill administration said the SSMU vote does not oblige the university to consider any change in policy.
UQÀM administration did not respond to questions in time for publication Friday.