Rutgers faculty unions vote for pro-BDS resolution against the 'Genocide In Palestine'
Two New Jersey faculty union have both approved an anti-Israel, BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) measure.
On Friday, the presidents of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Adjunct Faculty Union released a joint statement after approximately 60 percent of their respective members voted to request divestments from Israel.
Two New Jersey faculty union have both approved an anti-Israel, BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) measure.
On Friday, the presidents of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Adjunct Faculty Union released a joint statement after approximately 60 percent of their respective members voted to request divestments from Israel.
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”Our unions have many fights ahead of us,” Todd Wolfson and Bryan Sacks write. “We will need to work together to resist the Rutgers administration’s ongoing attempts to undermine our contract victories.”
”We will face the consequences at Rutgers of the incoming Trump administration’s looming assault on all of higher education,” they continue. “In confronting the challenges that 2025 will bring, we will be stronger if we are united across union, rank, department, school, and campus—as we were during our victorious strike in 2023.”
The approved resolution specifically would divest from the “Genocide In Palestine,” noting that Israel “has been accused of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and dehumanization of Palestinians,” and that Israeli universities “play a key role in supporting Israel’s system of apartheid rule.”
The measure further calls upon Rutgers and the Rutgers University Foundation to end its partnership with Tel Aviv University and “disallow any future collaboration on Israeli military or intelligence technology.”
Faculty union members also voted to request that the institution ”[p]erform a comprehensive review of the university’s endowment to identify and terminate investments supporting Israeli state and military operations, Israel’s settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide of occupied Palestine territories and the Palestinian people.”
The resolution also calls for divestment from corporations that promote “human rights violations of Palestine,” such as Amazon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Prior to the final vote, the Rutgers JFAS (Jewish Faculty, Administrators, and Staff) released 15 reasons why the referendum should be rejected, stating that the document is “antithetical to the goal of improving working conditions for Rutgers’ faculty and adjuncts; violates and undermines academic freedom; and discriminates on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, and religion.”
According to its website, the Rutgers AAUP-AFT consists of over 5,000 members who have “pledged to use our power as workers and unionists to advance the cause of social justice, democracy, and equality.”