McGill Student Union Calls BDS Violation of Group’s Constitution
Image by Wikipedia
MONTREAL — Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions resolutions that “actively campaign” against Israel run counter to the McGill University’s undergraduate student union constitution, the union’s judicial board agreed.
While the board decision, called a “reference,” still faces ratification by the Student Society of McGill University’s board of directors, the move on Wednesday is being hailed as a victory on a campus where BDS motions have tried but failed to pass three times over 18 months.
The decision “is a clear signal that the SSMU understands the nature of BDS on campus,” said Patrick Benaroche of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs in Quebec.
The reference was the judicial board’s response to a complaint filed in March by a McGill student upset over the third BDS motion proposed at the university a month earlier.
The student, Zev Macklin, considered the motion unconstitutional.
In its reference, the board stressed that it was not issuing a judgment, only an “advisory opinion,” and that the opinion allowed for condemning actions by nations – but not the nations themselves.
It noted that its opinion might have been different had the pro-BDS motion restricted itself to calling on McGill to curtail its investment in countries cooperating in Israel’s occupation.
But the motion also supported the overall aims of the BDS movement against Israel itself, the judicial board said.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $325,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
