The BDS movement is still alive and kicking. This is disgraceful news.

Inside Higher Ed reports.

Big Night for Boycott Movement

DENVER – Members of the American Anthropological Association voted in favor of a resolution calling on the group to boycott Israeli academic institutions by a 1,040 to 136 margin at the association’s annual business meeting on Friday evening.

The resolution will be put to a vote by the full AAA membership in the spring. A simple majority vote in favor of the resolution would make the academic boycott association policy. Unlike the Modern Language Association, the AAA does not require a minimum percentage of members to vote on a resolution for it to take effect.

Proponents of the academic boycott see it as a way of protesting Israel’s continued hold on some territories occupied in the Six Day War in 1967, and of standing up for the rights of Palestinians. A motion calling on the AAA to divest from corporations that “profit from the violation of Palestinian human rights and the illegal occupation” also passed on Friday. But because that divestment motion was introduced on the floor (as opposed to the boycott resolution, which was submitted in advance), it will go to the association’s executive board for its consideration and will not automatically be placed on the spring ballot.

The American Association of University Professors opposes academic boycotts as contradictory to fundamental principles of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. But over the past two years, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has gained momentum in academe, with a handful of U.S.-based scholarly associations – most notably the American Studies Association – backing the boycott call. If the more than 10,000-member AAA ultimately follows suit, it would be the largest association to endorse the academic boycott to date.

More than 1,000 anthropologists have already signed onto the boycott of Israeli universities in their individual capacities.