Outreach to Communities
As noted in the ICC Fall 2015 Campus Trends Report, SJP chapters and members spent significant amount of effort building relationships with community members.8 The theme of the 2015
NSJP conference, “From Campuses to Communities: Building a Vision for the Future,” set the
tone for the remainder of the academic year. Community SJP groups formed in a number of
metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. These organizations
provide support in the form of resources and manpower to local campus SJP chapters. In the
Chicago area, organizations including SJP and JVP galvanized community support to stage a
disruption at the 2016 Creating Change Conference.
At the 2016 Creating Change Conference in Chicago, a national gathering for the LGBTQ
community, a Shabbat reception hosted by A Wider Bridge and featuring represe ntatives from
Jerusalem Open House was disrupted when dozens of anti-Israel activists stormed the hallways
of the hotel where the event was taking place, chanting anti-Israel slogans and attempting to
disrupt the reception.9
Anti-Israel Activity Among Graduate Students
Despite overall declines in anti-Israel and BDS activity at the undergraduate level, divestment
initiatives continued to attract support among graduate students. During the 2015-2016 academic
year, graduate student employee unions – which are affiliated with national labor unions and
represent teaching assistants and other student employees – and graduate student governments
– similar in structure and purpose to undergraduate student governments – were successful in
passing BDS legislation at four universities: City University of New York; New York University
(where students later successfully appealed this decision); University of Massachusetts Amherst;
and University of Wisconsin-Madison. The sustained popularity of BDS in graduate student
employee unions and graduate student governments, combined with a declining interest among
undergraduates, indicates a shift in BDS activity to the graduate level.
Over the course of the 2015-2016 academic year, there was an increase in BDS activity among
chapters of national labor unions. During the 2014-2015 academic year, one local union, UAW
2685, passed a BDS resolution, which was subsequently overturned by the International Union,
United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. This past year, ICC
observed three chapters – UAW Local 2110 at New York University, UAW Local 2322 at University
of Massachusetts Amherst, and TAA/AFT Local 3220 at University of Wisconsin-Madison – that
passed BDS legislation. ICC expects to see the number of graduate student employee unions that
pass BDS increasing during the 2016-2017 academic year.
8.
http://israelcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Fall2015CampusTrendsReport.pdf
9.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMMM56lW2i4
9
www.israelcc.org