First Amendment protects boycotts

Pluecker committed no unlawful act and didn’t bring his views about BDS into the university classroom. His work has nothing to do with this international conflict. He merely refused to compromise his own political beliefs by pledging allegiance to the viewpoints of our current state officials.

In 2017, the state enacted a law designed to punish Texans who participate in anti-Israel boycotts.

It requires that contractors wanting to do business with any state entity or municipality certify that they do not boycott Israel and will not do so for the duration of the contract. The law targets the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement, which encourages worldwide boycotts of Israel as a means of nonviolent opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, among other things.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which takes no position on BDS campaigns or the Israel-Palestine conflict, recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Texans, seeking to have the anti-BDS law declared unconstitutional. Like the ACLU of Texas, I oppose this anti-BDS law because it is a violation of the First Amendment right to boycott.

I am a pro-Israel, pro-peace, anti-BDS American Jew. I see a two-state solution as the only way of preserving the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and of giving the Palestinian people the right of self-determination to which they are entitled.

I reject BDS campaigns because they single out Israel as the sole obstacle to peace. However, I still oppose Texas’ violation of our First Amendment rights through this law.

There are many people, such as the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who honestly believe that BDS campaigns are the best path toward achieving peace in the Middle East. They are not anti-Semitic. I disagree with them, but I must engage those holding opposing views in debate and not rely on the government to stifle them or coerce them into taking a particular political stance.

One of the plaintiffs in the ACLU of Texas lawsuit, John Pluecker, is a translator who has contracted with the University of Houston for many years. When the new law went into effect, and the No Boycott of Israel certification made its way into two contracts provided to Pluecker, he refused to sign the certifications. As a result, he was not permitted to continue his work.

Pluecker committed no unlawful act and didn’t bring his views about BDS into the university classroom. His work has nothing to do with this international conflict. He merely refused to compromise his own political beliefs by pledging allegiance to the viewpoints of our current state officials. There could be no clearer violation of free speech rights.

That same clarity has already been established by the courts. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly established that the right to engage in political boycotts is protected by the First Amendment. That 1982 landmark civil rights case involved black activists boycotting white merchants in a protest for racial equality and racial integration.

Two federal courts have also recently found that laws requiring contractors to certify that they do not boycott Israel infringe on this same right, and previous federal efforts to pass anti-BDS legislation in Congress have failed.

Wherever you stand on this particular topic or other issues of public importance, you need only imagine the government requiring you to choose between giving up your beliefs or giving up your livelihood, like Pluecker had to, to understand the violation here.

What might be next? Could academic freedom be stifled by muzzling professors at state-funded universities who refuse to sign a pledge? Could Texas require this pledge of all teachers in public schools? Could it have required that contractors not boycott South African goods during apartheid?

No — the state couldn’t then and it can’t now or in future debates. This law crosses a firm line. The First Amendment to our Constitution thankfully prevents us from having to bend our views to suit the government. Therefore, we must defend it.