U of I President speaks out against BDS

University of Illinois President Tim Killeen issued a statement Thursday expressing strong opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement under debate on many college campuses.

Killeen said the opposition is consistent with the stance by many national higher-education organizations that have spoken out against the “BDS” movement and its call for a boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

“While we acknowledge and affirm the rights of faculty and students to express their own viewpoints, we believe that actions such as those espoused by BDS would damage academic freedom and may have an intended or unintended anti-Semitic effect, which we utterly condemn,” he said. “We will continue to strenuously oppose actions that go beyond protected speech and that seek to harass, delegitimatize, alienate and spread fear within our student communities on the basis of religion — whether our Jewish and Muslim student bodies or any other religious student community.”

A measure calling on the UI to divest from companies linked to countries with human-rights violations was rejected last week by UI students for the second straight year. Supporters said it was part of a broad movement to support global human rights on issues such as environmental destruction, mass incarceration, child labor and Palestinian rights. Opponents said the measure was anti-Israel.

Killeen spoke during the UI trustees meeting.

Read More: The News-Gazette