Discussion · House of Representatives
Robert C. "Bobby" Scott Democrat
“I want the House to vote against this bill. No American college has officially boycotted Israel. A student or teacher sharing an opinion is not the same as an official college policy. We should stop people from treating Jewish people badly, but we should not violate free speech to do it.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will close by returning to the central point: that we must distinguish between student or faculty expression in university policy. A student organization or individual faculty member supporting BDS is not the same thing as the university administration adopting BDS as policy. A faculty member expressing a political opinion is not the same thing as the institution imposing a boycott. Importantly, we have yet to see a single American college or university adopting BDS in the way the bill suggests. Furthermore, we know the bill is intended to target the BDS movement. Yet it is not clear whether a school that even joined the BDS movement would be covered by the text of the bill. The bill implicates ``nonexpressive boycotts’’ as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro) just pointed out. If it is expressive, it is protected by the First Amendment. BDS by its very nature is designed to express disapproval of the actions of the State of Israel. If a college or university came out and publicly said it was joining BDS, most people would agree that that announcement and any activity that flowed from it would clearly be expressive, and therefore, out of the scope of the bill. As an expressive activity, the statement would be protected under the First Amendment, and therefore, the First Amendment would protect the funding from being removed. But, again, no college or university has embraced the BDS movement anyway. We should combat anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, but we should not do so by punishing protected speech or conflating students’ views with university policies. For those reasons I urge a ``no’’ vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.”
Mr. Speaker, I will close by returning to the central point: that we must distinguish between student or faculty expression in university policy. A student organization or individual faculty member supporting BDS is not the same thing as the university administration adopting BDS as policy. A faculty member expressing a political opinion is not the same thing as the institution imposing a boycott. Importantly, we have yet to see a single American college or university adopting BDS in the way the bill suggests. Furthermore, we know the bill is intended to target the BDS movement. Yet it is not clear whether a school that even joined the BDS movement would be covered by the text of the bill. The bill implicates ``nonexpressive boycotts’’ as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro) just pointed out. If it is expressive, it is protected by the First Amendment. BDS by its very nature is designed to express disapproval of the actions of the State of Israel. If a college or university came out and publicly said it was joining BDS, most people would agree that that announcement and any activity that flowed from it would clearly be expressive, and therefore, out of the scope of the bill. As an expressive activity, the statement would be protected under the First Amendment, and therefore, the First Amendment would protect the funding from being removed. But, again, no college or university has embraced the BDS movement anyway. We should combat anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, but we should not do so by punishing protected speech or conflating students’ views with university policies. For those reasons I urge a ``no’’ vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.