The University of California—once home of the legendary Free Speech Movement—has an academic freedom problem. Earlier this year, we witnessed Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor of UC-Berkeley, co-opt the anniversary of Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement to emphasize the limits that “civility” might, in his view, properly impose on freedom of speech. Now comes a new threat to intellectual freedom, as students across the UC system face a potential onslaught of classroom indoctrination. In December, the UAW 2865, the University System’s union for graduate instructors, voted to support the movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Nearly two-thirds of the union’s members voted in support of divestment, and over half pledged to personally abide by an academic boycott of Israeli educational institutions. A union vote alone does not constitute a breach of academic freedom. And UC’s graduate students unquestionably have the right to express whatever political opinions they choose outside the classroom. Nevertheless, the UAW 2865’s vote is profoundly worrisome. First and foremost, academic boycotts are anathema to academic freedom. In order to perform its mission in society—the educating of young minds—the university must maintain a neutral posture on hot-button political questions. As the seminal Kalven Committee Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action states: To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures. … The neutrality of the university … arises then not from a lack of courage nor out of indifference and insensitivity. It arises out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of viewpoints. When an organized group of graduate instructors mutually pledge to use their role within the ivory tower as leverage to push a political goal, they violate the spirit, and perhaps even the letter, of the standards the Kalven Committee articulated half a century ago. It is for good reason that the American Association of University Professors has long opposed such boycotts. Beneath the vote in favor of divestment also lurks a threat to students in the classroom. The American Council of Trustees & Alumni has often noted that while academic freedom includes professors’ freedom to research and teach free of censorious oversight, it also includes the freedom of students to learn free from indoctrination. The UC System’s Regents rightfully recognize this in their “Policy on Course Content,” which unequivocally states that “the University must remain aloof from politics … Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used for political indoctrination … constitutes misuse of the university as an institution.” With so many graduate instructors, all entrusted with educating undergraduates throughout UC’s campuses, pledged to support the BDS movement, the threat to the integrity of classroom instruction is clear. It is exacerbated by the fact that more than 40 faculty members have expressed support for the union’s endorsement of BDS. UC’s provost has rightfully sent a memorandum to all US chancellors enumerating the school’s policies which prohibit co-opting the classroom for ideological ends. The UC System must continue taking these positive precautions and forcefully, publicly, and unequivocally reiterate its policy against coopting the classroom for political indoctrination and make it clear that there will be sanctions against those faculty who use the classroom to push an anti-Israel, pro-BDS agenda. Balancing the right of faculty to teach and the right of students to truly learn has never been an easy task. But the University of California System is being called upon to do just that. Such an effort will require vigilance, sound judgment, and just a bit of courage. The moment of truth is coming. We hope the University of California passes the test.