Published by JNS on 10/17/2025 by: Rory Lancman The University of Massachusetts has just struck an important blow against discrimination and antisemitism, as well as academic freedom. This November, the university is teaming up with the Coalition of Women in German (WiG) as host of WiG’s annual academic conference on the UMass Amherst campus, a conference that, unbeknownst to the university, was primed to discriminate against Israeli scholars.WiG has in place an anti-Israel BDS policy prohibiting anyone from relying on financial support from “Israeli institutions” to attend and participate in its programs. WiG makes clear that this includes not just funding from Israeli governmental agencies, but “all Israeli academic and cultural institutions.”To put it simply, UMass was about to unwittingly facilitate an effective boycott of a group of people, one that is experiencing increased hate at a time when instances of antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric are soaring.As officials from WiG and UMass know, scholars (whether a professor, researcher or student) cannot afford to participate in far-away academic conferences with their own resources, regardless of how important it is to maintain the quality and currentness of their scholarship and to their career prospects. That’s why schools set aside funds to cover the costs of attendance for their scholars and for their membership in academic professional associations in their fields of study.The government of Israel has established such a fund for its universities and their affiliated scholars to cover travel, lodging, registration and other costs associated with attendance at international academic conferences. Called the International Science Relations Fund, it represents a sum of money appropriated annually, managed by the relevant Israeli university and used by the scholars. Regardless of whether the funding originates with a government or with a university’s own funds, it is the custom across academia that scholars rely on resources from their home academic institution to be able to attend academic conferences that are an important aspect of their responsibilities as scholars. That’s why the WiG BDS policy prohibiting attendees and participants from using “funding from an Israeli institution” is too clever by half. In reality, the policy is a form of unlawful national origin discrimination against Israeli scholars. No other scholars from any other nation in the world have this burden. Although the WiG BDS policy tries to avoid the bright red flag that explicit discrimination against Israelis would wave by focusing on funding from “an Israeli institution” instead of barring Israelis outright, the effect is the same, and the real import of the policy is obvious: WiG doesn’t want Israeli scholars of German to attend its conference. They aim to prevent them from giving a talk, sharing research, sitting as a panelist in a discussion, establishing a collaboration on a project or getting any career or individual benefit out of being a part of the conference.Beyond this, the cruel absurdity of an organization of scholars of German culture boycotting primarily Jewish scholars somehow escapes WiG’s leadership.This form of national origin discrimination is a clear violation of the University of Massachusetts’ anti-discrimination policy, which “prohibits unlawful discrimination … on the basis of … national origin … in any aspect of the access to, admission, or treatment of students in its programs and activities, or in employment and application for employment, in education, admission, access to or treatment in, its programs, services, benefits, activities, and terms and conditions of employment at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.” The UMass policy also covers a “guest, or visitor who acts to deny, deprive or limit the educational, employment, residential and/or social access, benefits, and/or opportunities of any member of the campus community on the basis of their actual or perceived membership in the protected classes listed above,” such as national origin.National origin discrimination is serious, as serious and suspect as any discrimination based on race and color under our constitution, and requires courts to examine national origin distinctions with the highest level of scrutiny. Federal law prohibits national origin discrimination in federally funded programs (such as schools and health-care facilities), public accommodations, employment, housing and consumer credit. Forty-seven states prohibit employment discrimination based on national origin, and 45 states prohibit national origin discrimination in public accommodations.It comes as no surprise, then, that the WiG conference also likely violates Massachusetts state anti-discrimination laws, including the Massachusetts Public Accommodation Law and the Massachusetts Equal Rights Act.To its credit, when the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law alerted UMass to this issue, the school acted quickly to require WiG, as a condition for conducting its conference on the UMass Amherst campus, that the WiG BDS policy not be in effect for any part of the conference. Israeli scholars, in addition to those UMass scholars who would benefit from the expertise and insight their Israeli colleagues might offer at the conference, deserved better than the exclusionary and discriminatory BDS policy that the Women in German academic association was attempting to perpetuate on campus.UMass has reinforced an important principle: College policies—and federal and state laws prohibiting national origin discrimination—apply to Israelis, too. And any organization that wants the benefits of engaging and partnering with a university has the responsibility of doing so on terms that allow Israelis equal opportunities for participation.