‘If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences,’ Foxx says

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, unveiled a bipartisan bill that would prohibit federal aid from flowing to universities that boycott Israel.

Foxx unveiled the measure, the “Protect Economic Freedom Act,” alongside Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.) on Tuesday. It would amend the Higher Education Act to bar universities that engage in the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement from receiving federal student aid. Under the legislation, universities must submit annual certifications to the Department of Education, showing they are not engaged in a commercial boycott of Israel.

“Enough is enough. Appeasing the antisemitic mobs on college campuses threatens the safety of Jewish students and faculty, and it undermines the relationship between the U.S. and one of our strongest allies,” Foxx said in a statement. “If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences—starting with the Protect Economic Freedom Act.”

In the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, student radicals across the country mobilized to introduce BDS resolutions aimed at compelling their schools to divest from companies with ties to the Jewish state. 

While the terror-tied Palestinian BDS National Committee says it targets companies implicated in Israel’s “unfolding genocide in Gaza,” its boycott list includes a who’s who of corporate giants. Chevron, for example, is included because it extracts natural gas in Israel. Intel is a target because it maintains research and development centers in the Jewish state.

Some top schools, like Brown University and the University of Michigan, have rejected BDS measures in recent months. Still, more than 30 student governments at universities across the country have passed boycott resolutions, according to the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which counts Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other U.S.-designated terror organizations as members.

Thirty-eight states have anti-BDS laws on the books, including Foxx’s North Carolina and Gottheimer’s New Jersey. For Gottheimer, the new bill is necessary to further “protect our Jewish community.”

“While students and faculty are free to speak their minds and disagree on policy issues, we cannot allow antisemitism to run rampant and risk the safety and security of Jewish students, staff, faculty, and guests on college campuses,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “The new bipartisan Project Economic Freedom Act will give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses.”