As of 2024, 38 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel. Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support. Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel. Separately, the
U.S. Congress has considered anti-boycott legislation in reaction to the BDS movement. The
U.S. Senate passed S.1, which contained anti-boycott provisions, on 28 January 2019, by a vote of 74–19. The
U.S. House passed a resolution condemning the boycott of Israel on 24 July 2019, by a vote of 398–17. Senators
Marco Rubio (
R-FL),
Bill Cassidy (
R-LA),
Mike Braun (
R-IN),
Rick Scott (
R-FL),
Bill Hagerty (
R-TN), and
Steve Daines (
R-MT) reintroduced the Combating BDS Act of 2023. So far, no federal law has been adopted.
Groups that promote anti-BDS laws Groups that oppose anti-BDS laws Lobbying The spread of anti-BDS laws in U.S. states is largely due to the lobbying of the
Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), an Israeli group that encourages formation of pro-Israel caucuses in foreign parliaments. In 2015, in response to South Carolina's anti-BDS law, IAF announced that it had drafted a
model act, combining the anti-BDS bills in South Carolina and Illinois. A model act is a "template bill" that can be enacted in many legislatures with little or no modification. IAF also announced that 18 more states were "committed to introducing" similar legislation in their states. The Copy, Paste, Legislate investigation into the proliferation of model acts in U.S. state politics revealed that, in addition to IAF,
AIPAC, the
Israel Action Network, and local
Jewish Federations were directly involved in lobbying for anti-BDS laws. In three states, Arizona, California, and Nevada, the lobbying efforts were spearheaded by Dillon Hosier, a lobbyist working for
Adam Milstein's
Israeli-American Council. Israeli officials congratulated some states after enacting anti-BDS bills.
Gilad Erdan of the
Ministry of Strategic Affairs, wrote an email to Ohio Governor
John Kasich after signing his state's anti-BDS bill into law: "I sincerely appreciate your contribution." In 2016, Israel's ambassador to the UN,
Danny Danon, claimed that his government was "advancing legislation in many countries ... so that it will simply be illegal to boycott Israel." In February 2020, Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted about his government's lobbying successes:
Legal analysis As of 2020, the question of whether American anti-BDS laws are constitutional has not yet been settled in courts. Many analysts believe that sooner or later there will be a legal showdown due to the controversial nature of the laws. The debate about the laws' constitutionality focuses on two central issues: • Whether boycotts of Israel, and boycotts in general, can be considered a form of discrimination on the same level as discrimination based on gender, race, or similar attributes. • Whether political boycotts are protected speech. If so, laws designed to stop them could violate the
First Amendment-protected
freedom of speech. The answer to the first question has implications for the answer to the latter; if the boycotts of Israel are discriminatory, the government could be free to enact laws against them. In the following sections, those who claim that anti-BDS laws are constitutional are referred to as "proponents" and those that claim that they are not are referred to as "critics".
Discrimination argument Proponents argue that boycotts of Israel are a form of discrimination because they target a particular group (Israelis) with the intent of inflicting economic harm on them. Since there is no legal test for deciding whether a consumer boycott is discriminatory, the discrimination argument is based on laws regulating discrimination in other areas, such as employment, disability and housing. In particular, two doctrines in
labor law have been referred to:
disparate treatment or "discriminatory intent" and
disparate impact. These laws were not drafted to regulate political boycotts, which limits their applicability, but they have nevertheless been used to analyze whether boycotts of Israel are discriminatory.
Disparate treatment Disparate treatment refers to decision-making based on a person's membership in a protected class. Proponents argue that BDS leaders' calls for Israel to cease to exist as a "Jewish state" are antisemitic. Critics contend that the allegation is conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Opposing Israel as a Jewish state is anti-Zionist but not antisemitic, they argue. Critics also point out that the organization that coordinates BDS, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), officially opposes antisemitism and encourages supporters to select boycott targets based on their complicity in Israel's human rights violations and likelihood of success, rather than on their national origin or religious identity. Proponents note that BDS singles out Israel for boycott while ignoring human rights abuses in other parts of the world. They argue that this focus is driven by animosity towards Jews or Israelis and that it is circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent. They refer to the
Working Definition of Antisemitism which gives "Applying double standards by requiring of it [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation" as an example of antisemitism. The claim, which relies on the
but-for test, a legal doctrine for establishing causality in discrimination cases, is that BDS would not have boycotted Israel if not for its Jewish or Israeli identity. Critics counter that the
but-for claim is not supported by evidence. They argue that since the majority of companies targeted for boycotts by the BNC are not Israeli companies, but foreign companies targeted for their complicity in the Israeli human rights violations, anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli animosity could not be BDS' motivation. Critics reason that if political boycotts of countries were illegal discrimination, many current and historical boycotts would also be illegal discrimination. The
US sanctions against Iran would be anti-Iranian discrimination and if singling out an entity for boycott is discriminatory, most political movements using boycotts would be discriminatory. The
Anti-Apartheid Movement would have had to address the suffering of people in other African countries too, to escape the charge of singling out South Africa. Critics claim that is unreasonable. Following the
Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, critics of the Israeli government pointed out that several American politicians who supported
sanctions against Russia and the
boycott of Russia and Belarus had previously campaigned for and passed anti-BDS laws punishing
boycotts of Israel.
Disparate impact The
disparate impact argument complements the disparate treatment argument by stating that the boycott harms Jewish or Israeli entities, even if that is not its intent. That is, the boycott is "fair in form, but discriminatory in operation". Critics argue that the disparate impact doctrine was developed with employment discrimination in mind and is not applicable to BDS and even if it was, the argument would fail. The plaintiff would have to show that the behavior has an adverse impact on Israeli or Jewish businesses. But the majority of companies targeted by BDS are not Israeli, making it difficult to argue that the boycott harms such entities. Even if Jewish or Israeli business were disproportionately impacted by BDS' boycott, critics argue that BDS could defend its boycott as a "business necessity" because its goal, ending Israel's human rights violations, is legitimate. An objection could be that BDS should use other methods that does not affect third parties. But given the failure of the many political initiatives in ending Israel's human rights violations, BDS could argue that a boycott of Israel is one of the few remaining options.
Free speech argument Critics claim that anti-BDS laws are unconstitutional because participation in political boycotts is protected speech and the government cannot require citizens to relinquish First Amendment rights in exchange for government contracts. To show this, critics refer to
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. which was about an
NAACP-initiated a boycott against white merchants in
Claiborne. The goal of the boycott was to pressure city officials to meet demands about racial integration. The Supreme Court in its decision found that boycotts to bring about political change occupy "the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values". Proponents contend that boycotting is not per se
expressive conduct equivalent to speech and therefore not protected speech. They view
calling for a boycott as distinct from
participating in one. The former would be protected speech, while the latter, which anti-BDS laws address, would not. Someone calling for a boycott of Israel would not be affected by anti-BDS laws as long as they themselves did not boycott Israel. To them,
Claiborne Hardware is irrelevant because it affirmed the right to
call for a boycott but not to
participate in one. This view was taken by the Arkansas district court that ruled on
Arkansas Times LP v. Mark Waldrip. It argued that
Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, Inc. (
FAIR) was the controlling case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could withhold funds from universities for refusing to give military recruiters access to school resources. Universities denying access to military recruiters is analogous to boycotting Israel, proponents argue. Since the Supreme Court ruled that denying access to military recruiters was not expressive conduct neither could boycotts of Israel be expressive conduct. Critics argue that the analogy does not hold because
FAIR was not about boycotting and participation in a political boycott is obvious expressive conduct. Discarding
Claiborne Hardware, proponents draw analogies between anti-BDS laws and anti-discrimination laws which forbid government contractors from discriminating based on gender and similar attributes. Critics argue that the analogy is inappropriate because, for example, an employer refusing to hire gay people is neither a political act nor expressive conduct. Even if a boycott has a discriminatory component, which the boycott ruled on in
Claiborne Hardware had, it is still protected speech, critics assert. Another objection to
Claiborne Hardware is that the case was about the lawfulness of boycotts, but anti-BDS laws merely withdraw a privilege from boycotters: that of being eligible for government contracts. This argument runs afoul of the "unconstitutional conditions" doctrine, critics argue. The doctrine holds that the government "may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests—especially, his interest in freedom of speech". This doctrine was promulgated in two seminal Supreme Court cases;
Pickering v. Board of Education and
Elrod v. Burns. However, these cases involved existing business relations between private entities and the government. Whether the doctrine of "unconstitutional conditions" applies to situations where no existing business relationship exists has not been addressed by the Supreme Court. Critics also cite
USAID v. Alliance for Open Society (2013) where the Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot require organizations to profess a specific viewpoint as a condition for government funding. But anti-BDS laws coerce contractors bidding to profess to a specific viewpoint, namely of not boycotting Israel, which would be an unlawful "constitutional condition".
Lack of clarity Critics state that many anti-BDS laws are not specific enough in what activities they target. Timothy Cuffman cites the Arizona anti-BDS statute which defines a "boycott" as "engaging in a refusal to deal, terminating business activities or performing other actions that are intended to limit commercial relations". In his view, this definition is overly broad and extends far beyond the dictionary definition of the word "boycott". He further argues that many of the laws do not clarify whether divestment is to be considered a form of prohibited boycott or not, nor how a company could be penalized for partaking in "sanctions" as they are imposed by governments or intergovernmental entities.
Other arguments Proponents argue that the
Tax Reform Act of 1976 and the
Export Administration Act of 1979 which penalizes individuals and companies participating in "international boycotts" establishes a precedent. Critics offer two responses: first,
Claiborne Hardware was not settled in 1979 so it was not yet clear that political boycotts were protected speech; second, these acts referred to boycotts organized by foreign nations, but BDS is a grassroots initiative organized by civil society groups. Another argument is based on
Longshoremen v. Allied International, Inc., where the Supreme Court held that a
trade union that refused to unload cargo from the
Soviet Union in protest against the country's
invasion of Afghanistan had engaged in an illegal
secondary boycott. Proponents claim that this case sets a precedent since it singled out a specific country and affected parties not directly involved in the dispute, just like boycotts of Israel do. Critics view
Longshoremen as irrelevant because the case was about labor law and such boycotts have consistently been analyzed differently from boycotts by civil rights groups.
Federal anti-BDS bills and laws The
Protect Academic Freedom Act () was introduced to the
113th session of Congress by Republican Representative
Peter Roskam on 6 February 2014. The bill would amend the
Higher Education Act of 1965 making institutions of higher education ineligible from federal funding if they participated in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions or scholars. The bill died after being deferred to the
United States House Committee on Education and Labor. Roskam and co-sponsor
Juan Vargas introduced another anti-BDS bill,
United States-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act (), in February 2015. According to them, the bill would "leverage ongoing trade negotiations to discourage prospective U.S. trade partners from engaging in economic discrimination against Israel" through the monitoring of pro-BDS activities of foreign companies that trade on American stock exchanges and by prohibiting American courts from "enforcing rulings made by foreign courts against American companies solely for conducting business in Israel". However, the bill did not impose penalties for supporting BDS. Roskam justified the bill, which could affect negotiations for the
Transatlantic Free Trade Area, by claiming that there were a large number of countries that have embraced BDS. In March 2015, the
Boycott Our Enemies, not Israel Act () was introduced to the
114th session of Congress by Republican Representative
Doug Lamborn to the House with 13 cosponsors. The bill required current and prospective government contractors to certify that they did not participate in a boycott of Israel. If they did, they would face penalties. The bill died in the Foreign Affairs Committee. The
Israel Anti-Boycott Act (; ) was introduced to the House and Senate by two identical bills on in March 2017 by Roskam and Democratic Senator
Ben Cardin respectively. After causing a great deal of debate over its implications on free speech, the act eventually died in Congress. The Anti-Boycott Act of 2018, passed as part of the
John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, does not target boycotts against Israel specifically, but makes it illegal to "comply with, further, or support any boycott fostered or imposed by any foreign country, against a country which is friendly to the United States" and as the Office of Antiboycott Compliance notes "The
Arab League boycott of Israel is the principal unsanctioned foreign boycott that U.S. persons must be concerned with today." In 2019, one of the co-sponsors to the Israel Anti-Boycott Act,
Marco Rubio, introduced the
Combating BDS Act () to the
116th session of Congress in a package of three other bills related to the
Middle East where it passed the Senate without much debate. The act has so far not been taken up in the House. The
House of Representatives passed a bill in July 2019 condemning the BDS movement, with a bipartisan vote of 398–17, with five abstentions. In May 2023,
Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and
Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced legislation, the
IGO Anti-Boycott Act, expanding anti-boycott laws to include blocking boycotts organized by
international governmental organizations, with the intended effect of stopping the
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in the United States. It would prohibit American citizens and companies from supporting boycotts imposed by global entities (IGOs) against U.S. allies including Israel. The bill faced heavy criticism from
House Republicans and
conservatives who said it would violate Americans'
First Amendment rights. House Republican leadership scrapped a vote on the bill in May 2025.
Constitutional challenges As of 2020, a handful of plaintiffs have sued states with anti-BDS laws charging that they violate their First Amendment rights, with decisions being split.
Mikkel Jordahl v. Mark Brnovich In 2017, Mikkel Jordahl, who ran his own law firm and contracted with the State of Arizona, refused to certify that he was not participating in boycotts of Israel. Consequently, the state refused to pay him. Jordahl sued the state claiming that his
First Amendment rights had been violated. On 27 September 2018, the Arizona district court ruled in his favor, granting him a preliminary
injunction, preventing the state from enforcing the bill's certification requirement. The court ruled that Arizona's anti-BDS laws were applied to politically motivated actions and therefore did not regulate only commercial speech. The state appealed. While the decision was pending, the certification requirement was amended by bill SB 1167 so that Jordahl and his law firm would be exempted. The appeals court therefore found that the claim was now
moot.
Koontz v. Watson In May 2017, public school educator Esther Koontz began a personal boycott against Israeli businesses. On 10 July 2017, Koontz was to begin to serve as a teacher trainer implemented by the
Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE). The program director asked Koontz to sign a certificate that she was not involved in a boycott of Israel, which she refused to do. KSDE therefore declined to pay or contract with Koontz. Koontz brought a lawsuit against the state, represented by Kansas Commissioner of Education,
Randall Watson and requested a preliminary injunction. The court granted Koontz request for a preliminary injunction, arguing that the law the state relied on was likely unconstitutional and that Kansas therefore must not enforce the law. The court declared that Koontz' conduct was "inherently expressive" because it was easily associated "with the message that the boycotters believe Israel should improve its treatment of Palestinians". The court further concluded that forcing Koontz "to disown her boycott is akin to forcing plaintiff to accommodate Kansas's message of support for Israel". In 2018 the Kansas state legislature amended the law so that it would not affect Koontz and ACLU that had represented Koontz dropped the case.
Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip The weekly newspaper
Arkansas Times had for two years published over 83 paid advertisements on a contractual basis for
University of Arkansas – Pulaski Technical College. In October 2018, before renewing the advertising contract, the university asked the paper to certify that it was not, and would not, engage in boycotts against Israel. The paper had supplied such certifications before, but this time the paper's publisher and chief executive officer Alan Leveritt, refused. The paper brought the matter to trial and challenged the constitutionality of Act 710, claiming that it violated the paper's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and requested a preliminary injunction. The District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the motion for a preliminary injunction on 23 January 2019. It argued that Act 710 only "concerns a contractor's purchasing activities with respect to Israel" and that it does not prevent criticism of Israel or even calls to boycott Israel. It further asserted that purchasing activities are "neither speech nor inherently expressive conduct". The Court therefore concluded that the First Amendment did not protect the paper's refusal to promise to not boycott Israel. In February 2019, the paper represented by ACLU appealed the decision to
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In April 2019, the
Institute for Free Speech and the
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education filed an
amicus brief arguing that Act 710 is unconstitutional. while
StandWithUs,
Agudath Israel of America, and the
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America filed one in support of the State. In February 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the decision of the lower court and determined that the Arkansas law violated the First Amendment. On 22 June 2022, the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued its decision holding that the law was constitutional and did not violate the First Amendment as it was intended to serve "purely commercial purposes".
Abby Martin v. the State of Georgia Documentary filmmaker
Abby Martin was invited to speak at an event at
Georgia Southern University on 28 February 2020. She was supposed to be paid $1,000 for her speech. She was asked to sign a pledge to agree not to boycott Israel which she refused to do and her speaking arrangement was subsequently cancelled. She therefore announced on 10 January 2020, that she had filed a free speech lawsuit against the State of Georgia and Georgia Southern University over its anti-BDS law. She was represented by CAIR Legal Defense Fund and the
Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. On 24 May 2021, the
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in Martin's favor, holding that Georgia Southern violated her First Amendment rights.
Amawi v. Pflugerville Independent School District Amawi v. Pflugerville Independent School District was a case in Texas where the plaintiffs had all faced potential or real loss of employment with the State of Texas for being unwilling to sign contracts promising not to participate in boycott activities against Israel. The plaintiffs were: • Bahia Amawi, an American speech pathologist of Palestinian origin. She had contracted with the
Pflugerville Independent School District (PISD) for nine years but refused to sign an addendum to her contract requiring her to refrain from boycotting Israel for the duration of her employment. She subsequently lost her contract. PISD initially told Amawi that she could strike out the "No Boycott of Israel" paragraph but later said that agreeing to it was mandatory. • John Pluecker, a freelance writer, artist, interpreter, and translator, active in the BDS movement. He had contracted with the
University of Houston for several years. He also lost his contract after refusing to agree to the "No Boycott of Israel" clause of his contract. • Zachary Abdelhadi, a Palestinian-American student at Texas State University in San Marcos. He was offered the opportunity to judge debate tournaments for Lewisville Independent School District but refused to sign the District's contract which included the same anti-boycott Israel clause. • Obinna Dennar, another Texan student. He similarly was required to agree not to boycott Israel to judge a debate tournament in Klein High School, which he refused. • George Hale, a radio reporter. He claimed that the radio station he worked for
KETR coerced him into agreeing to the "No Boycott of Israel" clause of his employment contract. The Texan District Court had to consider whether Texas may prohibit boycotting the State of Israel as a condition for employment. The Court in its decision on 25 April 2019, dismissed three cases often cited by proponents of anti-BDS laws:
Rumsfeld v. FAIR, ''International Longshoremen's Association v. Allied International, Inc.
, and Briggs & Stratton Corp. v. Baldridge
, and instead it relied on the case NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.'' The Court held that "content based laws ... are presumptively unconstitutional" and that "[v]iewpoint-based regulations impermissibly 'license one side of a debate' and 'create the possibility that the [government] is seeking to handicap the expression of particular ideas. It further asserted that the law the State had relied on, HB 89, was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, said in response to the ruling: "By any name, that's free speech and free speech is the north star of our democracy. It's foundational, and this decision underlines that no issue of importance can be addressed if the speech about it is stymied, or worse, silenced."
Related cases These cases are not about anti-BDS laws
per se, but about various boycotts targeting Israel.
Olympia Food Co-op lawsuit In July 2010, the board of directors of the Olympia Food Co-op (OFC) decided to institute a boycott of Israeli goods. On 11 March 2011,
StandWithUs and
Akiva Tor, the Israeli Consul General to the Pacific Northwest, met with five members of the co-op and their attorney. Around the same time, four of those five co-op members appeared in a video produced by StandWithUs, describing the negative impact they felt the boycott had had on the co-op. Six months later the five members sued the co-op in a case known as
Davis, et al., v. Cox, et al. arguing that the board had acted beyond their scope of their authority and breached their fiduciary duties. The defendants were aided by the
Center for Constitutional Rights and the plaintiffs by StandWithUs. The Court ruled in 2012 that the lawsuit was an illegal
Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) and ordered the five co-op members to pay the 16 defendants $10,000 each under Washington's anti-SLAPP statute as well as other legal fees. The five plaintiffs appealed the decision to the
Washington State Court of Appeals which on 7 April 2014, upheld the ruling of the lower court. It also upheld the constitutionality of Washington's anti-SLAPP law, which the plaintiffs had challenged. In 2015,
Washington Supreme Court struck down the anti-SLAPP law which meant that the case could be reopened. But at that point, the plaintiffs had abandoned the case and the litigation was ended on 9 March 2018.
American Studies Association boycott lawsuit The
American Studies Association (ASA) joined the
academic boycott of Israel in 2013 and in 2016 it was sued by four ASA members represented by
Kenneth L. Marcus of the
Brandeis Center and Jerome Marcus of the Israeli think tank
Kohelet Policy Forum. The lawsuit alleged that the boycott fell outside the scope of the ASA's corporate charter and stated mission, a type of legal argument known as
ultra vires. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2019 when the judge ruled that plaintiffs lacked standing. A second, related case filed in the state of New York was previously dismissed for "[demonstrating] neither injury nor standing to sue".
Anti-BDS laws by state Alaska On 19 February 2024, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy issued an administrative order stating that all state contracts must include a clause that "the support or participation of a boycott of Israel shall be grounds for termination of the contract".
Alabama In 2016, SB 81 was signed into law, prohibiting public entities from contracting with business or non-profit organizations that participate in "discriminatory" boycotts or boycotts with Alabama enjoys open trade. The bill was sponsored by Republican Senator
Arthur Orr.
Arizona On 17 March 2016, Arizona governor
Doug Ducey signed bill HB 2617 into law. The law creates a blacklist of companies which boycott Israel and forbids the State from investing in them. It also requires entities contracting with Arizona to certify that they are not engaged in boycotts of Israel. In 2019, in response to a court that had blocked the enforcement of HB 2617, the law was amended by SB 1167. The amendment restricted the law so that it would only apply to state contractors with ten or more employees and contracts worth more than $100,000. IAC for Action lobbied Ducey to sign the bill, according to
The Intercept.
Arkansas In March 2017, the governor of Arkansas,
Asa Hutchinson, signed Act 710 into law which prohibits Arkansas agencies from investing in or contracting with companies unless they sign a pledge not to boycott Israel or offer a 20% cut in compensation in lieu of signing such a pledge. The bill underlying the law, SB 513, was introduced to the state Senate by
Bart Hester where it passed with the vote 29–0. It was subsequently sent to the House where it passed 69–3.
California California governor
Jerry Brown signed bill AB 2844 into law on 24 September 2016, after it passed the
Senate 34–1, with
Bill Monning as the only dissenter. The main promoter of the bill, Democratic Assemblyman
Richard Bloom, claimed that he worked closely with lobbyist Dillon Hosier to get the bill passed: "Dillon and the IAC worked very closely with me and my legislative team to assure passage and the governor's signature on AB2844 ... [rallying] IAC members to email, call and provide other advocacy on behalf of the Israeli-American community". According to
The Intercept, Bloom has received $7,000 in campaign contributions from IAC Chairman
Adam Milstein since 2016. The law requires state contracts to certify that they are complying with California's anti-discrimination laws and that none of their policies against a nation or people is used for discrimination. The bill was rewritten several times after thousands of people protested and after legal experts asserted that the bill was unconstitutional. Therefore, while the intent of the bill was to combat BDS, in actuality it does not, according to Palestine Legal and
Center for Constitutional Rights. They argue that BDS campaigns are not discriminatory under the law. The operative part of the bill states that for any contract worth $100,000 or more, the bidder must be
Colorado On 19 February 2016, a bipartisan coalition of Coloradoan legislators introduced the bill HB 16–1284. The bill required the state to set up a blacklist of for-profit entities boycotting Israel, so that the
Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA), the fund for the state's
public employee pension plan, could divest from them. The fund would also be prohibited from making future investments in blacklisted entities. Governor
John Hickenlooper signed bill HB 16-1284 into law 18 March 2016 after it had passed the House and Senate with the votes 54–10 and 25–9 respectively. The bill was opposed by the ACLU, Friends of Sabeel Colorado, a local chapter of
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Coloradoans for Justice in Palestine and by PERA officials who said the bill would create extra administrative work.
Florida Florida's state legislature passed the anti-BDS bill SB 86 on 24 February 2016, and it was signed into law on 10 March 2016. The law had the following effects: • requires Florida to create an online blacklist of companies and for-profit organizations that boycott Israel, • prohibits public entities in Florida from entering into contracts worth $1 million or more with blacklisted entities or others who boycott Israel, and • prevents state pension funds from investing in companies engaging in politically motivated boycotts of Israel. The bill was criticized by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida who wrote an open letter to Governor
Rick Scott, urging him to use his veto. It alleged that the bill was a form of "retribution for the content of speech" and warned that approval of the bill would "undoubtedly lead to litigation challenging its constitutionality that will be both needless and needlessly costly". In 2018, the State legislature passed the bill HB 545, introduced by Republican Representative
Randy Fine and Democrat Representative
Jared Moskowitz, to do away with the $1 million threshold in the 2016 law. In 2019, Republican Representative
Randy Fine introduced the bill HB 741, amending the state's anti-discrimination law to adopt a contested redefinition of antsemitism including the so-called "
3D test" of antisemitism. The bill passed the legislature unanimously and was signed into law by the governor in May. A group of 30 Jewish Floridans wrote to the governor, urging him to veto the bill because they thought it conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Fine dismissed their concerns as being unrepresentative of Florida's Jewish community. The village of
Bal Harbour in Florida has passed two anti-BDS ordinances; one in 2015 titled "Non-discrimination" which prevents the village from entering into a contract with a business engaging in boycotts, and one in 2017, adopting a definition of antisemitism which labels most criticism of Israel as antisemitic according to Palestine Legal.
Georgia The bill SB 327 passed the House and Senate with the votes 95–71 and 41–8 and was signed into law in April 2016. The law requires companies and individuals to certify that they are not boycotting Israel or Israeli settlements to be eligible for contract work with the state. The law waives the certification requirement for contracts worth less than $1,000. The law was supported by the Israeli Consulate, the Israel Project, the Israel Allies Foundation, and American Jewish Committee among others and opposed by the
Center for Constitutional Rights.
Deborah Silcox and
Michael Wilensky introduced an amendment to the law, HB 1058, in February 2020 to raise the certification exemption from $1,000 to $100,000 in response to documentary filmmaker
Abby Martin suing the
University of Georgia for cancelling her speaking arrangement after she refused to pledge not to boycott Israel. According to Silcox, the Israeli consulate in
Atlanta had requested an amendment to that effect. In May 2021, Martin announced she was successful in getting the above law struck down in Georgia as unconstitutional.
Illinois On 23 July 2015, Illinois became the first state in the US to explicitly punish boycotts of Israel as the bill SB 1761 was signed into law by Governor
Bruce Rauner. The law sets up a blacklist of non-American companies that boycott Israel and requires the state's pension funds to divest from them. Chicago's Jewish federation the Jewish United Fund, the New York-based American Jewish Committee and other organizations had lobbied for the bill. In January 2020,
House Representative Jonathan Carroll introduced the bill HB 4049 which adopts a contested definition of antisemitism equating criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish discrimination. The language of the bill draws heavily on the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's
Working Definition of Antisemitism in which "Delegitimizing the State of Israel by denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and denying the State of Israel the right to exist" is labelled a form of antisemitism. The bill would make public schools and universities culpable for failing to treat discrimination as defined by the bill in the same manner that they treat discrimination motivated by race.
Indiana In January 2016, the
Indiana General Assembly passed the bill HB 1378 authored by Republican Representative
Brian Bosma and co-authored by Republican Representatives
Bill Fine,
Martin Carbaugh,
Mike Speedy,
Timothy Wesco,
Woody Burton,
Christopher Judy,
Edward Clere,
Jerry Torr, and Democrat representative
Ed DeLaney. It passed unanimously in the
Indiana House of Representatives and with the vote 47–3 in the
Indiana State Senate. The bill mandated the setup of a blacklist of commercial enterprises and non-profit organizations boycotting Israel. The blacklist would be used by funds managed by the State, such as the teachers' retirement fund and the public employees retirement fund, to divest from such entities. Elliot Bartky, of the Jewish Affairs Committee of Indiana, welcomed the bill. Erin Polley of the
American Friends Service Committee's Indiana Peacebuilding Program criticized the bill and said that it "punishes the businesses that refuse to do business in land that has been illegally occupied".
Iowa In April 2016, the
Iowa General Assembly passed a law that prohibits state investment and procurement with companies that boycott Israel. In the state senate the bill HF 2331 passed with the vote 38–9 and in the
Iowa House of Representatives with 70–24. The bill was subsequently signed into law by governor
Terry Branstad. The bill mandated the setup of a list of "scrutinized companies" from which state managed public funds must divest from. ACLU of Iowa criticized the bill. In February 2020, the bill HF 2504 was introduced, requiring government entities to use the
Working Definition of antisemitism in determining whether alleged discrimination was motivated by "discriminatory antisemitic intent". The bill passed the House in March. Lara Friedman called the bill a weapon "in the battle to quash activism and criticism targeting Israel".
Kansas On 16 June 2017, HB 2409 was signed into laws by
Kansas governor
Sam Brownback. The law requires individuals and companies to certify that they are not boycotting Israel to be eligible for contracts with or procurement from the State. In 2018, the law was amended by HB 2482 to preclude the outcome of an ongoing lawsuit (
Koontz v. Watson) brought against the State by the ACLU. The new law would only apply to companies with contracts worth more than $100,000 and would not affect sole proprietors. In 2019, Democrat House representative
John Carmichael introduced HB 2015 that would repeal the anti-BDS law, but it died in committee.
Kentucky In November 2018, Kentucky's governor
Matt Bevin signed an executive order 2018-905 requiring contractors to certify that they did not boycott Israel. Bevin stated that Netanyahu had lobbied for such a policy during the summer. The executive order was followed the next year by the bill SB 143, signed into law on 25 March 2019, limiting the law to contractors with five or more employees and contracts valued $100,000 or more.
Louisiana On 22 May 2018, governor
John Bel Edwards signed an executive order requiring state vendors to certify that they are not boycotting Israel and will not for the duration of the contract boycott Israel. In 2019, the bill HB 245 was enacted, codifying the executive order. The bill limited the certification requirement to vendors with more than five employees and contracts worth more than $100,000. The Copy, Paste, Legislate investigation found that Edwards did not write the executive order nor the press release accompanying it. Instead, they were sent to him by Mithun Kamath of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans. Kamath claimed the executive order was reviewed by
AIPAC and the
Israel Action Network, a group founded to "counter delegitimization" of Israel.
Maryland Governor
Larry Hogan signed executive order 1 January 2017.25 into law on 23 October 2017. The order prohibited execute agencies from entering into procurement contracts with companies that boycotted Israel. The order came after activists for several years had successfully defeated similar legislative initiatives.
Michigan The anti-BDS law in Michigan is from January 2017 when governor
Rick Snyder signed the bills HB 5821 and HB 5822 into law. They prohibit the state from entering into construction and repair contracts and from procurement of supplies, services, or information technology with entities boycotting Israel.
Minnesota Governor
Mark Dayton signed the bill HF 400/SF 247 into law on 3 May 2017. The bill prohibits state agencies from contracting with vendors unless they certify that they are not "discriminating" against Israel. Discriminating is defined as "refusals to deal, terminating business activities, or other actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with Israel, or persons doing business with Israel, when such actions are taken in a manner that in any way discriminates on the basis of nationality or national origin and is not based on a valid business reason".
Mississippi HB 761,
Israel Support Act of 2019 was introduced in February 2019 into the State legislature and signed into law in March the same year. The law creates a blacklist of companies that boycott Israel and Israeli settlements and prevents state funds from being invested in company on the list. Republican Representative
Donnie Bell were the primary author of the bill.
Missouri In 2018, two bills, HB 2179 and SB 849, were introduced in Missouri's legislature. If passed they would have required companies and non-profit organizations bidding for contracts worth $10,000 or more to sign in writing they are not, and will not, boycott Israel. The bill came under fire from civil rights activists and failed to pass. Republican state Senator
Rob Schaaf filibustered the bill by introducing amendments that would add every country in the world to it. He meticulously went through every country in alphabetical order. Senator
Mike Kehoe withdrew the bill when Schaaf reached Bahamas. HB 2179 passed the house but nearly 80% of the Democrats voted against it. However, a similar bill, SB 739, requiring contractors with ten or more employees and contractors bidding for contracts worth $100,000 to sign the anti-boycott pledge, passed Missouri's legislature in 2020. It was signed into law by governor
Mike Parson on 13 July 2020.
Nevada Republican Lieutenant Governor
Mark Hutchison introduced SB 26 in 2017. It passed the Assembly 39–0 with three abstentions;
Skip Daly,
John Ellison, and
Edgar Flores, and the Senate 19–2, the nay voters being
Yvanna Cancela and
Tick Segerblom. Governor
Brian Sandoval signed the bill into law on 2 June. The law requires the state to create a blacklist of for-profit entities boycotting Israel that the state is forbidden from contracting with or investing in. The Copy, Paste, Legislate investigation revealed that Hutchinson worked together with Hosier to draft the bill, modeled on Arizona's law. Hutchinson had in 2013 been on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel paid for by the
American Israel Education Foundation, the educational arm of the pro-Israel lobby the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
New Hampshire In 2023, Governor of New Hampshire
Chris Sununu issued an executive order forbidding the state from working with entities involved in anti-Israel boycotts.
New Jersey In 2016, the bill A 925/S 1923 was passed by the state legislature and signed into law by governor
Chris Christie on 16 August 2016. The bill orders the state's pension funds to divest from companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses. A related bill, A 2940, which would have prohibited funding for colleges and universities to be used directly or indirectly to support BDS, failed to pass. The bill was criticized by ACLU of New Jersey and of the editorial board of
Star Ledger who in an editorial titled "N.J. pro-Israel bills take Big Brother to the extreme" wrote: "If it sounds more like the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s than a message against 'veiled discrimination', that's because it is."
New York Since 2013 there have been multiple bills discussed or proposed in the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly to sanction individuals, businesses or organizations that support BDS. None have been passed. In 2016 Andrew Cuomo created a blacklist by executive order. In December 2013, the
American Studies Association (ASA) decided to
join the academic boycott of Israel, which caused an outcry in the American political establishment.
Jeffrey Klein, a
New York State Senate Co-leader, and Assemblyman
Dov Hikind announced plans to introduce a law that would withdraw state funding from colleges maintaining memberships in groups boycotting Israel. In a joint statement, the lawmakers described the ASA boycott as "targeted discrimination against Israel that betrays the values of academic freedom that we hold dear". On 27 January 2014, the New York State Senate, by a vote of 56–4, approved the bill S 6438 that would ban universities and colleges from funding organizations that "have undertaken an official action boycotting certain countries or their higher education institutions". Klein stated that "we should never ask taxpayers to support religious, ethnic or racial discrimination" and further vowed to "not allow the enemies of Israel or the Jewish people to gain an inch in New York". ASA's president-elect,
Lisa Duggan, countered by describing the bill as a thinly veiled attempt to hide Israel's "violations of international law and human rights" and asserted that the bill "let[s] Israel off the hook for restricting the academic and other freedoms of Palestinians, while punishing those who protest those injustices".
The New York Times described it as "a chill on free speech" and
Michelle Goldberg as "New York's Outrageous Attempt to Ban Academic BDS". In the end, the bill failed to pass as the
New York Assembly never voted on it. During the 2015–2016 legislative season, the New York legislature considered but ultimately rejected several anti-BDS bills. Among them was A8220A, a bill sponsored by member of
New York State Assembly and Democrat representative
Charles D. Lavine. According to Benjamin Weinthal, fellow at the think tank
Foundation for Defense of Democracies and
Asaf Romirowsky, director of the pro-Israeli Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, the threat of such bills was enough to prompt
Erste Group to shut down an Austrian BDS group's bank account. In May 2016, governor
Andrew Cuomo signed executive order 157 into law. The order mandated the creation of a blacklist of institutions and companies by the Commissioner of the Offices of General Services "that the Commissioner determines, using credible information available to the public, participate[s] in boycott, divestment, or sanctions activity targeting Israel, either directly or through a parent or subsidiary". The blacklist would be published on a government website and public entities would be required to divest from blacklisted institutions. To be taken off the blacklist, institutions would have to provide written evidence to the Commissioner that they are no longer boycotting Israel. In an op-ed in
The Washington Post defending the executive order, Cuomo compared BDS with terrorism and murder: Ben Norton, writing for
Salon, decried the executive order as pro-Israel
McCarthyism. In 2017, Republican Senator
Elaine Phillips sponsored two anti-BDS bills: SB 2492 and SB 2493. SB 2492 would prevent the state from contracting with or investing in entities that "engage in activities to boycott American allied nations", a category that includes Israel, while SB 2493 would prevent student organizations that engage in "hate speech", including advocating for BDS, from receiving public funding. Both bills died in committee. Senator Klein introduced the third anti-BDS bill for the legislative season, SB 4837, to prohibit colleges from using state aid to fund an "academic entity" if that entity has undertaken to boycott "certain countries or their higher education institutions". Those countries would include Israel. Klein's bill also died in committee.
Bills in counties and towns In May 2016,
Nassau County passed a bill denying public work to companies that boycott or divest from Israel. The County caused some controversy in 2017 when it tried to get the Nassau Events Center to cancel a concert with well-known BDS activist
Roger Waters by threatening legal action. County legislator Howard Kopel called Waters a "notorious front-man for the BDS" and a "virulent antisemite". The
New York Civil Liberties Union urged the county to withdraw its threat and let the concert go forward and to repeal the law. The County yielded and the concert took place as planned. The
Town of Hempstead passed a similar bill in June 2016, prohibiting business that contracts with the Town from participating in boycott activity. The bill was praised by
Zionist Organization of America, specifically for including "territories controlled by Israel" – a euphemism for the
West Bank – because boycotts of Israeli settlements could lead to full boycotts of Israel.
Rockland County followed suit in April 2017, by requiring companies and individuals doing business with the county to promise that they do not boycott Israel.
North Carolina North Carolina got its anti-BDS law on 31 July 2017, as governor
Roy Cooper signed bill HB 161 into law after it had passed the state House and state Senate with the votes 96–19 and 45–3. The law mandates the setup of a blacklist of companies that boycott Israel with which the state would be forbidden to invest in or contract with.
Ohio In December 2016, the
Ohio General Assembly passed bill HB 476 with the vote 81–13 and five abstentions in the House and 26–5 in the Senate and was subsequently signed into law by governor
John Kasich. The bill prohibits the state from contracting with for-profit entities unless the entity declares that it does not boycott Israel.
Oklahoma The anti-BDS bill HB 3967 was enacted in the
Oklahoma Legislature in 2020. It passed the state House and Senate with the votes 75–20 and 36–7. The bill requires state contractors to certify that they are not boycotting Israel. Contracts worth less than $100,000 and individuals are exempted from the law. The primary sponsors of the bill were Republican Representative
Mark McBride and Republican Senator
Darrell Weaver. McBride referred to the Bible to motivate the bill: "The Bible is clear that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed."
Pennsylvania On 4 November 2016, governor
Tom Wolf signed the bill HR 2107 into law. It prohibits the state from contracting with entities unless they certify that they are not engaged in boycotts based on race, religion, gender, national affiliation or national origin. The penalty for a false certification is $250,000 or twice the value of the contract, whichever is greater. The bill was criticized as a threat to freedom of speech by Palestine Legal, the
Center for Constitutional Rights and the
National Lawyers Guild. According to Palestine Legal, while the intent of the law is to target boycotts of Israel, the law does not because BDS-inspired boycotts are not discriminatory.
Rhode Island In February 2016, governor
Gina Raimondo signed bill H 7736 into law. The bill had previously passed the House with the vote 63–4 and the Senate unanimously. According to the bill's sponsor, Democrat Senator
Mia Ackerman, students at
Brown University opposed the bill and told her it was a violation of their
First Amendment rights but Ackerman thought the bill was about "regulating commercial activity". The bill prohibits state entities from entering into contracts with companies that engages in boycotts "based on race, color, religion, gender, or nationality of the targeted person, firm, entity or public entity of a foreign state". According to
Palestine Legal, the bill does probably not affect BDS-inspired boycotts of Israel because they are protesting Israeli government policies.
South Carolina South Carolina's State legislature passed bill H 3583 which was signed into law by governor
Nikki Haley on 4 June 2015. It prohibits public entities from doing business with companies engaged in "discriminatory" boycotts:
Antisemitism redefinition In 2017, Clemmons introduced another bill into the State legislature, H 3643. The bill overwhelmingly passed in the House with the vote 103–3, but was defeated in the Senate. H 3643 was controversial because it would have required colleges to use the 2010 US State Department's definition of antisemitism when investigating alleged civil rights violations. The definition has been criticized for conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and critics have alleged that it was designed to suppress political speech by smearing it as antisemitism. In 2018, text mirroring the bill was inserted as a rider to the 2018–2019 State budget bill by senator
Larry Grooms which passed and was signed into law by governor
Henry McMaster. Because the legislation was attached to a budgetary bill it would expire in one year unless reauthorized by legislators.
South Dakota In January 2020, governor
Kristi Noem signed an executive order requiring contractors to the state to sign in writing that they are not boycotting, and will not boycott, Israel. The order applies to contractors with more than five employees and contracts worth over $100,000.
Tennessee In 2019, Tennessee lawmakers
Dolores Gresham and
Mark White introduced the bills HB 600 and SB 1250. The purpose of the bills is to require state education institutions to adopt the State Department's controversial definition of antisemitism which includes the
Three Ds of antisemitism.
Texas On 2 May 2017, Texas Governor
Greg Abbott signed HB 89 into law which came into effect on 1 September 2017. The law prohibits the state from contracting with businesses unwilling to pledge that they will not boycott Israel. It also requires Texas to develop a blacklist of for-profit entities that boycott Israel so that it can divest its pension funds from those entities. The
United States District Court for the Western District of Texas,
Austin division, in the case
Amawi v. Pflugerville Independent School District ruled that the law was unconstitutional. The law came under fire in October 2017 from both Democrats and Republicans as
Dickinson, Texas required
Hurricane Harvey victims who applied for disaster relief funds to promise not to boycott Israel. Dickinson's mayor, Julie Masters, said that the requirement was a consequence of the law but
Phil King who had authored the law said the city had misunderstood it. The Dickinson City Council eventually removed the anti-Israel boycott clause from the disaster relief application.
Wisconsin In 2017, two bills were introduced into Wisconsin's legislature: SB 450 and AB 553. They require entities contracting with the state to certify that they are not boycotting Israel. On 27 October 2017, governor
Scott Walker also signed an executive order asserting that state agencies have the right to terminate existing contracts with entities that boycott Israel.
Virginia On 9 March 2016, the
Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution condemning the BDS movement, the day after the
Virginia Senate passed the same resolution. The resolution calls for a
two-state solution and opposes "all attempts to economically and politically isolate Israel within the international arena, including promotion of economic, cultural, and academic boycotts, and all efforts to assault the legitimacy of the State of Israel as the sovereign homeland of the Jewish people".
Summary of US legal situation The following table summarizes the legal situation in states with anti-BDS laws. The columns denote the following: the Certification column denotes whether the state requires some or all of its contractors to certify that they are not boycotting Israel, the Blacklist column whether the state maintains a blacklist of entities that boycott Israel that state funds must divest from, and the IHRA column denotes whether the state has adopted IHRA's
Working Definition of Antisemitism. The definition could imply that boycotting Israel is a form of antisemitism. Local laws and ordinances: • Sec. 2-402 (2015), Sec. 2-112 (2017), Bal Harbour Village, Florida • R2015-569 (2015), City of Chicago, Illinois • 15-4701 (2015), Cook County, Illinois • Resolution No. 195 (2017),
Rockland County, New York Bills under consideration: • HB 4049 (2020), Illinois • HB 1058 (2020), Georgia • HB 600, SB 1250 (2019), Tennessee Rejected bills: • HB 2015 (2019), Kansas • SB 849 (2018), Missouri • S 6438 (2014), SB 8017, A8220 (2016), New York • HB 1512 (2017), Oklahoma • HB 1968, HB 1969 (2017), Pennsylvania • H 3643, (2017), South Carolina == Anti-BDS laws in other countries ==