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The University of California said Wednesday that the student government and all other “university entities” are prohibited from boycotting Israel. This is a direct response to the Trump administration’s order that agencies engaged in such boycotts are not eligible for federal medical and scientific research grants.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, UC President Michael Drake told campus leaders that “boycotting companies based on relationships with certain countries” was a violation of university policy. UC does not have anti-boycott rules for books, but Drake said existing policies require competitive bidding for university contracts. The campus student government must also engage in “sound business practices” that comply with UC’s legal requirements.
The policy manages all campuses, medical centers, the Agricultural Natural Resources Division, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Anti-boycott letters do not apply to student clubs. Student clubs do not represent the entire campus, giving them broader autonomy in their political position and financial decisions. Also, the budget is small. However, the letter could affect certain vocational school governments, such as law schools where the prime minister is officially recognized as a “certified student government.”
Drake’s notice is based on the university’s longstanding opposition to anti-Israel boycotts, sales and sanctions movements. The movement has been criticized for anti-Semitism because it aims to cut off academic partnerships and financial investments related to Israeli-Israeli corporations. It peaked last year among supporters of the student government and pro-Palestinian campus that swept the UC campus.
The letter comes as UC is undergoing a system-wide investigation by the Trump administration over allegations of anti-Semitic employment discrimination, facing campus-level probes for UCLA and UC Berkeley by federal task forces on anti-Semitism, raising funds from elite universities, including Harvard and Columbia.
The UC anti-boycott message applies to protests targeting any country, but comes after the Ministry of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation told all grantees that federal funds depend on anti-Israel actions.
HHS oversaw the National Institutes of Health, the largest source of UC Research’s federal funding, and granted $2.6 billion to all campuses last year. NSF was the second largest source of federal funding in 2024, $524 million.
That figure has been drastically reduced since the Trump administration began cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in research support and funding covering fictitious payments for grants.
The HHS and NSF guidance on anti-Israel boycott also said the government would not award grants to universities that promote “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Although UC has halted several practices, including the requirement to submit diversity statements for faculty job seekers, the university system primarily maintains its diversity-related practices. It advocates for outreach programs to recruit racially diverse undergraduate students and faculty.
“The right of an individual or group to express their opinions on public matters is different from the responsibility to carry out finances in a way consistent with university policies and applicable law,” writes Drake. “This letter reaffirms both the right to express the opinions of students, faculty and staff, and the university’s obligation to ensure that the unit does not engage in financial boycotts of companies related to a particular country.”
The move could face resistance from undergraduate and graduate government organizations.
Aditi Hariharan, an undergraduate at UC Davis and president of UC Student Assn, said administrators had explained the boycott ban in recent weeks.
“Students have little effect on how the university works and how the student government works. It’s one of the few places where you can actually get involved and hear your voice,” Hariharan said in an interview before the letter was released. Her organization represents students across the UC campus. “But this hurts the support students feel they can elect their people and have a say in school.”
UC leaders are firmly opposed to requests from campus activists to sell systematic donations at the campus level to arms companies related to the war in Israel or Gaza, but boycotting moves have been successful among student governments. It approved many BDSs last year, vowing not to fund or promote Israeli events and speakers, or to use the products of companies that are on the boycott list to operate on Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.
For example, a group of undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA passed the anti-Israel boycott preparation last year. The undergraduate government has accused Israel of “apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide” and “promising to encourage financial allocations not to be used” to support Israel.
Drake’s statement against the boycott does not apply to campus groups, such as students for Palestinian justice and Jewish voices for peace in support of BDS. This is because these groups are considered by the UC campus as “registered campus organizations” and are given more room to take political action on issues related to membership. They differ from “certified official student governments,” which represent the broad scope of campus and student organizations on governance issues.
Many campus students for justice in the Palestinian Group have been suspended or banned, including two at UCLA, which were expelled this year.
Drake’s message could affect graduate-level student governments that have been upset by boycotts.
In March, UC Davis suspended law student ASSN. It took over a $40,000 budget after passing a boycott resolution against Israel, including a ban on Israeli sponsorship. The university said at the time that the group had violated campus policies that require the student government to provide financial and other concrete support to student activities and organizations based on perspective neutrality.
Drake’s letter appears to make it clear that the Davis boycott is also violating UC-wide rules.
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