Timeline of BDS Victories in the United States

Wayne State University Student Council passes a resolution calling on university administration to divest from Israel. The resolution cited the Israeli army’s murder of Rachel Corrie in Gaza with a Caterpillar bulldozer and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s call to divest from Israeli violence. National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), a convening network for over 200 SJP chapters in the United States and Canada, lists the Wayne State resolution as the earliest successful campus divestment measure in the United States.

Presbyterian Church USA’s General Assembly voted to begin the process of divesting from five companies complicit in Israeli abuses. According to Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, this measure from the Presbyterian Church USA coincided with the establishment of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004, both helped galvanize further solidarity work in the United States that responded to the subsequent issuance of the BDS call in 2005.

University of Wisconsin-Platteville Faculty Senate becomes the first faculty council in the United States to pass a resolution calling for divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land

The World Council of Churches (WCC), an ecumenical association of over 300 churches internationally, calls on its members to consider divestment from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Additionally, the WCC praised the June 2004 Presbyterian Church USA measure of selective divestment from companies complicit in Israeli human rights international law violations in a statement, explaining that the Presbyterian Church USA decision was “‘commendable in both method and manner, [and] uses criteria rooted in faith.’”

The Association of University of Wisconsin Professionals (TAUWP) passes a resolution calling on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to pull its investments from companies that facilitate and enable the Israeli military’s violence against Palestinians. The resolution called for the divestment from weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and companies that, in addition to other products, make equipment used by the Israeli military, including Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, and General Electric. According to Al-Awda Wisconsin, which organized the campaign that culminated in the adoption of this resolution, investments in these companies were valued at $3.8 million.

For a second time, The University of Michigan–Dearborn Student Government passes a resolution calling on the university to divest from Israel. Like the resolution adopted in the previous year, the 2006 resolution called for the divestment of over $12 million from “Raytheon, General Electric, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman are all directly involved in the Israeli occupation, military aggression and profit from many of Israel's questionable policies in the occupied territories.” Notably, the 2006 resolution also condemns Israeli war crimes from its 34-day war on Lebanon, in which the Israeli military killed over 1100 people and decimated Lebanese civilian infrastructure, which concluded just weeks before the successful passage of this resolution.

Howard University College of Arts and Sciences Faculty pass a resolution (with a landslide 25-2 vote) calling on Howard’s Board of Trustees to pull its investments from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation. Not only was the Howard University faculty resolution one of the first successful campus divestment votes in the United States, it is also cited as the first successful divestment vote at a HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities).

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) calls for the boycott and divestment from Israeli settlement products. Regarded as a partial boycott, the ELCA later went on to divest from Israel on a wider scale in 2016.

In a historic move, Hampshire College divests from Israel, making it the first higher education institution in the United States to pull its investments from Israeli violence against Palestinians. After two years of student organizing, Hampshire College’s Board of Trustees agreed to pull investments from six companies that are involved in facilitating Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Hampshire College was also the first higher education institution to divest from apartheid South Africa in 1977.

TIAA (formerly TIAA-CREF), a retirement investment management company, divests from Africa-Israel Investment, valued at $257,000, following a campaign organized by Adalah-NY. The company’s owner, Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, also invested heavily in the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank (through Africa-Israel Investment subsidiary, Danya Cebus), and faced criticism for labor and human rights abuses in Angolan diamond mines.

AHAVA products are removed from Costco’s shelves following CODEPINK’s pressure campaign, Stolen Beauty, which asked Costco and other retailers to drop the cosmetics manufacturer. For years, AHAVA operated a factory in an illegal Israeli West Bank settlement. AHAVA excavates on the shores of the Dead Sea, including areas illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. A 2012 report by Who Profits on the excavations of AHAVA and Dead Sea Works—the only two companies with licenses from the Israeli government to excavate in the Dead Sea—noted the “detrimental environmental impact on the entire Dead Sea, including the Jordanian sections and the ones that are in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

For a third time, University of Michigan–Dearborn Student Government passes a resolution calling on the University of Michigan Board of Regents to divest from companies complicit in facilitating Israel’s occupation and violations of international law. The resolution targeted the following companies, “BAE, Raytheon, Boeing, General Electric, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman” and noted that they sell products and services to Israel which it uses “inhumanely.” UM–Dearborn Student Government also circulated a petition gathering signatures in support of the measure and calling on the Board of Regents to form an advisory committee to implement divestment.

University of California, Berkeley Student Senate passes a bill calling for the divestment from companies that facilitate Israel’s occupation of Palestine. While the student body president vetoed the 2010 bill, a divestment resolution eventually passed in 2013.

At The Evergreen State College, students pass two resolutions calling for college divestment from Israel’s occupation of Palestine and for a boycott of Caterpillar, respectively.

Protesters block an Israeli cargo ship from onloading for 24 hours at the Port of Oakland, the sixth largest port in the US. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 voted to uphold the effort to block the ship, refusing to cross the picket line for 24 hours to allow the ship to unload. Organizers planned this effort after the Israeli navy attacked the Mavi Marmara—a Turkish ship that was part of the Freedom Flotilla, an international campaign to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid—killing ten activists on board. The Mavi Marmara was still in international waters at the time of the Israeli navy attack.

The Olympia Food Co-op decides to boycott Israeli products. Co-op leadership noted an influx of calls organized through the Israel lobby group StandWithUs that took on an “abusive” tone with “cursing and threatening” from Zionist callers. StandWithUs, working with a handful of former co-op members, then initiated a failed legal campaign against the Olympia Food Co-op for almost a decade.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a group also known as the Wobblies, pass a resolution endorsing BDS through a membership referendum. According to a statement, this endorsement made the IWW the first US-based union to endorse BDS.

Students at DePaul University successfully pass a referendum in which the student body demands that the university remove Sabra Hummus from campus dining facilities. Sabra Hummus is a subsidiary of the Strauss Group, which boasted of its financial support for the Golani Brigade of the Israeli military, a unit responsible for the ethnic cleansing campaigns in the 1948 Nakba, the 1967 war, Israel’s wars on Gaza, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and Israel’s wars on Lebanon.

Veolia reports €67.2 million in losses, and loses several bids for contracts to develop public works projects throughout 2011 due to BDS organizing campaigns targeting Veolia for its facilitation of Israeli apartheid in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Electronic Intifada reports that a Chicago-area high school cafeteria now provides an alternative to Sabra Hummus after a student campaigned to have the product removed, citing company links to Israeli human rights violations.

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) endorses BDS at their nineteenth annual convention. In a statement, the youth organization noted that this “landslide” decision at a convening of over 600 delegates coincided with “‘international observances of ‘César Chávez Day’ and ‘Land Day,’ commemorating ongoing civil rights and anti-colonial struggles for Latin@s and Palestinians.’”

Reports begin to circulate that the Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC), a Quaker financial management service, has divested from Caterpillar, selling shares worth $900,000. From this point on, FFC divestment becomes a reference point for future campaign work and is viewed as monumental victory. Caterpillar is responsible for egregious acts of violence against Palestinians, selling D9 bulldozers to Israel which are used to raze Palestinian homes to the ground and construct settlements; they have also been used in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. According to a press release—reproduced partially by the Electronic Intifada and attributed to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights as of 2016)—the FFC has a “zero tolerance for weapons and weapons components,” and said, “We are uncomfortable defending our position on this stock.” In September 2012, then-Executive Director of the FFC, Jeffery W. Perkins confirmed in an article for the Friends Journal that the organization sold its shares in late April of that year. 

A student-run cafe at Evergreen State College announced its decision to end the sale of products from companies complicit in Israeli human rights violations. A representative of the campus cafe said: “We came to a consensus as a collective to support the Palestinian civil society call for BDS because it is directly in line with our mission and statement of principles,” adding, “We are proud to join this non-violent movement to pressure Israel until it ends its human rights violations against Palestinians.”

TIAA (formerly TIAA-CREF), a retirement investment management company, announces its decision to remove Caterpillar from its Social Choice Funds portfolio, a divestment valued at over $72 million.

The Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP)—a body including faculty, staff, students, and alumni—formally asks the university to divest from corporations complicit in Israel’s occupation and violations of Palestinian rights.

Announced that Veolia withdrew its bid for a $325 million water works project in northern California following sustained BDS organizing to oppose the deal. In the months to follow, Veolia faced heavy losses in canceled or rejected contracts due to BDS pressure. It is reported that by the end of 2013, Veolia carried over $20 billion in debt—BDS campaigns blocked or forced Veolia’s withdrawal from markets to avoid PR disasters, and according to organizers, this factored prominently into the damages sustained by the corporation.

By the end of 2012: various BDS measures pass at Arizona State University, University of Massachusetts Boston, and the University of California, Irvine. Boycott campaigns at The Evergreen State College and Earlham College successfully lead to the deshelving of products from complicit companies.  

The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) “unanimously decided” against the intentional investment in companies that are complicit in Israeli human rights violations.

The Association for Asian American Studies becomes the first academic association in the United States to endorse the academic boycott of Israel. The successful resolution noted the mission of the organization to “foster scholarship that engages conditions of migration, displacement, colonialism, and racism, and the lives of people in zones of war and occupation.” It cited the negative impact that the Israeli occupation, with its obstruction of freedom of movement and the right to education, has on Palestinian academic institutions as informing the choice to uphold the BDS call.

BDS announces that TIAA (formerly TIAA-CREF) removed SodaStream from its investment portfolio, a divestment measure valued at over $9.4 million. While this measure was done quietly by the retirement investment management company, it occurred just one year after its $72 million divestment from Caterpillar; it was therefore viewed by organizers as a way to sidestep public pressure campaigns down the road to divest from SodaStream. 

Veolia Water North America cancels plans for a $250,000 water works consulting contract with the city of St. Louis after three years of campaigning by Dump Veolia, a coalition of nine organizations. According to the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), a leader within the Dump Veolia Coalition, the contract was pushed through by the mayor undemocratically after massive constituent opposition, minimal public support for the deal, and opposition from the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. The St. Louis PSC noted in a statement: “The broad-based opposition caused Veolia to withdraw from our city, reportedly deciding St. Louis ‘is not worth it. It is not worth the damage to [Veolia’s] business.’” [Veolia’s] business.’”

TIAA (formerly TIAA-CREF) removes Veolia from its Social Choice fund, a divestment valued at $1.2 million.

By the end of 2013: 

• Successful divestment measures are passed at three universities within the University of California system—Berkeley, Riverside, and San Diego—and at Oberlin College. The UC Riverside resolution is later overturned by the student senate following Israel lobby harassment and intimidation of student senators, but a second divestment resolution passes in 2014. 
• The following academic associations vote to endorse the academic boycott of Israel: the American Studies Association, the Association of Asian American Studies, the Association for Humanist Sociology, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. 

Veolia loses a contract bid with an estimated value of $4.26 billion with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). In addition to over two years of BDS organizing in the Boston area around “Derail Veolia,” a campaign aimed at dropping the company from public works, the company—which previously held the MBTA/MassDOT contract—faced sustained criticism for subpar performance, hidden costs to taxpayers, delays, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations, according to Derail Veolia organizer Nancy Murray.

The United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) endorses the boycott of SodaStream.

University of Michigan–Dearborn Student Government passes a fourth resolution related to divestment from Israel. This time, it specifically called for the university to establish an advisory committee to investigate the university’s investment portfolio to work toward divestment from complicit companies.

The Wesleyan Student Assembly, which managed a student endowment with over $300,000 in its investment portfolio at the time, votes to divest from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In addition to implementing divestment in its own portfolio, the Wesleyan University student government also demanded the university divest from Israel.

A student-body referendum calling for divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land passes at DePaul University. Students for Justice in Palestine DePaul chose to pursue divestment through a referendum due to heavy pro-Israel lobby surveillance and pressure-tactics against student government representatives and university administrators. Pro-Israel lobby group StandWithUs paid canvassers with no affiliation to DePaul to lobby students to vote no on the referendum. Despite the constant presence of the Israel Consul General to the Midwest on DePaul’s campus throughout election week, who lobbied students to oppose the bill and administrators to cancel the vote, the divestment referendum succeeded.

The Gates Foundation sells most of its shares in G4S, a global British security company that provides services to Israeli prisons and military checkpoints. According to organizers, this decision was a product of “pressure on the Gates Foundation to divest” from a coalition of “over 100 Palestinian and international organisations.”

The United Methodist Church General Board of Pension and Health Benefits (GBPHB) divests from G4S. Representing the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the US, the UMC’s entire investment portfolio held a value of $20 billion.

One decade after the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) began a process of selective divestment from five corporations complicit in Israeli human rights violations, the PCUSA General Assembly votes to divest from Caterpillar, HP, and Motorola Solutions for their role in facilitating Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Reverend Walt Davis of the PCUSA noted that these corporations did not change their practices after a “‘decade of engagement.’” National Director of the Friends of Sabeel of North America (FOSNA), Reverend Don Wagner, said in an interview with the Electronic Intifada that, “‘This victory, close as it was, is for the Palestinians and may it bring hope where there is so much darkness and abuse right now.’”

The Critical Ethnic Studies Association endorses the academic boycott of Israel. The boycott resolution noted, “Palestinian universities and schools have been periodically forced to close as a result of actions related to the Israeli occupation, or have been destroyed by Israeli military strikes and expansion, and Palestinian students, activists, and scholars face restrictions on movement and travel that limit their ability to attend and work at universities, travel to conferences and to study abroad, and thereby obstruct their right to education.” This boycott measure passed shortly after Israel began its 2014 war on Gaza, in which the Israeli military killed over 2,200 Palestinians in 51 days.

The Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) finds that the Soros Fund quietly divests from SodaStream just months after buying stocks in the company. These shares were valued at $24.3 million at the time of acquisition.

Organizers in Oakland succeed in blocking a cargo ship owned by Israeli company, ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., from docking at the Port of Oakland. Lara Kiswani, a key organizer of the Block the Boat campaign, noted that ZIM transports Israeli-produced weaponry and military equipment to the United States. The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) and other groups spoke to labor union members to rally their support, and like in 2010, labor solidarity continued as the ILWU Local 10 refused to cross this community picket line. Protests continued for three months, and by October 2014, ZIM halted its attempts to dock at the Port of Oakland for seven years. The Electronic Intifada reported that in addition to the Oakland direct action, west coast protests led to the delay or inability of ZIM cargo ships to dock in Long Beach, Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouver. On November 3, 2014, organizers in Tampa blocked a ZIM cargo ship from docking for five hours.

The Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ (CTUCC) votes to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The CTUCC represents 240 United Church of Christ congregations and over 97,000 church members, as explained by Mondoweiss.

United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), a youth-led mass labor organization, announces its endorsement BDS, as well as its support for the Palestinian struggle for equality and self-determination, which it formally announced at the 2014 National Students for Justice in Palestine conference held between October 24-26, 2014.

Wesleyan University ends the sale of Sabra Hummus in campus dining facilities after months of student boycott demands.

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) student government passes a resolution calling on the university to divest from eleven companies with documented ties to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Notably, journalist Alex Kane reported that anti-BDS campaigners at UCLA consulted with the public relations firm 30 Point earlier in 2014 for guidance on how to combat and defame Students for Justice in Palestine and delegitimize the BDS movement. Despite this, divestment passed at UCLA.

University of California student workers affiliated with the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2865 voted to endorse the BDS call, making it the first labor union in the US to endorse BDS. While the UAW International Executive Board (IAB) vetoed this endorsement one year later, bowing to pressure from Zionist groups, labor solidarity with Palestine continued to gain momentum in the period to follow.

By the end of 2014:

• Various BDS measures pass at the following universities: Loyola University Chicago (later vetoed by student government president), DePaul University, the University of New Mexico’s Graduate and Professional Student Association, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of California, Los Angeles, Wesleyan University (boycott and divestment), and the University of California, Riverside (for a second time).
• Academic boycott victories: Critical Ethnic Studies Association endorses BDS; over 400 Middle East studies scholars and librarians commit to the academic boycott of Israel.  

The University of California Student Association (UCSA)—a body representing over 200,000 students and student governments across the UC system—passes a resolution calling on the University of California Board of Regents to divest from companies complicit in Israeli human rights violations committed against Palestinians.

A resolution calling for university divestment from corporations with links to the Israeli military passes at Northwestern University. According to an investigative report by Alex Kane, the Israeli consulate in Chicago and external Zionist organizations, including the Israel Education Center and the Jewish United Fund, attempted to defeat the student government divestment resolution at Northwestern. This is the second recorded incident in which Roey Gilad, the Israeli Consul General to the Midwest, attempted to interfere in a campus divestment campaign—the first was at DePaul University in 2014.

The National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) passes a resolution endorsing the academic boycott of Israel. The resolution stated that the “NACCS is committed to nurturing scholarship and activism that promotes migrant and displaced peoples’ rights, safety and wellbeing and their right to return home and Palestinians are one of the largest historic refugee populations in the world.” Further, the resolution noted that “Israel has played a leading role in the US border military buildup that has led to large-scale migrant deaths along the border, and the biggest Israeli private military manufacturer corporation was contracted to build the US-Mexico border, and the ‘homeland security systems’ used in the West Bank and the Golan Heights are being set up in El Paso’s and Arizona’s borders with Mexico.”

The United Church of Christ (UCC) voted to divest from companies that are complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to boycott Israeli settlement goods in 2015.

A solidarity statement from Black intellectuals, artists, and activists for Palestine reaches over 1,000 signatures and almost 50 endorsements from organizations. It was issued by Black for Palestine, a network that emerged after the 2014 Ferguson uprisings. Noting the deepening of Black-Palestinian solidarity in the aftermath of Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza and Ferguson uprisings of the same year, the statement “wholeheartedly endorse[s]” the BDS call, demonstrating the growing commitment to the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. It noted, “Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.” Additionally, the statement’s authors published an Arabic translation of the statement to the Black for Palestine website.

United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE), a labor union representing 30,000 members, votes to endorse BDS as a response to the call from Palestinian workers for trade union solidarity to help stop Israel’s atrocities in its 2014 war on Gaza, and a general decision to remove complicity following Israel’s war crimes in the 51-day assault on Gaza. A Zionist lawfare group with links to the Mossad and the Israeli National Security Council, Shurat HaDin, files two complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over this BDS vote in 2015 and 2016—both complaints are rejected by the NLRB.

Veolia ceases its operations in Israel after years of BDS campaigning due to its role in helping to facilitate the Jerusalem Light Rail, which connects Jerusalem with settlements in the occupied West Bank. Seven years of targeted BDS campaigns negatively affected Veolia’s profits and hampered their ability to earn new contracts elsewhere, causing the French corporation to withdraw from Israel and to sell its stake in the consortium that runs the Jerusalem Light Rail.

The Connecticut American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) State Convention passes a resolution endorsing BDS, which noted the AFL-CIO’s “historic relationship with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions” established in 2000. The resolution called on National AFL-CIO to adopt BDS and pressure the US government to end its support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) passes a resolution to endorse BDS in a landslide vote, with 90% of the NWSA’s 653 eligible members voting in favor of the resolution.

By the end of 2015, divestment passes at Stanford University, Northwestern University, Earlham College, Loyola University Chicago, Princeton University Graduate Student Government, Oglethorpe University, the University of Toledo, University of California, Davis, and San Jose State University. 

The United Methodist Church’s (UMC) pension fund (worth $20 billion) divests from two Israeli banks. Additionally, the UMC adds five Israeli banks to a blacklist for future investments. As reported by the Electronic Intifada, the five blacklisted banks are “Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, which are all deeply involved in financing Israeli settlement and colonization in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.”

Vassar College’s student government, the Vassar Student Association (VSA), passes a resolution that endorses BDS. An amendment to the resolution, drafted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), would add a clause to the bylaws of the VSA that would ban the use of VSA funds to purchase products from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The legal advocacy organization, Palestine Legal, reported that members of the VSA Executive Board were warned by the Vassar College Board of Trustees that the VSA would lose control of student activity funds (about $900,000) if they passed the BDS amendment that would write BDS adherence into its bylaws.

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) adopts a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, HP, and Motorola due to their links to Israeli military violence against Palestinians.

The Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men endorses the boycott of companies that profit from illegal Israeli West Bank settlements, listing Ahava, Caterpillar, HP, Keter/Black, Motorola, and five Israeli banks. In a press release, they called upon members of the Catholic Church to join this boycott and noted that this decision comes after a visit to Palestine in which Catholic leaders asked for solidarity in opposing Israeli settlements.

The Alliance of Baptists concludes its annual meeting, where it declared a commitment to the Palestinian BDS call. In the following month, the Alliance of Baptists launched an investigation into church investments to identify companies complicit with Israel's occupation in order to begin the divestment process.

A divestment resolution passes at the University of Minnesota (UM), despite a public statement from the university president maligning the BDS movement, which students later discovered was done at the behest of over 80 Minnesota state legislators who called on the UM president to condemn the divestment resolution.

The Doctoral Students’ Council at the City University of New York (CUNY) endorses the academic boycott of Israel.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) Graduate Employee Organization, student worker union belonging to United Auto Workers Local Amalgamated 2322 (UAW 2322), passes a resolution endorsing BDS.

The New York University (NYU) Graduate Student Organizing Committee, a student worker union belonging to United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110, passes a referendum calling on NYU and the UAW to uphold the BDS call.

The Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA/AFT Local 3220) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a student worker union belonging to the AFL-CIO, passes a resolution calling on the University of Wisconsin system and the AFL-CIO to divest from Israel. The TAA/AFT Local 3220 is the oldest graduate student worker union in the US.

The Denver Water Board ends its relationship with G4S following a city-wide campaign from organizations including Coloradans for Justice in Palestine (CJP), Friends of Sabeel North America’s (FOSNA) Colorado chapter, and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) issues its policy platform, the “Vision for Black Lives,” in which it endorses the Palestinian BDS call. In a statement following the announcement of the M4BL platform, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) thanked the M4BL for its endorsement of BDS, and adding, “We pledge to firmly and consistently stand in solidarity with our black sisters and brothers in the United States and around the world by supporting the demands and policy proposals in this platform.”

In a landslide vote, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) commits to establishing an investment screen to ensure the ELCA does not invest in companies complicit in Israeli human rights violations. The ELCA also votes to issue a call opposing unconditional US aid to Israel. 

Pax Christi International, a Catholic peacebuilding organization, endorses BDS as a means to “promote justice.”

In a monumental BDS victory, G4S announces that it will end most of its business operations in Israel, selling a nearly $100 million stake in the company. G4S remained a BDS target, given the company’s announcement at the time of the sale that it will continue its involvement in the Israel national police training center in partnership with two Israeli companies—FIMI and Shikun & Binui.

The Peace United Church of Christ in Santa Cruz, California boycotts HP in response to the Palestinian BDS call after a congregation vote. This announcement kicks off the start of “HP-Free Churches,” a campaign of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA). By July 2017, a total of 17 churches signed the pledge to boycott HP. In January 2018, the campaign expanded to include houses of worship outside of the Christian community, with the Tikkun Olam Chavurah in Philadelphia becoming the first Jewish congregation to join the HP boycott. The campaign nearly doubled in the span of one year: by 2018, a total of 35 houses of worship and religious institutions signed the FOSNA HP-boycott pledge.

By the end of 2016, various campus BDS measures pass at the University of Chicago, the University of Indianapolis, the University of South Florida, Portland State University, Rutgers University–Newark, the University of California, Merced, University of Illinois at Chicago (unanimous student government vote), the The Evergreen State College (reaffirms 2010 call for Caterpillar boycott and calls for Sabra boycott), the University of Minnesota, Vassar College, New York University, the City University of New York, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

De Anza College in Cupertino, California becomes the first community college to pass a student government resolution calling for divestment from Israel’s human rights violations.

After years of pressure from BDS organizers to divest from Caterpillar and Wells Fargo Bank for complicity in the Israel’s military occupation of Palestine, the city of Portland, Oregon divests from all corporations in its portfolio. In December of the previous year, Portland City Council temporarily froze corporate investments while it investigated the impact of its portfolio, which was worth $1.7 billion in 2017.

The Pitzer College Student Senate passes an amendment to its bylaws that bans the use of student government funds to do business with companies complicit in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights. The amendment read: “Student Activities Funds shall not be used to make a payment on goods or services from any corporation or organization associated with the unethical occupation of Palestinian territories. Products include those products from corporations and organizations as delineated in the boycott list maintained by bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott.” Later, the Pitzer College Board of Trustees overruled the Student Senate amendment, which Palestine Legal described as “an unprecedented step” departing “from its 54-year history of respecting student autonomy.”

By a unanimous vote, the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s student government passes a resolution demanding university divestment from companies associated with injustices worldwide, specifically, Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, the prison-industrial complex, the US-Mexico border wall, racial capitalism and exploitation, and the colonization of indigenous land.

The Sacramento Regional Transit board ends its dealings with G4S, opting out of renewing its contract with the security contractor, after nearly two years of constituent organizing targeting the city government’s ties to the company for its complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and in Australian migrant detention centers.

The United Church of Christ votes to divest from Israeli military detention of Palestinian children. This UCC measure was a response to advocacy from the No Way to Treat a Child campaign, which seeks to end the US support for Israel’s administrative detention of Palestinian minors, in which children are kidnapped, held without charge, often subjected to torture, and forced to sign confessions in Hebrew, a language they do not speak.

The Mennonite Church USA votes to withdraw its investments from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation.

The United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) announces important resolutions passed at regional conferences for the United Methodist Church between April and May 2017, including resolutions at seven regional conferences affirming the right of the UMC to pursue ethical investment and join boycott campaigns for justice in the wake of anti-BDS laws being passed at the federal and state levels. Additionally, UMKR announced that 23 resolutions were passed across 15 regions which included pledges to boycott HP, calls to invest in the UMC’s BDS-compliant Social Values Plus Fund, condemnation of Israel’s military detention and torture of Palestinian children, and promotion of Holy Land pilgrimages that follow guidelines from  Palestinian Christians (recorded in the Kairos Palestine Document).

By the end of 2017, Various BDS measures pass at California State University, Long Beach, De Anza College, Tufts University, the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of California, Riverside, Pitzer College, and the University of South Florida (for a second time). 

A resolution presented by the New Orleans Palestinian Solidarity Committee (NOPSC) calling for the implementation of review procedures for contracts with the city of New Orleans to work with companies that uphold a “human rights standard” passes in the New Orleans City Council. As Mondoweiss noted, while the resolution is regarded as a BDS victory, “it makes no mention of Palestine, Israel, BDS or any specific company.” However, Israel-lobby pressure campaigns led to the rescinding of the resolution two weeks later, showing the threatening potential that this human rights resolution presented to anti-BDS organizations.

The BDS movement is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian member of parliament Bjørnar Moxnes. In a statement on the nomination, Moxnes said: “The BDS movement’s aims and aspirations for basic human rights are irreproachable. They should be supported without reservation by all democratically-minded people and states.”

Quaker investment manager, the Friends Fiduciary Corporation, a company with assets valued at $400 million, revises its investment policy to exclude companies that profit from or perpetuate violent conflict or occupation. This change comes after organizing from Quaker Meetings to divest from companies that profit off Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

In a landslide union vote, the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers faculty board call on trustees managing the Public Employees Retirement System and State Teacher Retirement Systems pension funds to divest from Israel. The Los Rios College faculty union belongs to the California Federation of Teachers and called on their parent union to pass a BDS resolution.

Fifty student organizations at New York University (NYU) endorse a pledge authored by NYU Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to honor the Palestinian BDS call, committing to the consumer and academic boycotts, not participating in activities with Zionist campus organizations and their off-campus partners, calling on NYU to divest, and “continually recognizing indigenous land and sovereignty.”

In a historic move and by a unanimous vote, the Durham City Council in North Carolina passes a measure banning the Durham Police Department from participating in training and exchange programs with Israel. Local organizers titled the campaign Demilitarize Durham2Palestine, and it is the first victory associated with Deadly Exchange, a campaign of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) which seeks to end the US-Israel police relationship.

The Graduate Employees’s Organization (GEO) AFT/IFT Local 6300 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign issues a solidarity statement on Palestine, calling on its parent union and the US labor movement at large to endorse BDS. This student labor union belongs to the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) and its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). In its statement, the GEO asked: “How many U.S. labor unions have followed the example of labor unions globally by declaring support for the non-violent BDS…movement?” The statement condemned the anti-BDS stance of AFT president Randi Weingarten (by 2021, it is reported that the AFT invested $200,000 in Israel bonds under Weingarten’s presidency). Further, the GEO expressed its commitment to supporting student-led divestment efforts on campus and demanded AFT/IFT solidarity with Palestine.

The Episcopal Church votes at its general convention to adopt an investment screen to prevent the church from investing in companies complicit in Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians.

Thirty student organizations at New York University (NYU) pledge to boycott NYU Tel Aviv, the university’s study abroad program in Israel.

Pitzer College faculty voted to approve two motions in support of the BDS movement: a statement expressing faculty “[dissent]” toward the college president’s intervention in the Student Senate bylaws amendment of the previous year, in which students voted to bar the use of student government funds to do business with companies that violate the BDS call; and a call for the college to end its academic exchange program with Haifa University, a measure in line with the PACBI call for the academic boycott of Israel.

Airbnb announces that it will remove listings in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank after months of pressure from the #stolenhomes campaign, a joint effort of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), CODEPINK, Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), SumOfUs (renamed Ekō in 2023), the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), and the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN). However, in 2019, the company reversed its decision. Airbnb remained a BDS target even after the 2018 announcement, as it did not commit to remove listings in occupied East Jerusalem and in the Syrian Golan Heights.

By the end of 2018, various BDS measures pass at Barnard College, California State University, East Bay (unanimous vote), George Washington University, the University of Michigan–Flint, the University of Oregon, the University of Minnesota, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and New York University (divestment; see above for other NYU BDS measures in 2018).

A divestment referendum passes at Swarthmore College despite pro-Israel harassment of campaign organizers. Prominent academics and community leaders penned an open letter to Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine in response to the Zionist smear campaign. The letter declared, “this harassment is not happening in isolation and is no accident. Rather, it is part of a deliberate strategy we see on campuses across the country to intimidate and silence those who organize in support of Palestinian lives and dignity.”

The Pitzer College governing council votes to suspend the college’s exchange program with the University of Haifa, just months after Pitzer faculty voted to support BDS and pressure the college to end its study abroad program in Israel. Pitzer College’s president vetoed this governing council measure within hours. As explained by Daniel A. Segal, a Pitzer College professor, “for Pitzer staff, students, and faculty, this is a serious matter, as the president’s actions disrespect and harm the College’s system of democratic shared governance.” 

New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis faculty passes a resolution to boycott NYU’s study abroad program in Tel Aviv, citing Israel’s discriminatory practices. In a statement, faculty encouraged colleagues in other departments to “pass similar resolutions in the spirit of abiding by NYU’s Code of Ethical Conduct and opposing racial and religious profiling on campus.”

In an unprecedented legal victory, a successful lawsuit against Fordham University results in the Supreme Court of New York ruling to annul the university’s 2016 decision to ban the establishment of a campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. According to Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the students in court, Justice Nancy Bannon noted that the university banned SJP due to their criticism of Israel, in violation of the university’s policy to foster debate. Specifically, Fordham administrators questioned students regarding their views on BDS, according to a report in The Intercept.

The Portland Trail Blazers, a team in the National Basketball Association (NBA), ends its partnership with Leupold and Stevens, a company that produces rifle scopes and has ties to the Israeli military. This victory came after months of BDS organizing from community members and organizations including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). However, the Trail Blazers denied that they ended their dealings with the Israeli military-linked company due to the BDS campaign.

The Episcopal Church announces that it will divest from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and the Israel Discount Bank, as part of its implementation of the ethical investment screen adopted by the church’s Executive Council in 2018. Additionally, the Episcopal Church announces that it will pressure Facebook, Booking.com, and Trip Advisor to end their complicity in Israel’s occupation and human rights violations. Mondoweiss reported that the Motorola Solutions divestment was valued at $1.2 million and the Caterpillar divestment was valued at $125,000.

The Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP)—a body that includes faculty, staff, students, and alumni—passes a resolution to call on the Brown Corporation governing body, which includes the university’s Board of Trustees, to divest from companies complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. This resolution passes just months after Brown Students for Justice in Palestine’s successful student body referendum, making it the first Ivy League institution to pass a student BDS measure.

Microsoft divests from AnyVision, an Israeli company that produces facial recognition technology targeted by the BDS movement. This announcement arrives only months after Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) launched its campaign #DropAnyVision and worked with groups including MPower Change and SumOfUs (renamed Ekō in 2023) to target the company for its role in facilitating Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights.

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) General Assembly votes by a 95% margin to adopt socially responsible investment guidelines in managing the Unitarian Universalist Common Endowment Fund (UUCEF). These include respect for Palestinian rights as informing socially responsible investment choices for the endowment.

Despite university administration collusion with Zionist students, the Butler University student government rejects two anti-BDS resolutions that “‘vilify’” SJP and the BDS movement at large.

Cori Bush is elected to the House of Representatives. As a Ferguson community organizer and ardent supporter of Palestinian freedom and the BDS movement, her election was seen as a victory for the Palestine solidarity movement in the US. For example, Bush refused to condemn the BDS movement just days ahead of the Missouri Democratic primary in August 2020, a bold move, as she challenged Representative William Lacy Clay Jr., who served ten previous terms in Congress. Representative Bush would go on to defend Palestine solidarity activism and advocate for Palestinian rights in the halls of Congress. In her second term, Representative Bush introduced the CEASEFIRE NOW resolution just days into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Students at Tufts University pass a successful referendum calling on university administration to end the participation of the Tufts University Police Department in exchange and training programs with Israel. Led by the Tufts chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, this successful campus BDS measure is linked to JVP’s Deadly Exchange campaign.

By the end of 2020, various BDS measures pass at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; California State University, Fresno; San Francisco State University; Columbia University; and Tufts University (Deadly Exchange referendum; see above).

The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers, and Allied Workers, Local 36 issues a solidarity statement on Palestine and calls on President Biden to end all economic and military aid to Israel. This statement is issued days into Israel’s 2021 war on Gaza, in which Israeli forces killed almost 200 Palestinians in the 11-day war. Closing their statement, the United Union of Roofers declared: “Imperialist aggression, ethnic cleansing and genocide are the enemy of all working people and organized Labor must step forward to defend the democratic rights of oppressed peoples everywhere.”

The United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) Local 61 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) becomes the first teachers union at the K-12 level to endorse BDS. UESF Local 61 membership includes over 6,200 teachers and school staff, marking an important shift in union solidarity with Palestine.

Five chapters of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) voted to adopt a resolution that calls for an end to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s attempts to ethnically cleanse Sheikh Jarrah, and US aid to Israel. Additionally, the statement endorses BDS.

Over 600 artists, including many US-based musical acts, sign the Musicians for Palestine statement to “demand justice, dignity and the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people and all who are fighting colonial dispossession and violence across the planet.” Signatories pledge to uphold the cultural boycott of Israel.

Protesters in Seattle disrupt the supply chain of the Israeli cargo ship, ZIM San Diego for over two weeks as part of the “Block ZIM Everywhere” campaign. Organized by feminist collective Falastiniyat and supported by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 19 who refused to cross the community picket line, protesters blocked the ship from docking for 10 days, and subsequently blocked it from being unloaded for 6 days until the Seattle Police Department violently broke up the protest and arrested eleven picketers. Later that month, the “Block ZIM Everywhere” campaign sparked a historic first-ever Palestine protest at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

Protesters block the Israeli-owned ZIM cargo ship from docking at the Port of Oakland as part of the 2021 “Block ZIM Everywhere” campaign, just as organizers did in protest of Israel’s war crimes and violent aggression in 2010 and 2014. Similarly, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 refused to cross the community picket line, just as they had in previous iterations of the campaign. Further, the Northern California District Council–ILWU issued a statement on May 25, 2021, in solidarity with Palestine in response to Israel’s 2021 war on Gaza and its attempts to ethnically cleanse the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem.

The Seattle Education Association, a union representing nearly 6,000 teachers in the city’s public school system, passes a resolution that endorses BDS and the Seattle-based End the Deadly Exchange campaign, which calls for an end to participation of the Seattle Police Department in training programs in Israel.

The Vermont State Labor Council (AFL-CIO) announces its endorsement of Labor for Palestine’s “U.S. Labor Must Stand With Palestine!” statement issued on May 15, which called on the labor movement to endorse BDS, divest from Israel bonds, cut ties with Zionist labor organizations, and join the global trade union movement in solidarity with Palestinians by withholding labor from companies complicit in the oppression of Palestinians. In total, 15 organizations and over 200 workers and members of various unions nationwide endorsed the statement. Organizational signatories include: AFSCME 3800 – UMN Clerical Workers Union ALAA/UAW Local 2325; Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem Union, Family Defense Practice Unit; Black Attorneys of Legal Aid (BALA) Caucus, ALAA/UAW 2325; Labor Against Racist Terror; and the NYC DSA Labor Branch.

Ben and Jerry’s announces that it will end its dealings in Israel and its illegal West Bank settlements, banning product sales and production following the end of its licensing agreement in 2022.

The Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon announces that it will boycott Pillsbury, a subsidiary of General Mills, which manufactured products in the Atarot industrial zone, located in an Israeli settlement. In 2022, General Mills announced that it divested from its Israeli joint venture, which the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) notes was the product of “several years of BDS pressure.”

City University of New York (CUNY) College of Law Student Council passes a unanimous resolution endorsing BDS, calling on CUNY to divest its estimated $1.1 million investments in companies complicit in Israel’s “colonization, occupation, and war crimes” against the Palestinian people.

By the end of 2021, various BDS measures pass at the University of Houston (condemns anti-Palestinian racism; affirms BDS organizing as a protected right; demands university issue a statement affirming the same—paves the way for 2022 campus BDS victory), Northwestern University, Seattle University, and the City University of New York (see above).

The Oregon AFL-CIO and Oregon AFSCME passes a resolution calling on the state of Oregon to divest from a fund linked to the Israel-owned NSO Group, which created Pegasus, spyware used to surveil Palestinians and human rights defenders worldwide, often leading to violence toward its victims. Oregon holds this investment in its state pension fund, valued at $100 billion. The Demilitarize Portland to Palestine Coalition—made up of groups including Corvallis Palestine Solidarity, Hindus for Human Rights, and a local Jewish Voice for Peace chapter—vowed in its campaign victory statement to continue its work to pressure the state treasury to divest from the NSO group.

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA), an academic association for scholars of the Middle East with a membership of almost 3,000 individuals and over 50 institutions, passes a resolution to endorse the BDS call through a membership referendum. Previously, a resolution to endorse BDS was passed at the annual MESA conference in 2021.

The editorial board of the Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, issues a statement endorsing the BDS movement, in an editorial titled, “In Support of Boycott, Divest, Sanctions and a Free Palestine.” The statement credited the activities of the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) as informing the editorial board’s decision to embrace BDS and Palestine solidarity. The statement acknowledges the anti-boycott stance the newspaper’s editorial board took twenty years prior, and said: “the tactics embodied by BDS have a historical track record; they helped win the liberation of Black South Africans from Apartheid, and have the potential to do the same for Palestinians today. Israel’s current policy pushes Palestinians towards indefinite statelessness, combining ethnonationalist legislation and a continued assault on the sovereignty of the West Bank through illegal settlements…merits an assertive and unflinching international response. The arguments made against BDS could have been and indeed were once made against South Africa, and we are no longer inclined to police the demands of a people yearning to breathe free.”

General Mills announces decision to sell its stake in the company’s joint venture in Israel. Pillsbury, a subsidiary of General Mills, manufactured products in the Atarot industrial zone, located in an Israeli settlement.

The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys UAW 2325, a legal workers union, endorses the cause of Palestinian liberation and calls on the UAW to divest from Israel bonds.

The Oakland Roots becomes the first US professional sports team to break ties with Puma. This victory comes after a year of BDS pressure from the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), La Brigada Del Pueblo, and Oakland Roots Radicals.

By the end of 2022, various BDS measures pass at the University of Houston, Ohio State University (passes through Undergraduate Student Government General Assembly, but student government president refuses to sign the resolution), and Case Western Reserve University.