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  • 2018-12-19 (xsd:date)
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  • Does a Texas Law Require Government Contractors to Swear They Won't Boycott Israel? (en)
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  • In December 2018, claims emerged that a speech pathologist had lost her job working with elementary school children in Austin, Texas, simply because she refused to sign an oath not to boycott Israel, as reported by The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald: Greenwald's article (and a widely-shared Facebook video which accompanied it) prompted numerous reader inquiries about whether Texas law really does require public contractors to make such commitments not to boycott Israel: The story was subsequently picked up by several local and national news outlets. The Intercept's article accurately reflected a law signed by Texas governor Greg Abbott in 2017, which did require any and all government agencies and bodies to demand that would-be contractors sign a commitment not to boycott Israel as a prerequisite to entering into a contract with them. In October 2017, we examined similar reports in the context of recovery and repair efforts after Hurricane Harvey, finding that the city of Dickinson, Texas, had indeed been forced by the statewide law to require anyone applying for a repair grant to swear that they did not and would not engage in a boycott of Israel. Bahia Amawi, as a would-be contractor providing speech pathology services to the Pflugerville Independent School District (a public body), was asked to sign such an oath in September 2018, and according to her lawsuit, when she declined as a matter of conscience, her contract renewal could not be completed. In May 2017, Governor Greg Abbott signed the law in question (House Bill 89), which came into effect in September of that year. The law stated that: Under the law, company is defined as including a sole proprietorship, such as that conducted by Amawi and other individual contractors offering and providing professional services. Amawi is suing the Pflugerville Independent School District and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in federal court, arguing that H.B. 89 is a violation of the constitutional right to free speech, given that it requires a commitment not to engage in or advocate for a boycott, thereby suppressing only one side of an ongoing political debate in what Amawi's lawsuit argues is an unconstitutional manner. Amawi has asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to declare the no boycott of Israel law unconstitutional and unenforcable, order the school district to remove that section from her contract agreement, and declare all similar clauses in other public sector contracts null and void. Her court filings included a copy of the contract offered to her, including the following section, which requires the commitment not to engage in a boycott of Israel: (en)
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