By Nanette Asimov, Higher Education Reporter
Updated July 3, 2025 (SFChronicle.com)
The UC Berkeley group Students Supporting Israel interrupts a walkout in support of Gaza and Lebanon by faculty, staff and students in October.Adahlia Cole/For the S.F. Chronicle
The University of California’s president has told campuses, including student governments, that they may not boycott companies “based on their association with a particular country.” The clear reference to Israel in a letter from UC President Michael Drake to chancellors Wednesday followed new federal requirements that institutions receiving federal grants affirm they won’t boycott the Jewish state.
In May, the National Science Foundation updated its grant qualifications to include the certifications against boycotting Israel, which it labeled “discriminatory prohibited boycotts.” The new rule did not say why boycotts against Israel were being singled out.
UC’s announcement and the new grant requirements come as the Trump administration continues its relentless assault on universities — slashing billions of research dollars, accusing campus leaders of tolerating antisemitism and pressuring them to resign. UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons was scheduled to testify on July 9 about the university’s handling of anti-Israel demonstrations that swept across his campus and many others throughout 2024 after the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s retaliation and the war in Gaza. On Thursday, federal officials canceled that hearing.
UC received more than $4 billion in federal research grants last year. The Trump administration has already rescinded at least $312 million of those grants because they centered on research involving people of color.
In a letter to campus chancellors Wednesday, Drake summed up his message, couched in legal language, that UC campuses — including student governments — “do not engage in financial boycotts of companies associated with a particular country.”
No UC campus is boycotting products or associations with Israel, although several student governments and other student organizations have called for their campuses to divest from companies that do business with Israel. UC Berkeley’s student government passed such a bill in 2013.
Drake’s letter framed the ban as a sound business policy that does nothing to impinge on freedom of speech and linked to a 2021 UC policy requiring competitive bidding in contracts.
“While our community members have the right to express their viewpoints, financial boycotts are inconsistent with UC’s commitment to sound business practices, academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas,” the university said in a separate statement that also linked to the policy.
Student leaders with the UC Student Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called the ban “deeply troubling.”
Oussama Mokeddem, the group’s government affairs director, said the directive “sends a chilling message that financial interests and political pressure outweigh free expression and moral responsibility to take a stand against a foreign nation committing a genocide.”
In March, the Department of Justice announced that it was including all UC campuses in its expanding investigation of alleged antisemitism on campuses across the country.
While the nation’s Jewish community is united in its opposition to anti-Jewish discrimination, groups are divided about how the Trump administration has handled its crackdown. Some welcome the attention to combating antisemitism. But others, such as the Nexus Project, which identifies as an “antisemitism watchdog,” accuse the Trump administration of exploiting “false accusations of antisemitism for political gain.”
Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for Lyons, said the UC Berkeley chancellor is looking forward to telling the congressional committee “how the campus has been investing, and continues to invest, in resources and programs designed to prevent and address antisemitism on the Berkeley campus.”
HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER
Nanette covers California’s public universities – the University of California and California State University – as well as community colleges and private universities. She’s written about sexual misconduct at UC and Stanford, the precarious state of accreditation at City College of San Francisco, and what happens when the UC Berkeley student government discovers a gay rights opponent in its midst. She has exposed a private art college where students rack up massive levels of debt (one student’s topped $400k), and covered audits peering into UC finances, education lawsuits and countless student protests.
But writing about higher education also means getting a look at the brainy creations of students and faculty: Robotic suits that help paralyzed people walk. Online collections of folk songs going back hundreds of years. And innovations touching on everything from virtual reality to baseball.
Nanette is also covering the COVID-19 pandemic and served as health editor during the first six months of the crisis, which quickly ended her brief tenure as interim investigations editor.
Previously, Nanette covered K-12 education. Her stories led to changes in charter school laws, prompted a ban on Scientology in California public schools, and exposed cheating and censorship in testing.
A past president of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter, Nanette has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in sociology from Queens College. She speaks English and Spanish.
