## Document record - Publisher: York University, News@York; statement of President Rhonda L. Lenton - Date: 2017-11-06 - Type: Primary record - Establishes: That York University stated on 6 November 2017 that its Faculty of Environmental Studies council did not consider or vote on an academic boycott and that the university does not support academic boycotts. - Original: https://news.yorku.ca/2017/11/06/york-university-responds-false-claims-regarding-faculty-environmental-studies/ - Archived copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20250714031324/https://news.yorku.ca/2017/11/06/york-university-responds-false-claims-regarding-faculty-environmental-studies/ - Citation id: S244 # York University's statement of 6 November 2017 ## What this document is This is a statement issued by York University through its News@York service on 6 November 2017, in the name of President Rhonda L. Lenton [S244]. It answers claims then circulating that the university's Faculty of Environmental Studies had voted to boycott an Israeli institution. It is a university correcting a public characterisation of its own governance, which makes it the best record of what the faculty council actually did. ## What it establishes Three things. First, the faculty council did not vote on an academic boycott: the statement says no such boycott was considered or voted on and that the word "boycott" did not appear in the motion [S244]. What the council passed was a recommendation to the Dean that the faculty not seek a new agreement with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, carried 15 to 7 [S244]. Contemporaneous reporting dates the council vote to 26 October 2017, adds one abstention, and records that the partnership had run from 1998 until the agreement expired in September 2017 [S176]. Second, the university stated its own position plainly: it does not support academic boycotts and its position has not changed [S244]. Third, the statement records a point about authority that recurs across Canadian campuses: no faculty council has the power to boycott an academic institution, and the faculty has no jurisdiction over inter-institutional partnerships [S244]. The distinction the document draws matters for this site. A decision not to renew a lapsed agreement was presented publicly as a boycott victory. The university's record shows a narrower act, taken by a body without the authority to do the wider thing. ## Key passages The statement says "we do not support academic boycotts, and our position has not changed", and that "no such academic boycott was considered or voted on" [S244]. ## How it is used on this site The statement is cited on [Canada's position on BDS](/claims/canada-position-on-bds/) and on the [timeline](/timeline/). ## Provenance and access The statement is published on York's own news site, fetches normally, and has an Internet Archive snapshot recorded above. The dates are easy to confuse: 6 November 2017 is the date of the university's statement, while 10 November 2017 is the date of the news report that supplies the abstention and the council-meeting date. No archived copy of that report was located. ## Page history 2026-09-21: First draft.