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 and on the 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.