BDS activists
BDS activistsiStock

Free-speech advocates asked the US Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that upheld an Arkansas law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel, The Associated Press reported.

In June, a federal appeals court upheld the Arkansas state law which seeks to fight the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, overturning an earlier ruling that the contract violated the First Amendment.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued on behalf of the Arkansas Times, a Little Rock-based alternative weekly newspaper.

In its plea for the Supreme Court to take up the case, the ACLU called the 8th Circuit Court’s June ruling a “radical departure” from a Supreme Court precedent that an NAACP boycott of a Port Gibson, Mississippi, hardware retailer was constitutionally protected speech, expression and assembly.

The high court “has long stood for the principle that states cannot suppress politically motivated consumer boycotts,” the ACLU said. It said the 8th Circuit Court ruled that only speech and associations surrounding a boycott were protected, not a boycott itself.

The ACLU also asserted that the 8th Circuit decision was inconsistent with rulings by other federal appeals courts, creating judicial uncertainty.

It also argued that the ruling “gives states a blank check to selectively penalize boycotts that express disfavored messages, as Arkansas did here, and thereby conflicts with the First Amendment’s requirement of content neutrality.”

Arkansas is one of a host of US states that have approved legislation against BDS in recent years.

In addition to Arkansas, states that have approved anti-BDS legislation include: New York, California, New Jersey, Indiana, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Kansas, Texas and Virginia.

The anti-BDS laws have been challenged in other states as well. Last year, a federal judge temporarily blocked the anti-BDS law in Kansas following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

In September of 2018, a federal judge blocked Arizona from enforcing a similar measure.

Anti-BDS legislation has also been challenged in Texas, where a speech pathologist sued the local public school district after she was let go for refusing to sign an agreement that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel.