CJLC Warns “Israeli Apartheid Week” Contributes to Exclusionary Campus Work Environments

“Israeli Apartheid Week” (IAW), taking place from March 21 to 28, 2026, is an annual campaign on university campuses. While often framed as a human rights initiative, it contributes to environments where Jewish students, faculty, and staff report feeling targeted, excluded, or unsafe.

For the Canadian Jewish Labour Committee, this has direct implications for campus workplaces.

Academic institutions are workplaces, and many who study and work within them are union members. During IAW-related activity, Jewish members have reported being singled out, marginalized, and made to feel unwelcome in their professional environments, conditions that are inconsistent with the labour movement’s commitment to dignity, equity, and inclusion.

IAW relies on rhetoric and tactics that go beyond legitimate workplace discourse. The repeated use of the “apartheid” characterization constitutes a modern libel and operates as a false and stigmatizing narrative that isolates, delegitimizes, and contributes to the marginalization and exclusion of Jewish members in campus workplaces.

IAW’s alignment with boycott campaigns can further contribute to exclusionary dynamics within academic workplaces, particularly where actual or perceived ties to Israel or Jewish identity become a basis for targeting, pressure, or social exclusion.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental value in both academic and labour contexts. However, institutions and unions share a responsibility to ensure that campus workplaces remain free from harassment, discrimination, and exclusion.

CJLC calls on universities, colleges, faculty associations, and unions to ensure safe and inclusive environments, enforce policies on harassment and discrimination, and address the impact of IAW-related activity on Jewish members.