Doctor Accuses Arkansas of Withholding Pay Over Vow to Not Boycott Israel

A North Carolina professor is accusing the state of Arkansas of withholding pay for a recent lecture he delivered at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences over his refusal to comply with a state law requiring state contractors to sign pledges not to boycott Israel, which critics say infringe on people's free speech.

In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, dermatologist Steve Feldman—a professor at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine—said he was denied a $500 honorarium he was entitled to for a February Zoom lecture he delivered to medical students at the university, even though the law passed in 2017 only applies to state contractors earning more than $1,000 from the state.

While the law—a similar version of which has been passed in a majority of states around the country as a response to a broader Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement begun in 2005—was intended to combat discrimination against those hailing from the Jewish state, Feldman argued the law could preclude people from voicing objection to Israeli authorities' treatment of Islam-worshipping Palestinians amid a longstanding territorial dispute in the West Bank, which has fuelled violent acts perpetrated by both sides.

"They have a law in place that makes contracts with Arkansas dependent on your agreement not to boycott Israel, which I think is wrong," Feldman said in the interview. "To me, growing up Jewish, the very strong lesson of the Holocaust that I learned is it's wrong to mistreat other people."

Newsweek has reached out to a spokesperson for Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders via email for comment. However, Arkansas' Attorney General Tim Griffin—who was previously supportive of the law—said he believed it was improperly applied in Feldman's case.

"The law does not apply to Mr. Feldman as this was an honorarium, not a contract, and it doesn't meet the $1,000 threshold even if it were a contract," Griffin told Newsweek in a statement. "In any event, he should be paid."

Feldman's story was first reported by the Arkansas Times, which in 2019 challenged Arkansas' law in court after its publisher was asked to sign the anti-boycott pledge in order to run advertising from a technical college in the state.

While similar laws have previously been ruled unconstitutional, Arkansas' case—with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union—eventually made it all the way to the U.S Supreme Court before a conservative majority on the court ultimately declined to hear it after it had been upheld by an appeals court on a 2-1 majority.

While the lone dissenting justice at the appeals stage believed the law was overly broad, the majority claimed the law did not have an inherent dampening effect on people's religious liberties or first amendment rights.

"(The law) only prohibits economic decisions that discriminate against Israel," Judge Jonathan Kobes wrote in the court's opinion. "Because those commercial decisions are invisible to observers unless explained, they are not inherently expressive and do not implicate the First Amendment."

While Arkansas' law remains in place, Feldman told the JTA he was exploring a potential challenge to last year's ruling at the circuit court level, hoping to reverse it. While previously stringent no-boycott pledges in Arizona, Kansas and Texas were overturned, they were ultimately allowed to remain in place for larger state contracts.

"I would love to sue and have the Circuit Court either retract what they said, or go to the Supreme Court in order for people to see things that they didn't know," he told the news agency.

Update 05/04/23 05:08 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Tim Griffin.

Correction 05/05/23 12:34 p.m. ET: A previous version of this article said Feldman delivered his lecture to students at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. He actually delivered it to students at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which is based in Little Rock.