Texas Makes Public Colleges Forbid Contractors to Boycott Israel. A Lawsuit Says That Violates the First Amendment.

A University of Houston contractor who has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel said in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday that he had lost out on paid work because of his political views.

John Pluecker, a writer and translator, is among four plaintiffs who sued the Texas attorney general and two public-university boards over a law that bars state entities from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. The state’s definition of company includes for-profit sole proprietorships like Pluecker’s.

The other three plaintiffs are a contractor for a public-radio station licensed to Texas A&M University at Commerce and two people — an undergraduate and a graduate student — who said they had lost paid opportunities to judge school debate tournaments. Besides the University of Houston and Texas A&M regents, the two public-school districts are named defendants.

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The lawsuit is the latest development in higher education to call into question whether restrictions on anti-Israel speech violate the First Amendment. Professors and administrators have grappled with how employees’ intense views on the country should affect a college’s daily operations. In one case, a University of Michigan at Ann Arbor professor was disciplined for declining to write a recommendation for a student who wanted to study in Israel, sparking faculty criticism nationwide.

Gov. Greg W. Abbott of Texas, a Republican who has called Israel an “important ally,” has said the law shows the state’s support for the Middle Eastern country. Marc Rylander, a spokesman for the state attorney general, said in an email that while private citizens and companies have the right to take part in boycotts, they may not “use their business activity with the state to make that statement.”

“The taxpayers of Texas do not want their money used to marginalize and attack a key ally and trading partner of Texas, and they have said so at the ballot box,” he wrote. “They, too, have the right to express their views.”

But the lawsuit’s plaintiffs say the legislation runs afoul of their First Amendment rights. The law has particular significance on Texas campuses, where lawmakers have scrutinized issues of free speech.

The plaintiffs said their complaint questions the authority of the state government over contractors’ political views.

George Hale, the radio contractor with the Commerce-licensed station, signed a contract despite his discomfort “in order to keep his livelihood,” according to the lawsuit. He stopped boycotting Israeli commercial products, including those from the cosmetics company Ahava, after signing the form, the lawsuit says.

“I don’t think that I should pass a political litmus test in order to translate an essay,” Pluecker said in an interview. “I have my own beliefs and convictions. I didn’t think then, and I don’t think now, that the state of Texas should be interfering on my own constitutional First Amendment rights.”

Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas are representing the plaintiffs. Mike S. Rosen, a spokesman for the University of Houston, said that the institution was reviewing the lawsuit and that the certification form is required by state law. He declined to comment further on the lawsuit.

A Texas A&M at Commerce spokesman referred a reporter to a lawyer for the university’s system, who did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the system said, “The Texas A&M System follows the laws passed by legislators in Austin,” the state capital.

Pluecker said in the lawsuit that he began translating an essay by the Spanish artist Sergio Prego in early 2018, before receiving his formal contract, because he had a prior relationship with the university. When he saw the contract, under which he would have been paid $1,500, he noticed the clause about Israel.

Ultimately, he refused to sign it and was not paid for the work he had completed, he said in the lawsuit. He boycotts products from Sabra, which makes hummus, because of its support for Israel’s military, Pluecker said.

In the suit, Pluecker called the contract “an intrusion into his free-speech rights” and added that his refusal to sign the form meant he could not deliver a talk and run a workshop for Houston’s department of modern and classical languages. He would have been paid $250 for the speech, he said.

It is unclear whether Pluecker should have been required to sign the form to speak to the department. Rosen, the Houston spokesman, said the state attorney general’s office had told the university that individual campus speakers could be excluded from the no-boycott law.

Edgar Saldivar, a lawyer with the ACLU of Texas, said he had heard reports of that guidance, but he said he had not reviewed it firsthand. “That’s something that we intend to find out in this lawsuit,” he said.

Broadly, Saldivar said, the lawsuit is attempting to declare Texas’ law unconstitutional. More than 20 states have enacted similar provisions, The New York Times reported, and members of Congress are now considering federal legislation.

Lindsay Ellis is a staff reporter. Follow her on Twitter @lindsayaellis, or email her at lindsay.ellis@chronicle.com.