US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson

US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced legislation this week that would strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status if they allow foreign nationals from countries deemed adversaries of the United States to serve on their boards.

The bill, called the Nonprofit Governance Integrity Act, targets tax-exempt organizations under sections 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code, a broad category that includes charities, social welfare groups, and trade associations. Religious institutions such as churches would be exempt.

In a statement on Wednesday, Cotton said nonprofits “that receive tax breaks should be completely free from malign foreign influence,” and argued that nationals of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba should not be in positions of influence within American nonprofits.

Cotton has long been a vocal critic of loose laws allowing adversarial regimes such as those in Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow to gain influence in the US through means such as buying farmland on American soil or in this case serving on nonprofit boards, warning that adversaries seek to undermine US institutions. The legislation would define those countries as “Foreign Entities of Concern” and penalize nonprofits by revoking their tax-exempt status if their boards include nationals from those nations.

Moreover, Cotton has recently voiced concern over radical nonprofits tied to the Middle East. Earlier this month, Cotton urged the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to launch a probe into the leadership of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a far-left group which organizes anti-Israel demonstrations. Aisha Nizar, a leader of the PYM, recently encouraged supporters to take actions to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of America’s most advanced military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.

In the letter, Cotton encouraged the FBI to “immediately examine Nizar’s actions and take any necessary actions to mitigate the threat.”

Last week, Cotton also penned a letter to US Education Secretary Linda McMahon drawing attention to the growing influence of the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) nonprofit organization in Philadelphia schools. CAIR, an organization that has been accused of having ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, recently announced that it would partner with the Philadelphia public school system.

“It is well documented that CAIR has deep ties to pro-Hamas terrorist organizations and publicly supports Hamas’s terrorist activities,” Cotton wrote in the letter. “As I noted in a previous letter, the Department of Justice listed CAIR as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee in the largest terrorism-financing case in US history. Further, CAIR-Philadelphia’s executive director, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, stated that Israeli ‘occupation’ was the reason for the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel.”

While Cotton’s office pitched the latest measure as closing a loophole for foreign influence, the proposal could face resistance. Legal experts may challenge the constitutionality of banning individuals from nonprofit boards based on nationality, raising equal protection and due process concerns. Nonprofit leaders could also push back, warning that the rules would impose new compliance burdens and restrict a push for more diverse leadership.

Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS

The consul general of Israel in New York has called on all New York City mayoral candidates to condemn antisemitism and protect the Jewish community in the largest US city, where Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani gained key endorsements from prominent Democrats this week despite being accused of harboring antisemitic views and promoting anti-Israel animus.

Akunis told The Algemeiner in an interview on Thursday that Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a policy of not getting involved in and commenting on local races outside of Israel. Still, the diplomat said he has “expectations” for how the future mayor, whoever it may be, should protect New York’s Jewish population — the largest of any city outside of Israel — against antisemitism and violence.

“I call to all the candidates who want to be mayor of New York, condemn [the antisemitism]. Say, ‘This is not our way,’” he said. “We can disagree and even criticize the state of Israel from time to time. [But] be based on truth and facts, not on dreams or blood libels.”

While Akunis did not mention any specific candidate, the mayoral race’s current frontrunner, Mamdani, has stirred controversy and raised alarm bells among the city’s Jewish community over his fierce criticism of Israel.

“My expectation is that all the candidates will condemn violence, will say that they are against the idea of ‘globalize the intifada’ — and not just say ‘I’m not using those words’ as their response. No, they need to condemn it — and say clearly that they will protect the Jewish communities, Israeli institutions and students, Israeli and Jewish businesses here in New York, and that they will be safe during their four years of mayor,” Akunis added, without naming Mamdani or any other specific candidate.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career, recently came under fire for defending use of the slogan “globalize the intifada” — which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II.

Following backlash, however, Mamdani said he would “discourage” use of the phrase, adding it’s “not language that I use” but he “[doesn’t] believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech.”

Local Jewish leaders have expressed alarm over Mamdani’s open support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination, and repeated refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. He has also promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.

On Oct. 8, 2023, 24 hours following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, Mamdani published a statement condemning “Netanyahu’s declaration of war” and suggesting that Israel would use the massacre to justify committing a second “nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

This week, two US lawmakers condemned Mamdani after he pledged to abandon the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been widely adopted around the world and, according to many civil rights groups, is a key tool for fighting a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes sweeping across the US.

Akunis’s comments came as key Democrats openly endorsed Mamdani this week, strengthening his status as the current frontrunner.

Carl Heastie, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, endorsed Mamdani for mayor on Wednesday, saying that he believes his fellow assemblyman has a “romantic view of what the city can be and should be. And, you know, sometimes people want to be romanced.” Heastie and Mamdani have served together for nearly five years in the state legislature.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has also endorsed Mamdani, writing in a New York Times essay published on Sunday that she is “confident that he has the courage, urgency, and optimism New York City needs to lead it through the challenges of this moment.”

“We discussed the need to combat the rise of antisemitism urgently and unequivocally,” added Hochul, who is running for a second full term next year. “I’ve been glad to see him meet with Jewish leaders across the city, listening and addressing their concerns directly. I look forward to working together to make sure New Yorkers of all faiths feel safe and welcome in New York City.”

Heastie’s counterpart in the Senate, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, previously endorsed Mamdani.

Meanwhile, among the 10 Democrats in the US House who represent districts located entirely or partially within New York City, four have already endorsed the mayoral candidate, who won the Democratic primary by a significant margin. Rep. Pat Ryan, whose district contains some of the northern suburbs and exurbs of New York City, has also endorsed Mamdani, and Rep. Yvette Clark, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is reportedly expected to endorse him om Monday.

Despite the wave of endorsements, however, several key New York Democrats have been reluctant to endorse the far-left candidate. The chair of New York’s state Democratic Party, Jay Jacobs, said on Thursday he will not back Mamdani, noting his disagreement with Mamdani’s views on Israel. He also said the far-left Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member, does not represent “the principles, values, or policies of the Democratic Party.”

A Marist poll released this week showed Mamdani with a comfortable lead in the race. According to the data, 45 percent of likely voters said they would support Mamdani over his opponents: Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. Cuomo and Adams are both running as independents. The poll showed that Mamdani’s chief rival, Cuomo, received 24 percent of support, followed by Sliwa with 17 percent and Adams with nine percent. Five percent were undecided.

Recent polling has shown similar results, despite the results finding that Jewish voters overwhelmingly disapprove of Mamdani.

University of Connecticut pictured in Hartford, Connecticut, US, on Aug. 16, 2017. Photo: Hilary Russ via Reuters Connect

The Undergraduate Student Government of the University of Connecticut has defeated an attempt to hold a referendum on the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, delivering a blow to the anti-Zionist movement on college campuses.

Among the student government, 27 USG senators voted on the measure on Wednesday, with a clear majority, 15, voting against it, eight voting for it, and four abstaining from registering an opinion at all. According to StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, a caucus of students convinced the body that the referendum violated USG bylaws on ideological neutrality while promoting a “biased, hateful agenda.”

Their efforts halted BDS’s momentum on the UConn campus, which surged in February when 184 students voted to begin the first steps toward placing the idea on the ballot.

“Proponents of BDS have long proposed biased referenda like these. The BDS strategy involves using any platform to spread anti-Israel messages and turn public opinion against the only Jewish state,” Roz Rothstein, chief executive officer of StandWithUs, said in a statement responding to the vote. “We are tremendously proud of students at UConn for their leadership, determination, and strength in highlighting the campaign’s hypocrisy, lies, and hate.”

Launched in 2005, the BDS campaign opposes Zionism — a movement supporting the Jewish people’s right to self-determination — and rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation-state. It seeks to isolate the country with economic, political, and cultural boycotts. Official guidelines issued for the campaign’s academic boycott state that “projects with all Israeli academic institutions should come to an end,” and delineate specific restrictions that its adherents should abide by — for instance, denying letters of recommendation to students applying to study abroad in Israel.

“It’s so important to stand up for what you believe in, even if you feel outnumbered or overpowered,” Sophie Rifkin, a UConn USG senator and Emerson Fellow of StandWithUs, said. “At the USG meeting, students from all grades and all backgrounds stood up for the Jewish community at UConn, setting a precedent across college campuses. Antisemitism is rampant, and cannot be allowed to thrive at colleges. Speaking out against it, standing up for ourselves despite fear of backlash, is how we make that change.”

BDS is being defeated at colleges across the US where it attempts to take root despite having received a boost in support from far-left students who seemingly interpreted Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as a signal to advance an anti-Zionist agenda.

In May, Dartmouth College’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) unanimously rejected a proposal calling for it to adopt the BDS, citing the sheer divisiveness of BDS — which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — and its potential to “degrade” rather than facilitate “additional dialogue on campus.”

Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine did the same in March when its Board of Trustees voted to accept the counsel of a committee that recommended maintaining investment practices which safeguard the institution’s financial health and educational mission.

“The endowment exists solely to provide financial support of the college across generations,” said a report submitted to trustees in February and, according to The Bowdoin Orient, subsequently ratified by them. “It should not be used as a tool for the advocacy of public policy.”

The report, authored by the college’s Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility, continued, “Interventions in the management of the endowment that are rooted in moral or political considerations should be exceedingly rare and restricted to those cases where there is near-universal consensus among Bowdoin’s community of stakeholders … if such actions are pursued, they should be taken only where the financial trade-offs are identifiable, measurable, and limited.”

Boston University rejected BDS in February, with its president, Melissa Gilliam, saying, “The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East.”

Trinity College turned away BDS advocates in November, citing its “fiduciary responsibilities” and “primary objective of maintaining the endowment’s intergeneration equity.” It also noted that acceding to demands for divestment for the sake of “utilizing the endowment to exert political influence” would injure the college financially, stressing that doing so would “compromise our access to fund managers, in turn undermining the board’s ability to perform its fiduciary obligation.”

Colleges and universities will squander tens of billions of dollars in endowment returns if they capitulate to demands to divest from Israel, according to a report published in September 2024 by JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report presented the potential financial impact of universities adopting the BDS movement, which is widely condemned for being antisemitic.

The losses JLens projected are catastrophic. Adopting BDS, it said, would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion in growth, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.