The British faculty union that stoked international controversy this year when delegates to its annual meeting voted to consider whether to boycott Israeli universities and refuse to cooperate with Israeli academics has now told its members that such a move would be illegal and could not be carried out.

The announcement — by the University and College Union, which represents 120,000 members — followed consultation with lawyers, who informed the organization that a boycott would breach antidiscrimination laws.

“It would be beyond the union’s powers and unlawful for the union, directly or indirectly, to call for, or to implement, a boycott by the union and its members of any kind of Israeli universities and other academic institutions; and that the use of union funds directly or indirectly to further such a boycott would also be unlawful,” legal advisers told the union.

The union’s announcement was immediately hailed. Universities UK, the umbrella organization representing the chief executives of all British universities, issued a statement calling the development “good news.” Rick Trainor, principal of King’s College London and president of Universities UK, said in the statement that “speculation about a potential boycott has been damaging to the international reputation of UK higher education. ... The best way forward now is to continue the dialogue and exchanges between universities in the UK and in Israel and the Palestinian territories.”

The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom, a group based at Bar-Ilan University, in Israel, issued a statement congratulating the union on its decision and echoing those sentiments. —Aisha Labi