Following a series of high-profile disputes over the political views expressed by its faculty members, Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba has amended its code of ethics to ban professors from expressing their personal politics in class or using the name of the university when engaging in political activity off campus, unless it is regarding the university itself, reports YNet News. “While airing political or religious opinions in public, as distinguished from specific professional opinions, faculty members will not make any use of the name of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,” says the new code.

The amendment is seen as a reaction to a troubling few years for the university following a call in the Los Angeles Times in 2009 for an academic boycott of Israel by Neve Gordon, then chair of the university politics department. Mr. Gordon’s comments triggered a campaign calling for his dismissal and a report on the alleged left-wing bias of the university’s political-science faculty.

The amended code emphasizes that the university is open to people of all genders and political and religious views, and defends their right to legal freedom of expression, but says the changes were necessary “in order not to drag the name of the university into political or religious disputes in which it is not involved.” The new code has been criticized by some professors who view it as an attack on free speech.