Complaint Alleges ‘Profound and Deep-Seated Anti-Semitic Discrimination’ at Berkeley Law School

The University of California, Berkeley, Law School suffers from “profound and deep-seated anti-Semitic discrimination,” in keeping with a duplicate of a grievance filed towards the college with the Education Department and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The grievance—submitted final week by a Florida-based legal professional and the International Legal Forum, a world watchdog that fights anti-Semitism—alleges anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias at the regulation faculty after 9 scholar teams in August adopted bylaws that ban Zionist audio system from the campus.

The faculty’s determination to associate with the ban on pro-Israel audio system constitutes a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents recipients of federal funds from discriminating based mostly on race and nationwide origin, in keeping with the grievance. The petitioners urge the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights to instantly “open an investigation against the University of California, Berkeley, Law School” and order it to take away this ban on Zionists.

The grievance comes amid an increase in anti-Semitism on America’s faculty campuses. Assaults on Jewish college students and their id doubled within the 2021 to 2022 educational 12 months particularly at faculties with giant Jewish populations, the Free Beacon reported final week. Last month at George Washington University, as an illustration, flyers stating “Zionists Fuck Off” have been affixed on the campus’s Hillel constructing, a middle for Jewish life. The Hillel constructing at the University of Southern California in August was additionally defaced, with vandals smashing the constructing’s entrance facet.

The Education Department should decide whether or not Berkeley Law is violating the Civil Rights Act and then drive the college to “invalidate the bylaws in question,” in keeping with the grievance. The watchdog additionally desires Berkeley’s leaders to make sure that any group endorsing the anti-Zionist provisions is blocked from receiving faculty funds and has its standing as a “recognized student organization” revoked. Students and college also needs to be required to take part in coaching that may foster a campus surroundings “free of anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination,” in keeping with the grievance.

There is precedent for the Education Department to contain itself within the matter. The federal company is helming a probe into the University of Southern California over allegations the college fomented “a hostile environment of anti-Semitism.” That investigation was launched after a watchdog group submitted proof of anti-Semitic discrimination just like that included within the grievance focusing on Berkeley Law.

A spokesman for Berkeley Law informed the Free Beacon that the college “seeks to avoid commenting on complaints” filed with the Education Department’s Civil Rights Office. The spokesman additionally stated he was not conscious of the precise grievance.

While Berkeley Law officers, together with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, have sought to downplay the difficulty, with Chemerinsky saying that “only a handful of student groups out of over 100 at Berkeley Law did this,” the authorized advocates say this excuse is unacceptable.

“It is unfathomable that a similar statement would ever be made that ‘only a handful’ of student groups banned speakers of any other ethnic, religious, or racial group,” states the grievance, which was authored partly by Gabriel Groisman, a Florida-based legal professional and Jewish rights chief. “Yet such blatant discrimination directly targeted against Jews is being excused, justified, and mainstreamed. The university’s posture is untenable under the law.”

The grievance additional says that Chemerinsky “has neither called for [the groups’] revocation, nor has he taken any meaningful action in response to this egregious act of discrimination.”

The August decision sparked fierce debate on Berkeley’s campus and inside the pro-Israel advocacy world. It acknowledged that 9 formally acknowledged scholar teams “will not invite speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views or host/sponsor/promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” The organizations make use of rhetoric generally utilized by Israel’s enemies, together with supporters of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions motion, which wages financial warfare on Israel.

At the guts of the grievance is the allegation that these teams are focusing on Jewish and pro-Israel college students based mostly on their spiritual id or nationwide backgrounds. This “forced exclusion” of primarily Jewish college students, the grievance states, “is illegal and a flagrant violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”

“There can be no equivocation: Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” the grievance says.

“By effectively saying ‘Zionists are not welcome,’ these student group—and by extension Berkeley, from its failure to act—are excluding, marginalizing, and silencing Jews, and contributing to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff, in circumstances [where] anti-Semitism, including on campus, is already at record high levels across the United States,” in keeping with the grievance.

Groisman, the lawyer dealing with the case together with the International Legal Forum, informed the Free Beacon that couching Jew-hatred within the language of anti-Zionism is not going to stop Berkeley from being investigated for discrimination.

“Federal laws are in place to protect students from discriminatory actions,” he stated. “The student groups at UC Berkeley tried to be cute by hiding their discrimination against Jews by excluding Zionists. We are confident that the U.S. Department of Education will see right through them and protect the students under the protections afforded by Title VI.”