UC Berkeley slammed in lawsuit alleging “longstanding, unchecked spread of antisemitism”
Since last fall, when nine Berkeley student orgs adopted bylaws excluding pro-Zionist speakers (and possibly members), civil rights and law experts have debated if it's constitutional to only welcome certain ethnic/religious identities to participate in clubs at public universities. As relayed on the SF Chronicle, a Zionist student org filed against the UC last Tuesday for allowing and promoting antisemitic discrimination on campus—via quiet exclusion and overt violence.
A Zionist organization sued the University of California on Tuesday, accusing the UC Berkeley Law School of promoting anti-Semitism and discriminating against Jews by allowing student groups to bar Zionists as speakers at their meetings.
“Zionism is an integral component of Jewish identity,” attorneys for the Louis D. Brandeis Foundation said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco. “Anti-Zionism is discrimination against those who recognize the Jews’ ancestral heritage — in particular the Jews’ historic connection to the land of Israel.”
The suit says it “targets the longstanding, unchecked spread of antisemitism at the University of California Berkeley.”
They cited a policy announced in August 2022 by Law Students for Justice in Palestine and now followed, according to the suit, by 23 of the 100 organizations in the 1,100-student law school. Saying Zionism is used to justify the displacement and oppression of Palestinians, the groups have adopted bylaws saying they would not invite pro-Zionist speakers, who describe Israel as a Jewish state.
The lawsuit said the climate on campus has become more hostile since the Oct. 7 assault on Israel by military forces from Hamas, which rules Gaza, followed by weeks of attacks by Israel’s military on Gaza and the West Bank.
“A Jewish student draped in an Israeli flag was attacked by two protesters who struck him in the head with a metal water bottle,” Brandeis lawyers said. “Jews on campus have been receiving hate emails calling for their gassing and murder. And Jewish students have reported being afraid to go to class, which would require them to pass through the pro-Hamas rallies taking place in Berkeley’s main thoroughfares.”
This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read the whole thing here.
Related:
Expert: Berkeley orgs’ antisemitism symptomatic of Left’s discrimination
UC regent rebukes Ethnic Studies Council for pro-Hamas statement “rife with falsehoods about Israel”
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