Two Jewish organizations filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging that the University of California, Berkeley School of Law violated the U.S. Constitution and Title VI by permitting “the longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism.”
In the name of free speech, Berkeley Law allows student groups to ban pro-Israel speakers and require “Palestine 101” training, policies accused of excluding Jewish students under the guise of anti-Zionism.
“The anti-Semitism Berkeley’s Jewish students find themselves embroiled in today did not start on Oct. 7,” said Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center, which filed the lawsuit with Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education. “It is a direct result of Berkeley’s leadership repeatedly turning a blind eye to unfettered Jew-hatred.”
Named in the lawsuit are the University of California Board of Regents; the University of California Berkeley; the University of California, Berkeley School of Law; UC President Michael Drake; and UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ.
The complaint said that 23 student groups have adopted versions of a proposed bylaw circulated by Law Students for Justice in Palestine that prohibits speakers who have expressed and continue to hold views “in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”
The proposed bylaw includes support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Those adopting such language include Women of Berkeley Law, the Queer Caucus and the Asian Pacific American Law Students, according to the motion filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Some of the Berkeley Law Legal Services groups, which provide pro bono legal aid, require student volunteers to undergo a “Palestine 101” training program that “emphasizes the illegitimacy of the State of Israel,” said the motion.
The Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and Justice now bans Israeli advocates from speaking to its members and publishing articles in its pages.
“The result of the amended constitutions and the Palestine 101 training was predictable. Jewish first-year law students chose not to join student groups that adopted the Exclusionary Bylaw and whose leaders attended the Palestine 101 training,” the lawsuit said. “As several law school students explained, ’No organization has said “Jews are not welcome,”’ but in practice, these by-laws and the training say exactly that.”
Mr. Marcus, a former assistant secretary for education under the Bush and Trump administrations, touched off an uproar last year with an article in the Jewish Journal headlined, “Berkeley Develops Jewish-Free Zones,” which drew a rebuttal from the law school.
Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Jewish students, like all others, are welcome to join any campus group under the university’s “all-comers” policy.
At the same time, Mr. Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, admitted being uncomfortable with the anti-Zionist views, but said that student groups “have free speech rights, including to express messages that I and others might find offensive.”
“He [Mr. Marcus] also does not mention that in a letter to the leaders of student groups I expressed exactly his message: excluding speakers on the basis of their viewpoint is inconsistent with our commitment to free speech and condemning the existence of Israel is a form of anti-Semitism,” Mr. Chemerinsky said.
The lawsuit says that support for Israel is ingrained in the faith of many Jews, who have for millennia regarded Jerusalem, or Zion, and Israel as their ancestral homeland.
“To this day, Jews pray facing toward Jerusalem,” the filing said. “The Jewish calendar, Jewish life cycle events, Jewish law, and Jewish prayer reflect the deep historic and ancestral connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. For example, more than half of the 613 commandments included in the Pentateuch relate to, and can only be fulfilled in, the land of Israel.”
Listed anonymously in the lawsuit were 15 JAFE members, including professors and legal experts who said they would welcome the opportunity to speak to the student groups but would be prevented from doing so based on their pro-Israel views.
Berkeley Law professor Steven Davidoff Solomon urged law firms last month not to hire some of his students based on their antisemitism, citing the anti-Zionist bylaw.
“The student conduct at Berkeley is part of the broader attitude against Jews on university campuses that made [the Oct. 7] massacre possible,” Mr. Solomon wrote in an Oct. 15 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “It is shameful and has been tolerated for too long.”
Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley assistant vice chancellor for communications, said the lawsuit’s claims “are not consistent with the First Amendment of the Constitution, or the facts of what is actually happening on our campus.”
“As a public university, Berkeley does not have the legal right to stop demonstrations or expression that many would consider to be offensive,” Mr. Mogulof said in an email. “Those demonstrations and expression are protected by the Constitution of the United States. While censoring that expression is not an option, we do understand how upsetting and frightening some of the demonstrations have been for Jewish students, and the university is responding to their impact.”
He said the university is offering counseling and academic accommodations when possible. He also cited recent antisemitism initiatives as well as the chancellor’s Nov. 3 statement condemning the harassment of Palestinian students as well as “antisemitic expression.”
Since Oct. 7, at least two Jewish students carrying Israeli flags have been set upon by protesters who tried to rip the flags away. In one incident, a protester hit the Jewish student in the head with his own water bottle before fleeing. Campus police are investigating the incident as the theft of a water bottle.
Hannah Schlacter, a graduate student at the Berkeley MBA program, said the university has repeatedly warned professors against misusing the classroom such as by canceling classes so that students may attend pro-Palestinian rallies, but added that abuses are still occurring.
Even after the warnings, a computer science lecturer on Nov. 17 went on an “anti-Israel rant for 18 minutes, with roughly 1,000 freshmen as his captive audience,” the lawsuit said.
“What we’re seeing is that there’s literal hostility, and that these teachers are abusing the classroom for political indoctrination, they’re violating policy,” Ms. Schlacter told The Washington Times. “And the expectation is you can assault a Jewish student when they’re expressing their Jewish identity in a certain way. You can abuse UC policy, and maybe you still keep your job.”
Mr. Marcus, a graduate of Berkeley Law, said antisemitism is nothing new at the university, which is known for its Nobel laureates in fields such as physics, chemistry and economics.
“As someone who spent three years at Berkeley, I can say that there are things extremely good about Berkeley and there are things that are extremely bad. Berkeley is all about the extremes,” he told The Times. “And antisemitism is one of those extremely bad things that they have in extreme abundance.”
The University of California Board of Regents announced a $7 million initiative on Nov. 15 to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia on its 10 campuses, including funds for emergency mental health and staff training.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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