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

The College of California, Berkeley, Regulation Faculty suffers from “profound and deep-seated anti-Semitic discrimination,” in accordance with a replica of a grievance filed towards the varsity with the Training Division and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The grievance—submitted final week by a Florida-based lawyer and the Worldwide Authorized Discussion board, a world watchdog that fights anti-Semitism—alleges anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias on the legislation faculty after 9 scholar teams in August adopted bylaws that ban Zionist audio system from the campus.

The varsity’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 accordance with the grievance. The petitioners urge the Training Division’s Workplace of Civil Rights to instantly “open an investigation towards the College of California, Berkeley, Regulation Faculty” and order it to take away this ban on Zionists.

The grievance comes amid an increase in anti-Semitism on America’s school campuses. Assaults on Jewish college students and their identification doubled within the 2021 to 2022 educational yr particularly at colleges with giant Jewish populations, the Free Beacon reported final week. Final month at George Washington College, for example, flyers stating “Zionists Fuck Off” had been affixed on the campus’s Hillel constructing, a middle for Jewish life. The Hillel constructing on the College of Southern California in August was additionally defaced, with vandals smashing the constructing’s entrance facet.

The Training Division should decide whether or not Berkeley Regulation is violating the Civil Rights Act after which power the college to “invalidate the bylaws in query,” in accordance with the grievance. The watchdog additionally needs 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 “acknowledged scholar group” revoked. College students and school must also be required to take part in coaching that can foster a campus surroundings “freed from anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination,” in accordance with the grievance.

There’s precedent for the Training Division to contain itself within the matter. The federal company is helming a probe into the College of Southern California over allegations the varsity fomented “a hostile surroundings 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 Regulation.

A spokesman for Berkeley Regulation instructed the Free Beacon that the varsity “seeks to keep away from commenting on complaints” filed with the Training Division’s Civil Rights Workplace. The spokesman additionally mentioned he was not conscious of the precise grievance.

Whereas Berkeley Regulation officers, together with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, have sought to downplay the problem, with Chemerinsky saying that “solely a handful of scholar teams out of over 100 at Berkeley Regulation did this,” the authorized advocates say this excuse is unacceptable.

“It’s unfathomable {that a} related assertion would ever be made that ‘solely a handful’ of scholar teams banned audio system of every other ethnic, non secular, or racial group,” states the grievance, which was authored partly by Gabriel Groisman, a Florida-based lawyer and Jewish rights chief. “But such blatant discrimination straight focused towards Jews is being excused, justified, and mainstreamed. The college’s posture is untenable beneath the legislation.”

The grievance additional says that Chemerinsky “has neither referred to as for [the groups’] revocation, nor has he taken any significant motion 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 said that 9 formally acknowledged scholar teams “is not going to invite audio system which have expressed and continued to carry views or host/sponsor/promote occasions in help 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.

On the coronary heart of the grievance is the allegation that these teams are focusing on Jewish and pro-Israel college students based mostly on their non secular identification or nationwide backgrounds. This “compelled exclusion” of primarily Jewish college students, the grievance states, “is prohibited and a flagrant violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”

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

“By successfully saying ‘Zionists should not welcome,’ these scholar group—and by extension Berkeley, from its failure to behave—are excluding, marginalizing, and silencing Jews, and contributing to the creation of a hostile surroundings for Jewish college students, school, and employees, in circumstances [where] anti-Semitism, together with on campus, is already at document excessive ranges throughout america,” in accordance with the grievance.

Groisman, the lawyer dealing with the case together with the Worldwide Authorized Discussion board, instructed 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 legal guidelines are in place to guard college students from discriminatory actions,” he mentioned. “The coed teams at UC Berkeley tried to be cute by hiding their discrimination towards Jews by excluding Zionists. We’re assured that the U.S. Division of Training will see proper by them and defend the scholars beneath the protections afforded by Title VI.”