Erwin Chemerinsky - "progressive zionist" will force zionist speech on students

[yankeedoodle]

We have here an article about "progressive zionist" Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley Law school, who has students who don't want to hear any more shit from zionists, and, of course, the dean says they are "anti-semitic," and, surely, if we follow this story, it will result in this "progressive zionist" forcing students to hear more and more shit from zionists, no matter how much they protest.   

Berkeley Law Student Groups Adopt a "No Zionist" Speaking Rule
https://www.stopantisemitism.org/antisemitic-incidents-117/berkeley-law-student-groups-adopt-a-no-zionist-speaking-rule

A strongly worded pro-BDS bylaw adopted by a handful of student groups at Berkeley Law is quietly raising the temperature of the debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and prompted the law school dean, a progressive Zionist, to write an email expressing concern to students.

The statement, written by Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, goes beyond the now-familiar calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, pledges that have become commonplace at U.S. universities (The campus advocacy group Amcha Initiative has tallied 28 such resolutions adopted since 2021.)

Rather, in addition to supporting BDS, groups that adopt the bylaw also pledge not to invite "speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views ... in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine."

The rule is in the interest of "protecting the safety and welfare of Palestinian students," the provision says. As to how it will be enforced, the bylaw leaves that up to each group, though "suggested strategies can include publicly stipulating [each individual] organization's position of anti-racism and anti-settler colonialism to speakers, ensuring that proposals for speakers emphasize the organization's desire for equality and inclusion," or "informing speakers of the event's goals and mission values."

Neither Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine (BLSJP) nor any of the bylaw adopters responded to emails from J. seeking comment. Its title is "To include a Palestine-centered and de-colonial approach to holding club activities."

Although the bylaw was proposed to the more than 100 student and affinity groups at Berkeley Law, only nine had adopted it as of early this week. About 1,100 students are enrolled at the prestigious law school.

Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine nevertheless celebrated what it called a major "BDS victory" in an Instagram post on Sunday, listing the groups that had adopted the measure. Among them were the Berkeley Law Muslim Student Association, the Queer Caucus, Law Students of African Descent and Women of Berkeley Law.

It's not the first time BLSJP has made waves protesting Israel at Berkeley.

In April 2021, the group condemned the law school's acceptance of a major gift from a pro-Israel philanthropy and demanded the school return the money. The Helen Diller Foundation, which donates to a wide range of causes, including Israel, drew controversy years ago for donating to the right-wing Canary Mission; BLSJP said the foundation had given to causes that spread "Islamophobic hatred."

The foundation's $10 million gift to a center for Jewish and Israel studies housed at the law school was announced in February 2021 and with it, the law school changed the center's name to the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky defended the decision at the time, saying the university valued its partnership with the Dillers and the gift "aligned[ed] with the values of the Law School."

The passage of the new bylaw comes as American universities continue to face lawsuits and administrative complaints — primarily filed by pro-bono, pro-Israel, Jewish civil rights organizations — alleging the exclusion of and mistreatment of Jewish students who profess support for Israel.

In 2019 San Francisco State University settled a lawsuit brought by Jewish students involved with the Hillel after the students said they were blocked from participating in a human rights fair because of their Zionist views.

The U.S. Department of Education is currently investigating claims made by Jewish USC student Rose Ritch, who said she was harassed for her Zionist views and ultimately resigned from a position in student government. Other complaints are ongoing at the University of Illinois, Brooklyn College and Stanford University.

Though many Berkeley Law student groups are quite small, without large budgets, investment portfolios or endowments to wield in an act of protest, the student groups nevertheless pledged in the bylaw that they will boycott, sanction and divest funds from "institutions, organizations, companies, and any entity that participated in or is directly/indirectly complicit in the occupation of the Palestinian territories and/or supports the actions of the apartheid state of Israel."

The measure raised concerns for Chemerinsky, dean of the law school since 2017. Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, told J. he considers himself a Zionist even though he "condemn[s) a lot of Israel's policies, just like I condemn a lot of the United States' policies."

Chemerinsky helped found the L.A.-based Progressive Jewish Alliance, and in the mid-2000s represented the family of Rachel Corrie, a protester killed while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home.

He told J. he was motivated to address the matter publicly after a visit from students from Women of Berkeley Law who had voted against the measure. The students were "quite upset," Chemerinsky later wrote in an email to students.

"The reality is, the message is seen by many students as antisemitic," Chemerinsky told J.

His email was sent this week to the leaders of all of Berkeley Law's student groups and shared with J.

"I have learned that student groups have been asked to adopt a statement strongly condemning Israel and some have done so. Of course, it is the First Amendment right of students to express their views on any issues," he wrote.

"It is troubling to broadly exclude a particular viewpoint from being expressed," he added. "Indeed, taken literally, this would mean that I could not be invited to speak because I support the existence of Israel, though I condemn many of its policies."

His email went on: "The principles of community for the Berkeley campus stress that we are committed to ensuring freedom of expression and dialogue that elicits the full spectrum of views held by our varied communities."

Chemerinsky, speaking to J., added that "to say that anyone who supports the existence of Israel — that's what you define as Zionism — shouldn't speak would exclude about, I don't know, 90 percent or more of our Jewish students."

Kenneth L. Marcus, an attorney and a Berkeley Law alumnus, also criticized the bylaw in an interview Thursday. Marcus is the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a pro-Israel Jewish civil rights organization currently spearheading the lawsuits and complaints named above.

He said students in this case "are taking a step down a very ugly road."

"Berkeley Law wouldn't be Berkeley Law if students didn't engage in a certain amount of wrongheaded political nonsense," he said. "This is different, because it's not just a political stunt. It is tinged with antisemitism and anti-Israel national origin discrimination." (National origin discrimination is unfair treatment based on the country someone is from, and it's unlawful in employment settings and by government agencies).

"They may as well have just stated, 'No Zionists allowed,'" Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the Amcha Initiative wrote to J. "This is clear antisemitism. The university needs to ensure that every student, regardless of identity, will be equally protected from behavior such as this ... and should, at a minimum, promptly issue a statement denouncing the targeting of Jewish students for their identity."

The adoption of the BDS bylaw represents the latest dustup at a university that, like many across the country and in Europe, has in recent years seen its share of Israel controversies bleed into antisemitism claims.

For example, in 2019 and 2020, amid heated student government meetings, one Jewish student's views were brushed off as "Zionist tears," another Jewish student was called a "Nazi" for supporting Israel, and another was asked to leave the room because of an Israeli flag sticker on her laptop computer.

Partially in response to those incidents and others like it, a group of faculty and campus Jewish leaders established the Antisemitism Education Initiative, a training effort led by the school's Hillel director and professors of Jewish history, which received funding from the Academic Engagement Network, a pro-Israel nonprofit. One of the group's first projects was to create an 11-minute explainer video called "Antisemitism in Our Midst" for students and staff, which defines antisemitism and describes when criticism of Israel crosses the line into antisemitism.

Ethan Katz, an associate professor of Jewish history at UC Berkeley, co-founded and co-directs the initiative. He criticized the BLSJP bylaw, saying it was disappointing that while Palestinian groups have historically felt stifled in their ability to express their views freely, some now appear to be doing the same thing to those who hold pro-Israel views.

By instituting the bylaws and others like them, "organizations are effectively shutting down any kind of lively conversation about the Zionist-Arab conflict, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.

Katz, a scholar of modern European and Mediterranean Jewish history, also pointed to a broader problem on the UC Berkeley campus and on campuses across the country that starts with one word: Zionism.

The BLSJP bylaw, and others like it, treat Zionism as a pernicious evil on par with white supremacy. For many Jews, its meaning could not be more different.

"For these students and for a significant number of Palestinians, Zionism means settler colonial dispossession, full stop," he said. "They do not think of events like the refugee crisis of 1948 as part of the history of Zionism. They see any cases of violence or dispossession experienced by Palestinians in the history of this conflict as the essence of Zionism.

"The deeper roots or affirmative meanings of Zionism are not really there," he added. For example, he said, an idea widely shared among historians and large segments of the Jewish community is that Zionism, at its core, is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, or that Zionism in its "most basic definition" is support for a "political or, even, for some people, a cultural entity that is Jewish in character in some portion" of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Among groups like BLSJP, that "perspective doesn't hold any water," he said.

[yankeedoodle]

So is Berkeley Law actually banning 'Zionist' speakers?

No. The law school's policies around guest speakers remain unchanged, and the vast majority of law student groups have not backed the pledge to oppose such speakers.

Jews at UC Berkeley are mad, too — but mainly at Marcus, and others who claim the school is now a breeding ground for antisemitism.

"The idea .. that the Berkeley law school has 'Jewish-free zones' is preposterous," two Jewish faculty members, Ron Hassner and Ethan Katz, wrote in an op-ed in J.

Hassner is the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies and co-director of the law school's Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, while Katz is chair of an advisory committee on Jewish student life and co-director of the Berkeley Antisemitism Education Initiative.

They wrote that fears about an antisemitic environment at Berkeley don't hold up to scrutiny, pointing to the law school's recent hosting of Zionist speakers including Yossi Shain, a member of the Israeli Knesset. The pair added that the actions of nine law student groups don't change "Berkeley's deep institutional commitment" to Jewish studies and Israel studies.

"Panic-mongering around anti-Zionism on U.S. campuses serves no purpose, other than to offer free advertisement for extremist ideas, and to erode needlessly Jews' sense of basic safety and security in places where Jewish life is actually thriving," Hassner and Katz wrote, while also condemning the law student anti-Zionist campaign as "nakedly discriminatory," "bigoted" and "an outrage."

Chemerinsky also spoke up, again, both in a response to the Jewish Journal and in his own op-ed in The Daily Beast. "There is no 'Jewish-Free Zone' at Berkeley Law or on the UC-Berkeley campus," he wrote.

Does UC Berkeley really have 'Jew-free zones'? We explain.
https://www.jta.org/2022/10/04/united-states/does-uc-berkeley-really-have-jew-free-zones-we-explain

It seemed like a headline out of the 19th century: a warning of "Jew-free zones" at the University of California-Berkeley.

That's the phrase being employed by some prominent pro-Israel groups this week to describe a dispute at UC Berkeley's law school, where nine student groups recently voted to adopt by-laws that state they will not invite any visiting speakers to campus who "hold views in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine."

But is the "Jew-free" label accurate? Not according to Jewish leadership at the university. Here's a rundown of the controversy, and where people have come down on it.

How did the UC Berkeley situation start?

In August, nine student groups at the UC Berkeley law school (out of more than 100) signed a statement authored by the group Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine.

Under the justification of "protecting the safety and welfare of Palestinian students," the statement pledges not to invite "speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views ... in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine," as reported by J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

The student groups who backed the pledge include Women of Berkeley Law, Berkeley Law Muslim Student Association, Asian Pacific Amedrican Law Students Association and the Queer Caucus, according to the organizing group. The statement also expressed support for the goals of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

Opposition was swift and came from the highest office at the law school. Erwin Chemerinsky, the school's Jewish dean, wrote to the student body to condemn the pledge, calling it "troubling" and noting that "taken literally, this would mean that I could not be invited to speak because I support the existence of Israel, though I condemn many of its policies."

Chemerinsky further pointed out that UC Berkeley's chancellor, Carol Christ, has denounced the BDS movement in the past, and that the school has an Antisemitism Education Initiative specifically designed to parse anti-Zionist rhetoric.

The law school's Jewish Students Association board also authored an Aug. 27 statement opposing the petition, writing that it "alienates many Jewish students from certain groups on campus," and noting that their group was "one of the few affinity groups not contacted during this process."

Even as all of this was happening, Chemerinsky insisted publicly that UC Berkeley's law school was still a welcoming environment for Jewish students and speakers, calling the petition "a minor incident" and any outside attempts to spotlight it as indicative of campus-wide antisemitism "nonsense."

Does the story end there?

No. Last week, about a month after the law student petition circulated, Kenneth Marcus, formerly the head of the federal government's Commission on Human Rights, published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal claiming that Berkeley now has "Jewish-free zones."

"It is now a century since Jewish-free zones first spread to the San Francisco Bay Area," wrote Marcus, who is also a Berkeley Law alum and founder and chairman of the pro-Israel legal group Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. He compared the Berkeley Law petition to 19th-century signage in American cities with phrases like "No Jews, Dogs, or Consumptives," and added that the incident was a sign of "​​university spaces go[ing] as the Nazis' infamous call, judenfrei. Jewish-free."

Other pro-Israel groups quickly followed suit in condemning Berkeley. Hadassah CEO Rhoda Smolow said the students' actions "are not only antisemitic; they are anti-education." StandWithUs repeated Marcus' "Jew-free zones" comment in the subject line of a press release, threatening legal action against the school in the form of filing a Title VI civil rights violation complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.

The Jewish Journal op-ed also occasioned several open letters opposing the Berkeley student groups who signed the by-laws, from the American Association of Jewish Lawyers & Jurists (which accused the law school of having "tolerated, condoned, and by such inaction, encouraged" an antisemitic environment); more than 100 Jewish student groups nationwide, including more than a dozen Hillel and Chabad chapters as well as several Jewish fraternities; and a number of pro-Israel groups including AIPAC and the World Jewish Congress, alongside the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish National Fund.

Among others rising up in anger following the publication of Marcus' op-ed: Barbra Streisand, who tweeted Oct. 1, "When does anti-Zionism bleed into broad anti-Semitism?" Streisand then linked to Marcus' article.

So is Berkeley Law actually banning 'Zionist' speakers?

No. The law school's policies around guest speakers remain unchanged, and the vast majority of law student groups have not backed the pledge to oppose such speakers.

Jews at UC Berkeley are mad, too — but mainly at Marcus, and others who claim the school is now a breeding ground for antisemitism.

"The idea .. that the Berkeley law school has 'Jewish-free zones' is preposterous," two Jewish faculty members, Ron Hassner and Ethan Katz, wrote in an op-ed in J.

Hassner is the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies and co-director of the law school's Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, while Katz is chair of an advisory committee on Jewish student life and co-director of the Berkeley Antisemitism Education Initiative.

They wrote that fears about an antisemitic environment at Berkeley don't hold up to scrutiny, pointing to the law school's recent hosting of Zionist speakers including Yossi Shain, a member of the Israeli Knesset. The pair added that the actions of nine law student groups don't change "Berkeley's deep institutional commitment" to Jewish studies and Israel studies.

"Panic-mongering around anti-Zionism on U.S. campuses serves no purpose, other than to offer free advertisement for extremist ideas, and to erode needlessly Jews' sense of basic safety and security in places where Jewish life is actually thriving," Hassner and Katz wrote, while also condemning the law student anti-Zionist campaign as "nakedly discriminatory," "bigoted" and "an outrage."

Chemerinsky also spoke up, again, both in a response to the Jewish Journal and in his own op-ed in The Daily Beast. "There is no 'Jewish-Free Zone' at Berkeley Law or on the UC-Berkeley campus," he wrote.

Why Berkeley?

For one, there's the Bay Area city's reputation as an incubator for progressive activism, which has made it a regular target of right-wing campus free speech protests. But there's something else, too.

The Berkeley law school's Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies is a recent recipient of a $10 million donation from the Helen Diller Institute, money which was used to expand its Israel Studies programming — including guest speakers. When the donation was announced last year, pro-Palestinian law student groups, including the group that later organized the petition protesting Zionist guest speakers, called on the school to reject the money.

They pointed to a long list of past objectionable donations by the Diller family, including to Canary Mission, an anonymous group that has published the personal information of Israel critics; the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group led by Jewish anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller; and to efforts to oppose a rent control ballot initiative.

At the time, the school rejected students' calls to return the money, possibly laying the groundwork for the intra-campus dispute today over Zionist guest speakers, some of whom (including Shain) were funded by the Diller endowment.

The Dillers' foundation had previously donated $10 million to UC Berkeley across two separate donations: half to fund the campus' Center for Jewish Studies, and half to endow the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies.

Since the work of faculty like Hassner and Katz is made possible in part by the Diller family's generosity, donor concerns are another factor at play. Donors to university Israel studies programs are increasingly looking for assurance that their money is going toward research and political speech they agree with — often with the encouragement of groups like StandWithUs, who push donors to build pro-Israel safeguards into their large-dollar donations. Reassuring the public that all is well with Israel-related matters at Berkeley also reassures the donors.

Earlier this year at the University of Washington, a donor withdrew a $5 million gift from the school's Israel Studies program because she didn't approve of its endowed chair signing a letter critical of Israel. Katz signed a letter sent at the time to UW's president supporting the affected professor.

What could happen now?

As of now the initial student letter hasn't prompted much action on campus, apart from a strong rebuke from UC Berkeley administration. But the reactions to it could be a signal of something more.

The forceful public tactics being employed by pro-Israel groups well versed in campus controversies are a sign that their approach to UC Berkeley may follow a by-now familiar playbook, much to the chagrin of Jewish faculty on campus who would prefer to keep things quiet.

StandWithUs, which is threatening to file a Title VI complaint, brings to mind several similar investigations that the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights has opened up against schools in recent years for allegedly fostering antisemitic environments on campus. Most recently, the Brandeis Center and campus antisemitism watchdog group Jewish On Campus succeeded in opening an investigation at the University of Vermont by filing a complaint about ad-hoc student groups that said they wouldn't admit Zionist students, among other things (the school's administration has vigorously denied the allegations).

Marcus declined to tell JTA whether the Brandeis Center would also be looking to file a complaint against UC Berkeley. But the organization argues that any campus anti-Zionist speech or activity is tantamount to discriminating against Jewish students, and that universities have an obligation to oppose such speech by any legal means. The Brandeis Center wants the federal government to define anti-Zionist activity in the same way, and uses Title VI as a means of pressuring universities to take action against students who may be engaging in such activity.

Will they do so in this instance? Marcus told JTA in a statement that the center is "prepared to take whatever action is required," but did not elaborate on what that action could be.

[yankeedoodle]

jews from everywhere demanding that students at UC Berkeley must be exposed to jewish propaganda.   

More Than Two Dozen Groups Urge UC Berkeley School of Law to Take Action to Prevent Anti-Jewish Discrimination
https://combatantisemitism.org/latest-news/more-than-two-dozen-groups-urge-uc-berkeley-school-of-law-to-take-action-to-prevent-anti-jewish-discrimination/

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) was among the more than two dozen organizations that issued a joint statement on Monday urging the UC Berkeley School of Law to take action to prevent discrimination against Jews following the recent decision by nine student groups to ban pro-Israel and Zionist speakers from events they host.

The letter, published by the Jewish Journal, states:

"We, the undersigned Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, are disappointed by recent events at the University of California, Berkeley, in which nine registered student organizations at Berkeley Law have amended their bylaws to ban any speakers that support Israel or Zionism — a standard Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky noted would ban both himself and 90% of his Jewish students from speaking at events hosted by these organizations.

Gallup in 2019 found that 95% of American Jews support Israel, and Pew in 2020 indicated that 'eight-in-ten U.S. Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of what being Jewish means to them.'

Jewish faith and identity for millennia have been anchored by the desire to restore sovereignty in our indigenous homeland, the core idea of Zionism. Like observing Shabbat and kosher dietary laws, Zionism is vital to the consciousness of many, if not most, Jews.

The bylaw is a vicious attempt to marginalize and stigmatize the Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel community and to normalize the requirement that Zionist Jews hide or alter a fundamental aspect of their identity in order to be fully accepted in certain arenas. This is unabashed antisemitism. The fact that nine student organizations at Berkeley Law have already adopted this view raises a very real concern that they will work to persuade others to do the same. Indeed, such a requirement by even one club is too many.

The implication is unambiguous: Berkeley Law is telling its Zionist Jewish students to get used to the idea that there will be certain spaces in which they are not welcome.

The UC Regents have spoken to this issue with firmness: 'Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.' And their instructions to university leaders have been clear: 'The Regents call on University leaders actively to challenge anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination when and wherever they emerge within the University community.'

We therefore call upon Berkeley Law to immediately take all lawful and necessary steps to ensure that none of its student organizations is permitted to discriminate against Jews based on any aspect of their Jewish identity, including their Zionism. As a first step, the nine student organizations should rescind the new, discriminatory provisions from their bylaws or face appropriate sanctions for their failure to do so."

[abduLMaria]

Ah Yes

their "Gentiles are to be Seen but not Heard" policy.

It's VERY POPULAR these days.

[yankeedoodle]

Everything is a Federal Case https://slangdefine.org/f/federal-case-32e7.html when it comes to the jews.   

Department of Education to investigate Berkeley Law School after complaint from Israeli lawfare group
The Department of Education has announced an investigation into Berkeley Law School over a student group bylaw challenging Zionism.
https://mondoweiss.net/2022/12/department-of-education-to-investigate-berkeley-law-school-after-complaint-from-israeli-lawfare-group/?

The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has announced that it's launched a probe into the University of California's Berkeley Law School. According to an email obtained by Jewish Insider the investigation will determine whether the school acted appropriately in response to a complaint "from Jewish law students, faculty and staff that they experienced a hostile environment at the law school based on their shared Jewish ancestry."

This past summer, the campus group Law Students for Justice in Palestine developed a bylaw in support of Palestine, which called on other student organizations to refrain from inviting Zionists speakers to the school or holding events "in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine." Nine groups immediately signed onto the pledge.

Pro-Israel groups push phony narrative
The effort was immediately mischaracterized by pro-Israel groups across social media and even mainstream outlets. Kenneth Marcus, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights chairman and assistant secretary for civil rights under former president Donald Trump, published an Op-Ed in Jewish Journal op-ed made the spurious claim that Berkeley Law was establishing "Jewish free zones." He also asserted that anti-Zionism of any kind is antisemitic.

"Anti-Zionism is flatly antisemitic," reads the article. "Using 'Zionist' as a euphemism for Jew is nothing more than a confidence trick. Like other forms of Judeophobia, it is an ideology of hate, treating Israel as the 'collective Jew' and smearing the Jewish state with defamations similar to those used for centuries to vilify individual Jews."

The "Jewish free zones" lie also found a home in Newsweek, where Toronto-based writer Laura Rosen Cohen inexplicably claimed that they are becoming a "new progressive trend." Cohen warns of a "civilizational decline" if Palestine campus activism continues.

"Is it any surprise that law students think it's ok to bar Jewish speakers when a member of Congress feels comfortable doing the same thing for the progressive movement writ large?," reads that article. "This isn't something progressives are ashamed of, but something they are proud of. Which is why society more broadly must firmly reject this discrimination when it comes for Jews."

The phony narrative was even embraced by some liberal celebrities on Twitter. Singer and actress Barbra Streisand tweeted the Marcus op-ed with the caption, "When does anti-Zionism bleed into broad anti-Semitism?" Comedian Sarah Silverman shared it and wrote, "9 student law groups from UC BERKELEY Ban any Jews who believe Israel should be able to exist. Even those (MOST JEWS) who are against occupation and who fight for a two state solution. This is just the beginning. PLEASE help fight anti-Jewish racism."

In August, Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky sent an email to student leaders expressing concern about the bylaw and pointing out that he was a supporter of Israel, but he dismissed the allegations of "Jewish-free zones" as ridiculous.

"The Law School's rules are clear that no speaker can be excluded for being Jewish or for holding particular views," wrote Chemerinsky in The Daily Beast. "I know of no instance where this has been violated..Ironically, most students and faculty in the Law School were unaware of this controversy or paid little attention to it. After the first couple of weeks of the semester, it was virtually never mentioned. But some media outlets have brought it worldwide attention."

In October, over two dozen pro-Israel groups (including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Democratic Majority for Israel, and Christians United for Israel) wrote a statement calling for the school to be sanctioned. "Jewish faith and identity for millennia have been anchored by the desire to restore sovereignty in our indigenous homeland, the core idea of Zionism," it reads. "Like observing Shabbat and kosher dietary laws, Zionism is vital to the consciousness of many, if not most, Jews."

International Legal Forum
The Department of Education's investigation comes in response to a complaint filed by pro-Israel, right-wing lawyer Gabriel Groisman and International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky. The International Legal Forum is an anti-BDS group based in Tel Aviv and funded by the Israeli government.

"We said we'd act, and we did!" tweeted Ostrovsky. "Now the Office for Civil Rights has launched investigation against UC Berkeley Law School, in response to our claim against them for antisemitism, over exclusion of Zionist speakers! We will not stand idly by as Jewish students are being attacked."

Days before the investigation was announced, Palestine Legal posted a Twitter thread detailing the situation. "The complaint is wrong on both the law and the facts," it reads. "It claims to represent the interests of Jewish students, but the lawyers who filed the complaint have no apparent ties to the UC Berkeley community. So what do they want?"

https://twitter.com/pal_legal/status/1601268121905803266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1601268121905803266%7Ctwgr%5E36d7e6c6cb174fd930fe959cd9319bf857f26626%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmondoweiss.net%2F2022%2F12%2Fdepartment-of-education-to-investigate-berkeley-law-school-after-complaint-from-israeli-lawfare-group%2F

"They want UC Berkeley to take valuable resources away from educating students and instead do PR for the right-wing Israeli line: teaching that Zionism is integral to Jewish identity," it continues. "They want a *government entity* to dictate what is and isn't a *legitimate Jewish belief*"

In Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman points out that Palestine Legal filed a complaint against Florida State nearly two years ago for allegedly fostering anti-Palestinian racism against its client Ahmad Daraldik. "There is no reason it should take [20] months," Palestine Legal senior attorney Radhika Sainath told Barrows-Friedman. "If there's nothing there, then they should dismiss it. But we have 22 pages of facts, maybe more, talking about the anti-Palestinian, hostile environment that Ahmad faced. [The complaint] is now stuck in purgatory."

[yankeedoodle]

New Billboard About Antisemitism Sparks Debate in Berkeley
Some UC Berkeley students are concerned the billboards are creating more conflict on campus.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/antisemitism-billboards-berkeley-debate/3134375/

Several new billboards in Berkeley meant to raise awareness about antisemitism are also raising new debate, with some saying the message is only further dividing the community.

The new billboards are spread throughout eight different parts of Berkeley and are hard to miss.

The red signs come with a message directed to UC Berkeley's School of Law. It reads: "You don't need to go to law school to know anti-Zionism is antisemitism."

The billboards were posted by the nonprofit group "JewBelong" as a response to a student group. At the law school, they recently voted to ban "pro-Israel" and "zionist" speakers from giving lectures on campus.

The non-profit co-founder Archie Gottesman hopes the message challenges students and the community to fight against antisemitism.

"To be out there with this just really hateful rule is incredibly scary. It's scary for jews and scary for people, who are not Jewish, who want to have freedom of speech," Gottesman said.

Jessica Pearlman, who identifies as Jewish, said she hopes the message will start a conversation.

"I think people really think they are absolutely two different things and that they are never mistaken for another and I think it's important to see those two phrases together," she said.

But the billboards appear to be fuel for another debate as one billboard has already been vandalized with someone spray painted the words "Free Palestine."

Some UC Berkeley students are concerned the billboards are creating more conflict on campus.

"I know plenty of people that are Jewish and antizionist, so that logically, I don't know. It's frustrating to see right wing groups capitalizing on things at Berkeley's campus," said UC Berkeley student Enrique Marisol.

In a statement the dean at UC Berkeley law said that following: "It's nonsense to say the school is promoting antisemitism." They explained that "student groups have the first amendment, right to choose speakers based on their viewpoints. I condemn the bylaw, but groups have the right to have it."

The student group, who initially voted to ban certain speakers did not return NBC Bay Area's call for comment.