Complaint Alleges ‘Profound And Deep-Seated Anti-Semitic Discrimination’ At UC-Berkeley Law School

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  San Francisco Chronicle, Complaint Accuses UC Berkeley Law School of Fostering Antisemitism by Allowing Student Groups to Reject Pro-Zionist Speakers:

Two pro-Israel attorneys have filed a civil rights complaint against UC Berkeley over the refusal by nine law school student groups to invite guest speakers who support Zionism. The attorneys said anti-Zionism is antisemitism and that the groups, and the university, are legally required to host speakers of differing viewpoints.

The groups are led by Law Students for Justice in Palestine and include Law Students of African Descent, Women of Berkeley Law and the Berkeley Law Muslim Student Association. They total nine of about 100 organizations in the 1,100-student law school. They adopted bylaws Aug. 21 saying they would not host pro-Zionist speakers, who describe Israel as a Jewish state, and would support a boycott of goods made in Israel.

The student groups say Zionism is used to justify the displacement and oppression of Palestinians. But in a complaint filed Friday with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, attorneys Gabriel Groisman and Arsen Ostrovsky defined Zionism as “the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and liberation in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel, which has for millennia formed an integral part of Jewish identity.”

The law school’s dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, said he disagrees with the student organizations’ exclusion of Zionists — a policy, he told the groups, that might bar him from appearing as a speaker because he supports “the existence of Israel” — but said that they have a right to invite speakers who agree with their views.

“Obviously, a college Republicans’ group could decide only to invite conservative speakers,” or a women’s-rights group could reject speakers who oppose abortion, Chemerinsky wrote in a column for the Los Angeles Times. “To require student groups to invite speakers of views they loathe would violate the 1st Amendment as a form of compelled speech.”

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

Washington Free Beacon,  Feds Open Investigation Into ‘Deep-Seated Anti-Semitic Discrimination’ at Berkeley Law School

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage: 

• UC-Berkeley Law Faculty Statement In Support Of Jewish Students (Oct. 11, 2022)
• Steven Lubet (Northwestern),  A Free-Speech Scandal at Berkeley Law (Oct. 17, 2022)