Law School Israel Protest Culture Is ‘Cancer,’ Eleventh Circuit Judge Says

Bloomberg Law, Law School Israel Protest Culture Is ‘Cancer,’ US Judge Says:

Eleventh Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch told Harvard Law School students that protests she views as antisemitic on law school campuses are a spreading “cancer” that cross the line beyond protected speech.

“What is happening on campuses throughout the country is a cancer. Harvard is similarly stricken,” Branch said Tuesday at a Harvard Federalist Society talk on campus speech in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“I have no quarrel with peaceful protests. I might not agree with you, but I support your right to protest,” said Branch, a Donald Trump appointee who has sat on the Atlanta-based court since 2018. “But that’s not what’s happening.”

She said that pro-Palestine symbols used by protesters including black and white scarves called keffiyeh, hands painted red, and the expression “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” can cross the line from protected speech into threats and incitement of bullying.

Branch urged law school administrators “to stop tolerating the abuse these students are inflicting on campus” and equally enforce speech policies, and recommended law students file written reports against students they believe have violated those policies.

Washington Free Beacon, Berkeley Student Group Shares Blood Libel Cartoon Targeting Law School Dean:

A student group at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law published an anti-Semitic cartoon depicting the school's dean, who is Jewish, holding bloody utensils over a dinner table, a version of the ancient blood libel employed in anti-Semitic propaganda that accused Jews of using the blood of Christian children for baking matzah and other rituals.

Berkeley's chapter of Law Students for Justice in Palestine posted a cartoon depicting law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky holding a fork and knife dripping with blood over a dinner table, with the caption "No Dinner With Zionist Chem While Gaza Starves!" The graphic, which was posted on Monday, was deleted approximately half an hour later, but the Washington Free Beacon obtained a screenshot. Shortly after, the cartoon was reposted, but without blood covering the utensils.

"This dinner is the prime example of a normalization PR event that hopes to distract students from Dean Chem's complicity and support for the genocide of the Palestinian peoples," the group said in a caption under the cartoon. "While Dean Chem wants to wine and dine his students, he continues to approve of UC investments into weapons companies like Blackrock, Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop, and more."