UC-Berkeley Law Prof Targeted As ‘Zionist McCarthyist’ Outside Of His Antisemitism Course

Jewish News of Northern California, Berkeley Law Prof Targeted as ‘Zionist McCarthyist’ Outside of His Antisemitism Course:

About 20 UC Berkeley students entering law professor Steven Davidoff Solomon’s class on Sept. 9 were greeted with a surprising piece of reading material: flyers calling Solomon a “carreer [sic] sabotager.”

The flyers featured a close-up photo of Solomon, who is Jewish, and a notice of “warning” in all-caps, as well as a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark. Students were arriving for Solomon’s “Antisemitism and the Law,” an undergraduate class that covers the history of the law as both a “vehicle for institutionalizing antisemitism” and “for combatting” it, according to a course description. The class includes lessons on historical topics such as the prosecution of Alfred Dreyfus and the lynching of Leo Frank.

“Law Proffessor [sic] Steven Solomon announced in a national newspaper [Wall Street Journal, Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Berkeley Law Students] that he will sabotage your carreer if you disagree with his religious views on Israel’s war,” read the flyers, which were handed out by an unidentified individual.

Brian Leiter (Chicago), More Controversy at Berkeley Law:

Let me comment on this purely from the standpoint of the academic freedom rights of faculty:  (1) Davidoff's op-ed was inappropriate:  as we noted in the Amy Wax case, faculty have no academic freedom right to destroy the professional prospects of their students based on gross generalizations; (2) students at a public university have a constitutional right to protest a class, but not in the class itself; disruption of the class itself should be grounds for discipline.

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