Who Are We?

Yesterday the Louis D Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans For Fairness In Education (and its individual members, including two Berkeley Law School professors) filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against the University of California Berkeley, Berkeley Law School, and the Regents of the University of California.  The complaint alleges the defendants are in violations of the 14th Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and asks the Court to issue injunctions requiring the University to enforce its own policies regarding discrimination and to end the hostile environment towards Jews on the Berkeley campus.

I can't opine on the legal merits but there are three aspects that caught my eye:

First is the nature of the allegations, many of which have been previously reported:

In spite of the recognition of anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism, no fewer
than 23 Berkeley Law student organizations have enacted policies to discriminate against and
exclude Jewish students, faculty, and scholars. For example:
• To be a member of Women of Berkeley Law, the Queer Caucus at Berkeley, or the
Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Jewish students must accede to
the groups’ support of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, which
seeks to dismantle the modern State of Israel;
• In order to volunteer to provide pro bono legal services through a number of
Berkeley Law Legal Services organizations, Jewish students must undergo a
“Palestine 101” training program that emphasizes the illegitimacy of the State of
Israel;
• And to speak to any of these student organizations, invited speakers must first
repudiate Zionism under a bylaw that prohibits speakers who hold Zionist views
(the “Exclusionary Bylaw”). In fact, the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and
Justice, goes one step further, prohibiting Zionists not only from speaking to its
members but from publishing in its pages.

Second, the plaintiffs seek to use the University's own policies regarding discrimination by student organizations.  Interestingly, policies like this have been used at several academic institutions by leftists against Christian student religious groups, to force them to admit non-Christians to membership.

Third, and more significantly, is that the student organizations at the heart of the complaint because of their actions are not defendants in the lawsuit.  An argument they would surely raise if they were defendants (and they might seek to intervene as amici) is that the complaint improperly conflates Zionism with Judaism.  Rhetorically, they will ask if they would be forced to admit or engage with white supremacists and, if not, why should they be forced to do this with Zionists who are just another type of supremacist? And here's where things get tricky with definitions.  Remember that white people, including Jews, are, by definition, white supremacists.  One doesn't have to be George Wallace, Bull Connor, or David Duke to be a racist or white supremacist if you are white.  Unless you are actively antiracist you are a racist.  To be antiracist you must do the equivalent of what Jewish students are being asked at Berkeley - support the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement which calls for the dismantling of Israel.  As with Jews, these organizations will not engage with whites unless they are antiracist and support all the precepts of DEI; nuance and distinguishing between good and bad arguments and assertions is not allowed and if you persist you will be cast into the darkness.

It will be interesting to see how the arguments go around equating Jews with Zionism.  You can read the argument by the plaintiffs in the complaint.  We are already seeing how the defendants may respond with the pathetic Law School Dean, Erwin Chermerinsky who just two weeks ago wrote of his recent experiences with antisemitism at the Law School:

Two weeks ago, at a town hall, a student told me that what would make her feel safe in the law school would be “to get rid of the Zionists.” I have heard several times that I have been called “part of a Zionist conspiracy,” which echoes of antisemitic tropes that have been expressed for centuries.

Chermerinsky also denounced the very actions taken by the student organizations referenced in the complaint.  But now he tells us the complaint, "paints a picture of the law school that is stunningly inaccurate".  For more on the Dean read Equality Or Equity: Which Side Are You On?

As a practical matter, that the anti-Zionism positions are an effective ban on most Jewish students participating in the organizations and creating a hostile law school environment is clear; what the legal implications are less so.

Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, what is happening at Berkeley Law School is not much different from what is occurring at many American law schools at which traditions of equal protection under the law, due process, and individual constitutional protections are being subordinated to the new creed of DEI.  A generation of lawyers is being trained to regard the constitution as racist trash, and instructed on how to effectively dismantle it.