Suit was filed yesterday in a California federal district court against the University of California at Berkely and Berkeley Law School challenging growing antisemitic discrimination and harassment on campus. The complaint (full text) in Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc. v. Regents of the University of California, (ND CA, filed 11/28/2023), alleges that policies of law student organizations violate the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses, violates the §1981 right to contract and violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The complaint alleges in part:
4. 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.
5. Under these policies, Jewish students, faculty, and guest speakers must deny a central part of their cultural, ancestral heritage and a fundamental tenet of their faith in order to be eligible for the same opportunities Berkeley accords to others....
118. Specifically, Defendants have selectively chosen not to enforce Berkeley's all-comers policy and Policy on Nondiscrimination against student organizations in the Law School and the undergraduate campus that have discriminated against or excluded Jewish members of the school community from participating in organizations, programs, and activities. For similar reasons, Defendants' decision not to enforce the Policy on Nondiscrimination against these groups where they refuse to accept Jewish speakers is unlawful.,,,
Politico reports on the lawsuit.
