U of California to vote on condemning ‘anti-Semitic forms’ of anti-Zionism

A University of California committee adopted a set of principles on campus intolerance that condemned anti-Semitism and “anti-Semitic forms” of anti-Zionism.

The board of regents committee on educational policy unanimously approved the 12-page document “Principles Against Intolerance” on Wednesday, declaring that anti-Semitism has “no place at the University of California.” The full board was expected to vote on the document on Thursday.

The document had been in the works for months and drawn strongly divergent responses over plans to include anti-Zionism as a form of discrimination. Some pro-Israel groups said the inclusion was necessary to protect Jewish students, while others said it was wrong to declare criticism of a political ideology to be a form of discrimination.

In the end, the regents compromised by modifying the document to denounce only “anti-Semitic forms” of anti-Zionism. The original document, submitted in January, had declared both anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism to be unacceptable.

Still, the move was widely hailed by American Jewish groups.

“We commend the UC Regents for taking action against hostility toward Jewish students on UC campuses,” said Janna Weinstein Smith, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Los Angeles office, and Sarah Persitz, the AJC’s San Francisco director. “We also applaud the Regents for pointing out that some individuals and groups pursuing a virulently anti-Israel agenda on UC campuses have crossed a threshold into discrimination against Jewish students.”

In September, the regents convened a working group in response to allegations of rising anti-Semitism in the UC system, a network of 10 public universities. In January, it issued a report calling on the regents and university leaders “actively to challenge anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination when and wherever they emerge within the University community.”

The final statement adopted Wednesday reads, in part: “Opposition to Zionism often is expressed in ways that are not simply statements of disagreement over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture. Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.”

Regent Norman Pattiz, who served on the task force that drafted the statement and report, said it was appropriate for the university to link disapproval of Israel with prejudice toward Jewish people and that the issue was a personal one for him.

“My colleagues on the working group couldn’t have done a better job of looking at the roots of these issues and finding ways to deal with the subject of anti-Semitism, which for some reason has had a very difficult time finding its way into the group of minorities that in some way have faced intolerant behavior,” Pattiz said.

“Well that’s over now. It’s found its way in,” he said.

Free speech advocates remained concerned that the slight change to the introductory report made Wednesday did not go far enough.

“We called for the UC to change the prior version to make clear that anti-Zionism, like other political speech, is not equated with discrimination,” said Alan Schlosser, senior counsel at the ACLU of Northern California. “Unfortunately, the revised version doesn’t give that clarity.”

The system-wide principles are meant to be “aspirational rather than prohibitory,” said Charles Robinson, the UC system’s general counsel,

As such, they do not bar particular acts or proscribe sanctions, but serve to remind administrators of their duty to combat bias and to impose discipline in cases that violate existing anti-discrimination policies, Robinson said.