department of education

SJP-West Statement on Dismissal of Title VI Claims at 3 UC Schools

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters on the West Coast celebrate the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE’s) dismissal of Title VI claims against three University of California schools, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Irvine, alleging that activism supportive of Palestinian human rights creates a hostile educational environment for Jewish students. These accusations were only the latest episode in a long series of attacks against Palestine solidarity activists that aim to intimidate, censor, and smear speech in support of Palestinian freedom and equality.

In an attempt to stifle Palestine solidarity activism, these Title VI complaints repeated the tired claim that supporting Palestinian human rights or voicing criticism of Israel’s policies is inherently anti-Semitic. As such, the Jewish community on campus was incorrectly portrayed as uniformly supportive of Israeli state policies in order to support the argument that pro-Palestine speech creates a hostile environment for the Jewish community. In fact, SJP chapters have a long track record of opposing all bigotry, including anti-Jewish bigotry, on campus.

We view this attempt to use the Civil Rights Act to limit students’ ability to speak out for the rights of oppressed groups as a perversion of the spirit of the law and the cause of equality and justice that undergirds it. We are pleased that the Department of Education dismissed all three cases, finding that the allegations either lacked merit or were examples of speech “that a reasonable student in higher education may experience.” These findings echo the department’s 2007 conclusions from UC Irvine, which stated that “speeches, articles, marches, symbols, and other events at issue were not based on the national origin of the Jewish students, but rather based on opposition to the policies of Israel.” The dismissals finally lift a threat that has been hanging over our universities since 2004, when the first complaint to the DOE was made against UC Irvine.

Such complaints, and the years-long DOE investigations, contributed to a devastating chilling effect on student activists and organizations, and led to unwarranted scrutiny of constitutionally protected speech by administrators worried about federal investigation. We welcome the dismissal, but hope that DOE will take steps to make sure that such investigations are handled more expeditiously in the future.

These dismissals represent the sixth major victory for SJP’s speech rights on campus in the 2012-2013 academic year:

  • In 2012, Felber v. Yudof, a federal lawsuit filed on similar legal grounds, was settled out of court with no meaningful ramifications, after a federal judge ruled that the complained-of speech activities were constitutionally protected.
  • Recommendations for broad censorship and monitoring of SJP speech made by the Campus Climate Advisory Council have also been effectively stopped.
  • The UC Student Association (UCSA) voted overwhelmingly to condemn California Assembly Resolution HR-35, which endorsed the Campus Climate reports. The UC Berkeley Graduate Student Association and over 1,000 students and recent graduates joined the UCSA in opposing HR 35.
  • Student senates at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Irvine, as well as the UCSA passed resolutions condemning Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian comments made about SJPs and Muslim Students Associations (MSA) by UCSC Lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin.
  • Sadia Saifuddin was confirmed to the position of UC Student Regent without opposition, despite efforts to stop the nomination based on her support for divestment.

While we do not expect that attempts to silence and intimidate SJPs will cease, we are confident that the anti-Palestinian groups that filed these claims can neither successfully silence us nor present the campus community with a viable argument for Israel’s policies of occupation and discrimination. We therefore reaffirm our commitment to speak out for justice in Palestine and will continue to work towards the day that the UC system cuts its financial ties to corporations that profit from the oppression of the Palestinian people.

 

 

 

US Dept. of Education Dismisses Title VI Claims Against UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Irvine

It is a great day to be a Palestine campus solidarity activist. The US Department of Education has dismissed legal claims filed by some pro-Israel students claiming that the Pro-Palestinian activism at UC Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Irvine provided a hostile and anti-semitic enviroment for Jewish students on campus. What does Title VI mean?

As explained by Electronic Intifada’s Nora Barrows-Friedman:

“The complaint was filed under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects students against discrimination based on race or ethnic background. Israel-aligned groups and individuals have claimed that Jewish students face anti-Semitism, harassment and intimidation because of activism by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Muslim student groups, and have filed claims with the Department of Education alleging violations of Title VI.”

This particular Title VI claim against UC Berkeley has been fought and brought back over a long period of time, as Barrows-Friedman points out:

“The Title VI complaint at UC Berkeley was filed by Zionist students last year after a suit against the University of California’s governing body, the Regents, was thrown out by a judge because of a significant lack of evidence. The original complaint attempted to make connections between Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Union and Hamas, and compared the climate on UC Berkeley campus to that of the Holocaust. However, despite the suit being thrown out, the students re-filed the complaint as a Title VI claim with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.”

Is is also important to note that these claims conflated being pro-occupation with being Jewish. The only Jewish students that these claims acknowledge are those who are pro-occupation. The use of civil rights law to stifle Palestinian solidarity activism on California campuses has seen a major defeat today. To read up more on this wonderful victory check out the links below:

 

Dismissals:

Read the DOE’s letter to UC Berkeley

Read the DOE’s letter to UCSC

We will post DOE’s letter to UCI as soon as it is made public.

 

News:

–Nora Barrows-Friedman’s piece on Electronic Intifada

–Los Angeles Times article on the dismissal of Title VI claim at Berkeley

–UC Berkeley News Center article on the dismissal

–UC Santa Cruz News Center article on the dismissal

 

Solidarity statements:

–Center for Constitutional Rights statement celebrating the dismissal

–ACLU statement celebrating the dismissal

–CAIR statement in support

 

In new letter, Civil Rights groups ask Federal Government to take steps to protect student speech

via Alex Kane, Mondoweiss

Prolonged federal investigations of Palestine solidarity activism on campuses are chilling students’ constitutional rights to organize and speak out, a coalition of civil rights groups has charged in letters to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). The civil rights and advocacy groups are asking the federal government to take a number of steps to remedy what they say is the problem of investigations that are having a chilling effect on students’ speech.

The letters (read them here), sent to the DOE civil rights division in San Francisco and the DOE’s assistant secretary for civil rights, are a response to the spate of Title VI civil rights complaints that have been filed by Jewish students who advocate for Israel. These complaints allege that campuses have allowed an anti-Semitic environment to flourish, but they mostly concern Palestine solidarity activism. The Title VI complaints have sparked federal inquiries on a number of California campuses.

“The numerous complaints and continued threats of complaints…have resulted in universities increasing pressure on students advocating for Palestinian rights, often applying campus rules unequally and obstructing their activities to avoid accusations that the university is enabling an anti-Semitic environment by allowing students to express their views,” the groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the National Lawyers Guild and Jewish Voice for Peace say.

The detailed letters charge that the investigations are based on complaints that conflate political speech critical of Israel with anti-Semitism. The groups also state that the investigations have been prolonged–”well beyond the OCR’s internal benchmark of 180 days”–and have not allowed students most affected by these complaints to voice their concerns.

The civil rights groups’ statements request that the DOE take a number of steps to remedy the problems they bring up. Among the recommendations are that the DOE issue a letter stating that student political speech is protected under the First Amendment and that “advocacy for Palestinian human rights and criticism of Israeli government policies are not anti-Semitic.”

“The abuse of civil rights laws to silence political views tramples on the First Amendment, and is already causing a tangible, detrimental impact on Arab, Muslim, and other students who espouse particular views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said CCR Cooperating Counsel Liz Jackson in a statement.“That contravenes the spirit of Title VI and of our Constitution. And it wrongly conflates Jewish identity with uncritical support for Israel.”

The civil rights groups’ statements are a forceful rebuke to the DOE’s practice of opening up civil rights investigations based on the Israel-related complaints of Jewish students who charge that activities like mock checkpoints and Israel Apartheid Week are anti-Semitic. The letter recommends that the DOE “direct [civil rights] field offices not to investigate complaints where the facts alleged, even if true, constitute pure political speech or expressive activity.”

In 2010, after lobbying led by groups like the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, the DOE shifted policy to allow Title VI complaints to be filed from religious groups with shared ethnic characteristics. Title VI is the section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race, color and national origin. The DOE’s 2010 decision opened the gates for the current complaints from Jewish pro-Israel students.

Despite the fact that no campus has been found to be in violation of Title VI as a result of any of these complaints, civil rights groups charge that they are still having an impact on activism and speech on campus.

Currently, there are three cases in California that are being investigated in response to a Title VI complaint being filed. For instance, the University of California, Berkeley campus is being investigated as a result of a complaint filed by students who were affiliated with Tikvah Students for Israel. The UC Berkeley investigation started out as a lawsuit in 2011, which was ended after the school and the students reached an agreement in which the university said it would consider changes to policy on campus protests. The judge in the original lawsuit stated that “a very substantial portion of the conduct to which [the complainants] object represents pure political speech and expressive conduct, in a public setting, regarding matters of public concern, which is entitled to special protection under the First Amendment.”

On the same day the agreement with UC Berkeley was reached, the same students filed a Title VI complaint with the San Francisco Division of the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights. The complaint alleges that mock checkpoints and Israel Apartheid Week create “a disturbing echo of incitement, intimidation, harassment and violence carried out under the Nazi regime and those of its allies in Europe against Jewish students and scholars … during the turbulent years leading up to and including the Holocaust.”

The prolonged nature of the civil rights investigations is causing “harm,” the letter from the CCR and others state. “The courts have long recognized that even government scrutiny – let alone full-blown investigations such as those at issue here – has a marked potential to chill speech and other expressive activities.”

And the Berkeley investigation has had an impact on students, the civil rights groups say. Specifically, the letter to the San Francisco Division of the DOE states:

A graduate student active with one of the groups targeted by the lawsuit against UC Berkeley (Students for Justice in Palestine) was told by his adviser that his public status as a Palestinian rights activist would hinder his career.

An Arab Muslim student stated that he declined to get involved with the second group targeted by the Berkeley lawsuit (the Muslim Student Association), for fear that it would jeopardize his chances of getting into graduate school.

Pro-Palestinian students frequently express anxiety about being falsely branded as antiSemites.

Several students declined to have their names appear on declarations to OCR regarding the UC Berkeley complaint, for fear that they would be improperly smeared as anti Semites or otherwise targeted.

Head of Israel lobby education group boasts of ‘fear’ political opponents feel

Alex Kane, Mondoweiss:

In a letter sent to supporters of the Louis D. Brandeis Center, Kenneth Marcus boasts that his organization is instilling “fear” into Palestine solidarity activists. While student activists have previously reported being intimidated on campus, it is noteworthy that the head of an organization allegedly concerned about anti-Semitism on campus is trumpeting the fact that he is intimidating political opponents.

Marcus, the president of the Brandeis Center,sent a letter to supporters recently asking for donations for the Brandeis Center’s work. “We are hitting a nerve,” he writes. And after mentioning that there are activists opposing his efforts, Marcus writes: “These organizations fear us, because they know we are having an impact.”

What does Marcus do in his capacity as head of the Brandeis Center? As I explained here,“Marcus and the center have been leading advocates for the use of the 1964 federal civil rights act to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism on campus, which often times has been conflated to mean Palestine solidarity activism.”

A letter sent by dozens of California student groups to a federal government agency looking into the civil rights situation for Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. criticized Marcus and his organization for “celebrating” threats to their rights on campus. “His organization has celebrated all of the aforementioned threats on our campuses: the UC report, the California State Assembly resolution, and the baseless, Islamophobic Title VI complaints,” the letter reads.

Continue reading

Audio: NLG’s Liz Jackson on University of California’s direct role in “disparaging” campus Palestine activists

Interview with Liz Jackson of the National Lawyers’ Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights about how civil rights groups are challenging the University of California as a climate of fear silences pro-Palestinian speech.

Link to the audio (mp3)

Original link with transcript

American Civil Liberties Union Writes Letter to Obama Dept. of Education protesting the silencing of Palestine activism

Nora Barrows Friedman’s report at The Electronic Intifada:

Israel lobby groups are attempting to use US civil rights law to stifle speech critical of Israeli policies and clamp down on Palestine solidarity student activism across US campuses, claiming such speech and activism is “anti-Semitic.”

But a strongly-worded letter sent on Monday directly to the Department of Education from a major US civil rights organization states that such usage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act “raises constitutional red flags that are significant and alarming.”

As The Electronic Intifada has reported, several complaints have been made by Israel-aligned organizations to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (DOE-OCR), claiming prejudice against Jewish students because of Palestine solidarity-related activism — what they say is a violation of Title VI, which protects students against discrimination based on race or ethnic background.

This “lawfare” tactic has been pioneered and coordinated by Kenneth Marcus, a pro-Israel activist who previously headed the DOE-OCR, which handles such complaints.

As I reported several months back, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan responded to campaigns by Israel lobby groups (including the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League) by announcing a new set of guidelines in 2010 that specifically applies Title VI to the protection of Jewish students from perceived “anti-Semitism” on campuses.

Since then, Title VI complaints have been filed by Israel-aligned groups and individuals, who claim that Jewish students on campuses face anti-Semitism, harassment and intimidation because of activism by Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim student groups. Most notably, the DOE has started its investigation into a complaint filed by Jewish-Zionist students at the University of California at Berkeley last July.

The original complaint, filed against the University of California itself, attempted to make connections between SJP and the Muslim Student Union and Hamas, and compared the climate on UC Berkeley campus to that of the Holocaust. The lawsuit was thrown out by a judge because of a significant lack of evidence. However, undeterred, the students re-filed the complaint as aTitle VI claim with the DOE.

ACLU’s letter to Department of Education

On Monday, Alan Schlosser, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) sent a letter addressed to Gemini McCasland of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, on the topic of the Title VI complaint filed by the UC Berkeley students. The ACLU has, until now, been relatively silent on the topic. (Though, ten years ago, the ACLU did send a letter to the then-Chancellor of UC Berkeley condemning the University’s punitive and selective reaction to a Students for Justice in Palestine sit-in on campus, classifying it as having a “chilling effect on free speech.”)

In this week’s letter, Schlosser states that the Office of Civil Rights’ investigation into the Title VI complaint “does not take place on a blank slate” and refers back to the fact that the original lawsuit was dismissed, and that student activism speech was upheld as protected speech under the First Amendment.

The letter ends with a very strong analysis of the impact that such lawfare tactics are having on students who wish to engage in Palestine solidarity activism on their campuses. The ACLU’s stance against repression of students’ free speech rights comes at a very important time. As state legislative bodies pass resolutions upholding the dangerous notion that criticism of Israel is an act of anti-Semitism, and as University administrations contribute to a climate of fear and intimidation of Arab and Muslim students on campus, now is the time when counter-pressure by civil rights groups upholding Constitutional rights and free speech matters most.

ACLU_Letter_to_DOE.pdf

 

Federal officials investigate allegations of anti-Semitism at UC Berkeley

Federal officials are investigating a complaint filed against UC Berkeley alleging that protests staged on campus have created an anti-Semitic environment.

The U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office confirmed this week that it is investigating allegations from a complaint filed in July by attorneys representing UC Berkeley alumni Jessica Felber and Brian Maissy.

“(The civil rights office) received a complaint alleging that Jewish students at the university were harassed and subjected to a hostile environment on the basis of their national origin,” reads a statement released by the U.S. Department of Education Press Office. “And, that the university failed to respond promptly and effectively to notice of the hostile environment. The complaint is under investigation.”

The complaint alleges that the campus has persistently failed to curtail anti-Semitic behavior from annual Israeli Apartheid Week demonstrations, which are organized by the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine to raise awareness of the conditions of Palestinians in Israel.

The complaint cites a 2010 Apartheid Week demonstration in which students from SJP and the campus Muslim Student Association participated in a mock checkpoint that included fake barbed wire and fake AK-47 firearms.

SJP member Tom Pessah said the aim of Israeli Apartheid Week is to demonstrate inequalities in Israel.

“No one is stopped at checkpoints other than the actors in the demonstration — everyone knows that,” said SJP member Mariah Lewis.

Felber and Maissy filed a lawsuit against the university in March 2011 alleging that it had failed to mitigate a climate averse to Jewish students. The suit was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in December of 2011.

“The administration has engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the opposing parties in an attempt to ensure that the rights of all persons are respected, and to minimize the potential for violence and unsafe conditions,” the dismissal ruling stated.

UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said campus officials have remained committed to maintaining a safe and welcoming climate for all students and to protecting free speech rights.

“Speech criticism of Israeli governmental policy is not necessarily anti-Semitic,” Mogulof said. “One can object deeply to the policies of Israel. Our students should have a right to protest what they believe to be an unlawful and immoral action.”

Mogulof said that the campus will provide the same information to the civil rights office that it provided judges with during the Felber and Maissy lawsuit and said the complaint seems to be a way to shop for more venues and courtrooms to tell the university to violate the constitutional rights of students involved in the demonstrations.

“The real story here is a massive assault on free speech and a coordinated effort to silence the legitimate political speech of students critical of Israel,” said Liz Jackson, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, in an email. “The factual allegations are simply untrue.”