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Settlement includes mandatory antisemitism training, restrictions on how clubs operate
Controversy remains despite a new settlement between the University of California Berkeley and a Jewish advocacy group over antisemitism concerns on campus.
Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and UC Berkeley agreed to settle a 2024 federal lawsuit which accused the school of not doing enough to address antisemitism on campus.
However, officials dispute how certain parts of the agreement are to be implemented, and a national free speech group has concerns as well.
In particular, the settlement requires the law school’s registered student organizations to remove bylaws that prohibit “Zionist” speakers, or those that support the idea of a Jewish political state, such as Israel.
The clubs, referred to as RSOs, “may not include prohibitions on speakers.”
“RSOs also may not limit officers, board members, or speakers based on a category that is protected under federal or state law,” the settlement states. “This does not limit the discretion of [organizations] to determine which speakers to invite or the content of and positions taken in any speech sponsored by the [organization].”
Law school Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote to the student body and shared his interpretation of the new policy.
“Under the settlement, student organizations may continue to have policies as to who they will invite as speakers, including on the basis of viewpoint,” Chemerinsky wrote, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon. “However, under the settlement, the Bylaws of the student organization cannot state a policy of restricting who may speak at the organization’s events.”
He also wrote: “Simply put, student organizations may continue to have the same policies that they have adopted restricting who they will invite to speak, but these policies cannot be contained within their Bylaws.”
Both Chemerinsky and the university said this is the correct interpretation of the agreement.
The new policy “does not prevent student organizations from choosing speakers based on their views,” the law professor told The College Fix.
Communications director Dan Mogulof told The Fix that Dean Chemerinsky’s comments reflect the university’s interpretation of the settlement.
Mogulof pointed to the Anti-Defamation League’s “excellent” rating of Jewish life on campus and the school’s actions to confront antisemitism as “beyond expectations.” He referred to the university’s antisemitism report card.
Brandeis Center said Zionism and Judaism are closely linked
However, the Brandeis Center disagrees.
Paul Eckles, the senior litigation counsel for the Brandeis Center, told The Fix in an email that Chemerinsky’s statement was “inaccurate and incomplete” since “it failed to mention that UC Berkeley has acknowledged in the settlement that bans on Zionists are often used as a pretext for discrimination against Jews.”
“For many Jewish people Zionism is an integral part of their identity,” Eckles said. “Exclusionary bans targeted at Zionists can violate the university’s anti-discrimination policy.”
When asked what he would say to critics who argue that clubs should be allowed to exclude certain speakers as part of their own freedom of association, Eckles said student organizations may still choose speakers based on their opinions.
“What they cannot do is exclude anyone based on suspect classifications like race or ethnicity and, for that reason, cannot exclude Zionists as a group,” he told The Fix.
Moving forward, the Brandeis Center plans to work “with the university to make sure accurate and complete information about the settlement and its terms is disseminated to the UC Berkeley community.”
In addition, Eckles told The Fix in the same email that UC Berkeley’s Office for Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination agreed to “rigorously evaluate and investigate complaints of discriminatory treatment of Zionists.”
The Fix asked Eckles whether the Brandeis Center is seeking policies requiring student groups to host pro-Israel or Zionist speakers, and how this would differ before and after the settlement in practice.
“The academic subject matter of most groups has no connection to the conflict in the Middle East. Student groups shouldn’t be selecting speakers based on their position on a completely unrelated issue,” Eckles said.
Eckles told The Fix that The Brandeis Center is not “attempting to force Recognized/Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) to invite particular speakers.”
“It is seeking to eradicate discrimination,” he said.
“The UC Berkeley School of Law has appropriately agreed that it will not award academic credit to students for participating in any journal, clinic or RSO that adopts viewpoint-based principles or practices that have no pedagogical relationship to the academic focus of the organization,” he said.
Still, a national free speech group raised concerns about the changes.
“These student groups have the right under the First Amendment to set their own membership criteria, ideas, and the mission they root for,” Zach Greenberg told The Fix on a phone interview.
He’s the director of faculty legal defense for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“This fundamental right ensures that these student groups are areas where students can come together and discuss, debate ideas,” he said.
He is also concerned about the university’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.
“This definition is very expansive and covers students that criticize Zionism or Israel, and FIRE’s stance is that this could be [restrictive] on political speech that goes far beyond the guidelines about harassment and discrimination,” he said.
Greenberg also raised concerns about the mandatory antisemitism training. “The training compels students to adhere to [contested] political viewpoints,” he told The Fix. “That would be compelled speech and that is not okay.”
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