(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Student groups at the University of California Berkeley’s School of Law have kicked off the academic year by ensuring they will never invite any supporters of Israel or Zionism into their elitist cabal.
According to Jewish Journal, nine groups including the Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Decent and the Queer Caucus amended the bylaws to make this exception. It is reported, however, that Muslim students seem to be behind this push specifically.
Berkeley’s law school dean and progressive Zionist Erwin Chemerinsky observed that he would be banned under the newfound standards, as would the majority of his Jewish students.
Berkeley law students are not the first to exclude Jewish people from some of their spaces, but they appear to be the first to have it in writ.
At the University of New York at New Paltz, activists pushed out two sexual assault victims from a survivor group for being Zionists. The University of Southern California did something similar with their Jewish student government vice president, Rose Ritch, driving her out of office under the threat of impeachment.
Tufts University students attempted oust student judiciary committee member Max Price from the student government because of his support for Israel.
Some commentators argued that “groups have the right to be selective, to set their own rules for membership,” under the First Amendment.
Chemerinsky explained that free speech arguments run the other way—discriminatry conduct is not protected as free speech. Technically, Berkeley’s new bylaws limit the free speech of Zionist students.
It is unclear why these law students do not know that is the case.
These students seem to be taking a page out of the book of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who has gone on record stating that progressive values and support of Israel are antithetical.
“You cannot claim to hold progressive values, yet back Israel’s apartheid government,” she said in an online advocacy seminar. “We will continue to push back and not accept his idea that you are progressive, except for ‘Philistine,’ any longer.”
