{"id":92002,"date":"2026-03-20T09:56:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/?p=92002"},"modified":"2026-03-20T09:56:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:56:53","slug":"in-antisemitism-settlement-uc-berkeley-agrees-bans-on-zionists-can-violate-university-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/in-antisemitism-settlement-uc-berkeley-agrees-bans-on-zionists-can-violate-university-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"In antisemitism settlement, UC Berkeley agrees bans on Zionists \u2018can violate university rules\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ANDREW LAPIN<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 The University of California, Berkeley said bans on Zionists \u201ccan violate university rules\u201d and the bylaws of any student groups barring their inclusion must be rescinded, as part of a new settlement agreement in an antisemitism lawsuit.<\/p>\n

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Jewish students crowd into Ron Hassner’s office on the first day of the professor’s sit-in over the University of California, Berkeley’s handling of antisemitism and anti-Israel protests on campus, March 2024. (Courtesy Hassner)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The university further agreed to pay $1 million to the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal group that sued the school on behalf of Jewish students. The Brandeis Center shared the agreement on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The university\u2019s official new policy, the agreement reads, would be that \u201cbans on Zionists have historically been used by some individuals and institutions as a pretext for excluding Jews and that such pretextual, exclusionary bans can violate university rules.\u201d It was similar to a policy enacted at New York University in 2024 that also said \u201cZionist\u201d could function as a \u201ccode word\u201d that could lead to violations of the school\u2019s harassment policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is, I think, a major milestone,\u201d Paul Eckles, senior litigation counsel at the Brandeis Center, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Eckles said a major goal of the group was \u201ca recognition that anti-Zionism can, and really was, being used as a pretext for discrimination against Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Berkeley case concerns incidents that date back to 2022: of law school student groups passing bylaws pledging not to invite \u201cZionist\u201d speakers to campus. <\/p>\n

The case had been the subject of considerable debate, with the Brandeis Center\u2019s founder and chair Kenneth Marcus \u2014 a Berkeley Law alum \u2014 claiming that the students had created \u201cJew-free zones.\u201d It was also the subject of a Biden-era Education Department civil rights investigation. The Brandeis Center sued in 2023, after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis settlement reflects UC Berkeley\u2019s long-standing values and objectives when it comes to combatting abhorrent antisemitic expression, harassment, and discrimination when it occurs on the Berkeley campus,\u201d a spokesperson for the school said in a statement. The statement pointed to the school\u2019s rising grade on the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s campus antisemitism report card.<\/p>\n

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The University of California, Berkeley (Charlie Nguyen\/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The law school\u2019s Jewish dean Erwin Chemerinsky told students in an email Thursdays that student groups could continue to have policies regarding who they invited on the basis of viewpoints, so long as they were not included in the group\u2019s bylaws.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy position since this issue emerged has not wavered,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI believe that student organizations have the First Amendment right to choose speakers based on their views, but I believe that these Bylaws are inconsistent with the Law School\u2019s commitment to be a place where all ideas and views can be expressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chemerinsky has been critical both of the student groups\u2019 actions against \u201cZionists\u201d and of the Trump administration\u2019s strong-arm approach to antisemitism on campuses such as Berkeley\u2019s \u2014 where an Israeli speaker was also disrupted by student protesters in 2024. But the university\u2019s own Jewish faculty have said the school has improved its response to antisemitism since then.<\/p>\n

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