Sarah McLaughlin of the campus free-speech group FIRE
wrote: “Yes, a UC Regent flatly threatened the university with political consequences if it failed to craft a ‘tolerance’ policy that would punish — and even expel — its violators.”
In response to inquiries from
The Intercept, Feinstein refused to say whether her husband was authorized to make such threats on her behalf, but she refused to distance herself from them. “This is a matter before the University of California and Senator Feinstein has no comment at this time,” her Press Secretary said.
The specific UC controversy is two-fold: whether, in combating “anti-semitism,” the university should adopt
the State Department’s controversial 2010 definition of that term, and separately, whether students who express ideas that fall within that definition should be formally punished up to and including permanent expulsion. What makes the State Department definition so controversial — particularly for an academic setting — is that alongside uncontroversial and obvious examples of classic bigotry (e.g., expressing hateful or derogatory sentiments toward Jews generally), that definition includes a discussion of what it calls “Anti-Semitism Relative to Israel.”How does speech about Israel become “anti-Semitic”? According to the State Department, “anti-Semitism” includes those who (1) “Demonize Israel” by “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” or “blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions”; (2) espouse a “Double standard for Israel” by “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” or “multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations”; or (3) “Delegitimize Israel” by “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist.” The State Department generously adds this caveat at the end: “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”
The ironies of this definition are overwhelming. First, it warns against advocating a “double standard for Israel” — at exactly the same time that it promulgates
a standard that applies only to Israel. Would the State Department ever formally condemn what it regards as excessive or one-sided criticism of any other government, such as Russia or Iran? Why isn’t the State Department also accusing people of bigotry who create “double standards” for Iran by obsessing over the anti-gay behavior of Iran while ignoring the same or worse abuses in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Uganda? The State Department is purporting to regulate the discourse surrounding just one country — Israel — while at the same time condemning “double standards.”
Worse, this State Department definition explicitly equates certain forms of criticism of Israel or activism against Israeli government policies with “anti-Semitism.” In other words, the State Department embraces the twisted premise that a defining attribute of “Jews” everywhere is the actions of the Israeli government, which is itself a longstanding anti-Semitic trope.
But most important of all, whatever you think of this State Department definition, it has no place whatsoever regulating which ideas can and cannot be expressed in
an academic ins ution, particularly one that is run by the state (such as the University of California). Adoption of this “anti-Semitism” definition clearly would function to
prohibit the advocacy of, say, a one-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict, or even the questioning of a state’s right to exist as a non-secular en y. How can anyone think it’s appropriate to declare such ideas off limits in academic classrooms or outlaw them as part of campus activism?
To ban the expression of any political ideas in such a setting would not only be wildly anti-intellectual but also patently uncons utional. As UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky put it today in
an LA Times op-ed:“There unquestionably is a 1st Amendment right to argue against (or for) the existence of Israel or to contend that it should meet (or not have to meet) higher standards of human rights than other nations.” Even the now-retired Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman — while arguing that “the effort to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is sinister and malicious and is having a negative effect on Jewish students on some campuses and on the wider Jewish community” —
acknowledged in May that such bans would be clearly uncons utional: