Court rules Jewish groups can sue UC Berkeley for antisemitic discrimination

The lawsuit alleges that the university was “deliberately indifferent to the on-campus harassment” of Jewish students.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A federal court ruled on Tuesday that two Jewish groups can sue University of California, Berkeley for antisemitic discrimination due to its administration’s failure to protect Jewish students and to act against violent anti-Israel protests on campus.

The lawsuit was filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, a national group whose members include UC Berkeley faculty and students.

Their students’ lawyer, John Coghlan, called the judge’s ruling “an overwhelming victory.”

“We’re looking forward to continuing to fight for the Jewish community at Berkeley,” he said. “To the extent there is greater momentum toward combating antisemitism, that helps our case.”

“The FAC [First Amended Complaint] alleges a series of events unfolding over the course of several months on campus, which are said to have been precipitated by a campus culture hostile to Jewish students and professors,” U.S. District Judge James Donato wrote in his decision.

“The FAC says that these events were perpetrated by students who professed to oppose Zionism but actually intended to discriminate against Jewish students and professors because they are Jewish,” he continued.

Donato wrote that he found the plaintiff’s allegations that “Berkeley failed or refused to enforce its anti-discrimination policies as to its Jewish students and faculty in response to these events” to be plausible.

In addition, the judge wrote, “The FAC also plausibly alleges that Berkeley was deliberately indifferent to the on-campus harassment and hostile environment.”

Donato thus ruled that “violations of the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses of the U.S. Constitution will go forward, as will the Title VI claim.”

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.

The lawsuit alleged that the school had done nothing about the discrimination even after receiving numerous complaints from UC Berkeley Jewish students, who underwent verbal and physical assaults, received death threats by email, were followed and spat at as they walked to class, and were blocked from accessing school buildings by antisemitic activists. Many did not attend classes out of fear for their safety.

One particularly egregious incident from last February was described in detail.

A mob organized by a student group called Bears for Palestine stormed a building where an Israeli reservist was talking to a mostly Jewish audience about his experiences in Gaza in the current war, which was sparked by the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023. The screaming agitators forced their way inside, “terrorizing Jewish students and physically assaulting them,” the complaint stated, forcing school officials to evacuate the students to a secret safe room.

The anti-Israel student organization had advertised its plans to shut down the event by any means necessary, yet the administration failed to prevent such illegal activity and did not take “any meaningful action” against the group afterwards, the plaintiffs charged.

According to the lawsuit, the administration failed to address student organizations that require members and guest speakers to renounce Zionism in order to address their forums, which, the plaintiffs said, sends a “message…accurately perceived by Jewish students” that “Jews are not welcome.”

This was despite the fact that “UC Berkeley administrators have publicly acknowledged the fundamentally antisemitic nature of the Exclusionary Bylaw,” the complaint stated.

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