\u201cWhile many understandably found this speech offensive or disturbing, (the law) does not require a university to silence protected expression to shield those who object to its content,\u201d Chapman answered as it requested dismissal of the suit.<\/p>\n
This is the crux of Chapman\u2019s arguments as it battles the claim filed by Eli Schechter and Talya Malka, who graduated in 2024. They say Chapman allowed antisemitic bullying by pro-Palestinian activists after the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, and that the school failed to take action against a \u201chate group\u201d supporting a Palestinian homeland.<\/p>\n
Schechter and Malka assert that opposition to Zionism \u2014 the political movement to establish and defend a Jewish homeland in the Middle East (at, some would argue, any cost) \u2014 is the same thing as antisemitism, the hatred of Jews. The suit wants Chapman to officially adopt a definition of antisemitism equating the two, a proposition that has enraged some of the school\u2019s Jewish faculty. Opposing Israel\u2019s policies, and hating Jews, are two very different things, the trio of professors argues,<\/a> and the university agrees with them.<\/p>\n The lawsuit seeks to \u201ctransform a year of contentious campus activism regarding the Israel\u2013Gaza conflict into federal civil rights liability against Chapman University,\u201d Chapman\u2019s filing said.<\/p>\n \u201cChapman is deeply committed to protecting its students from harassment, discrimination and acts of antisemitism. But (federal law) does not make universities automatically responsible for the expressive activities of students or for every instance of abhorrent peer conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cRather, Chapman may be held liable only if it intentionally discriminated against Plaintiffs or responded to student misconduct with \u2018deliberate indifference\u2019 that was clearly unreasonable in light of known circumstances. Plaintiffs have not alleged facts that would support either conclusion \u2014 and there are no such facts.\u201d<\/p>\n Au contraire, Chapman argues. Schechter and Malka\u2019s own allegations show that Chapman administrators took many actions to address their concerns, including meeting with students, investigating alleged incidents and threats, pulling in campus Public Safety officials, and managing the competing demands of safety and expression.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaintiffs identify no facts plausibly suggesting that Chapman acted with discriminatory animus or responded to reported incidents in a manner that could meet the stringent deliberate indifference standard,\u201d Chapman\u2019s filing said.<\/p>\n \u201cMoreover, the vast majority of conduct Plaintiffs identify as \u2018harassment\u2019 consisted of student political speech (e.g., protest messaging and sidewalk chalking) concerning matters of public debate and thus protected by the First Amendment \u2014 even though it was offensive to many. Federal civil rights statutes cannot be construed to force Chapman to impinge on these constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Also, because both plaintiffs graduated in 2024 and are no longer subject to the campus conditions they challenge, their requests for class action status for all Jewish students, and for forward-looking relief, are moot, the university said.<\/p>\n Is this antisemitism? After Hamas\u2019 attack on Israel in 2023, a memorial to the victims, created by Jewish students and organizations, rose on Chapman\u2019s campus. An Israeli Defense Forces flag appeared as well.<\/p>\n Soon, a large Palestinian flag was hung above the memorial\u2019s Israeli flags, \u201cin an act of ethnic intimidation and domination,\u201d the plaintiffs argue in the suit. Members of Students for Justice in Palestine \u201copenly and publicly desecrated the memorial by stealing and removing flags.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the suit, Schechter emailed Chapman officials asking for protection, writing: \u201cA lot of Jews in our community are scared and have reported individuals ripping Israeli flags from the ground and giving them mean looks.\u201d<\/p>\n Also, flyers posted by Jewish student groups were ripped down and replaced with flyers affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine, which the suit described as \u201ccolonizing the space\u2026 a systemic pattern of ethnic and racial intimidation.\u201d Also, Jewish students were barred from a meeting held by Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish students were subjected to shouts of \u201c(expletive) Jews\u201d while on campus, as well as instances of Nazi salutes, homosexual innuendo, calls for Intifada, death threats \u2014 and even the display of a dead squirrel \u2014 the suit said.<\/p>\n \u201cI really don\u2019t feel safe on campus,\u201d Malka told authorities, according to the suit. \u201cThe Jewish community does not feel safe on campus\u2026. I don\u2019t want to have to keep saying \u2018I am scared\u2019 until it is too late.\u201d<\/p>\n Chapman\u2019s leadership knew about anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination, according to the suit, yet the school\u2019s leaders failed to adequately respond to that situation by disciplining student organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine. The suit describes that organization as a hate group and said it was the \u201cdriving force\u201d for the \u201cdiscrimination and harassment\u201d felt by the Jewish students.<\/p>\n Arabs and Muslims received preferential treatment, the suit continued, \u201cso as to not fuel what Chapman\u2019s DEI officers viewed as \u2018negative stereotypes\u2019\u2026. \u201d Also, one of the plaintiffs, Malka, experienced emotional distress so great that, according to the suit, \u201cher eyes often swelled shut to the point where it obstructed her vision to such a degree it was unsafe for her to drive and she needed to walk to school.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Jewish students were expressing their race, religion and national origin as inseparably connected to Israel, Chapman, according to the suit, \u201csustained an atmosphere of racial harassment and discrimination\u201d that deprived the Jewish students of the educational experience they paid for. The suit seeks class action status for Chapman\u2019s Jewish students, as well as compensatory and punitive damages, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, costs and attorneys\u2019 fees.<\/p>\n No, university says Chapman, in its filing, said the school has neither the obligation to \u2014 nor the option of \u2014 punishing protected speech.<\/p>\n And the two graduates \u201ccannot transform political speech into unprotected speech by characterizing it as anti-Zionist, even if they and others associate Zionism with their identity as Jews,\u201d Chapman\u2019s filing said. \u201cWhile \u2018Plaintiffs are entitled to their own interpretive lens equating anti-Zionism (as they define it) and antisemitism . . . it is another matter altogether to insist that others must be bound by (that) view.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cOne must look no further than the recent news headlines to understand that the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is being actively debated at this very moment and should be resolved \u2018through discourse, not judicial fiat.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Lawyers for Chapman ticked through its responses to the alleged antisemitic incidents:<\/p>\n The school disciplined a student for removing Israeli flags from the Oct. 7 memorial and yelling \u201cF\u2014 Jews\u201d to a group of Jewish students. It organized meetings between Schechter and a pro-Palestinian protestor in an attempt to improve dialogue. It did a risk assessment of the student who allegedly threatened Malka.<\/p>\n The school \u201cconsistently applied neutral time, place and manner policies to student protests and demonstrations.\u201d The school also explained that Schechter was denied entry to the Students for Justice in Palestine \u201cteach-in\u201d because of his view of Zionism, not because of his Judaism. (Some Jewish students who agreed with the organization\u2019s beliefs attended the meeting).<\/p>\n Also, the school responded to emails Schechter sent throughout the academic year expressing his concerns, and the school issued campus-wide communications explaining the administration\u2019s efforts to balance safety with expressive rights.<\/p>\n And on a claim that Chapman did not respond appropriately after a student targeted Schechter with \u201cunwanted homosexual innuendo\u201d when he told Schechter he loved him and made a \u201ckissy face\u201d towards him, the school said this: \u201c(T)he absence of the particular response Plaintiffs thought appropriate does not itself render Chapman\u2019s response \u2018clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n While some fair-minded people might question whether Chapman acted quickly and decisively enough, others might be sympathetic to its attempts not to aggravate the situation, the filing said. Schechter and Malka may disagree with the precise contours of Chapman\u2019s response to their complaints, but that does not convert its response to \u201cdeliberate indifference\u201d or worse, it argued. \u201cThat is fatal to Plaintiffs\u2019 harassment theory.\u201d<\/p>\n The complaint should be dismissed in its entirety, Chapman said.<\/p>\n Next steps<\/p>\n When Chapman filed its request for dismissal, just before New Year\u2019s, it included a declaration from its lawyer<\/a> saying he had conferred with the other side and that there would be no amended complaint.<\/p>\n![\"Israeli](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769436728_10_LDN-L-UCLA-PROTESTS-0429-13.jpg\")
Israeli and Palestinian flags were flying during dual protests on the UCLA campus Sunday morning, April 28, 2024.
\n(Photo by Gene Blevins\/Contributing Photographer)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/LDN-L-PROTEST-DEATH-1108-11-SR.jpg\")
People gather at a makeshift memorial on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 for Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish man who died Monday after an altercation at a
\npro-Palestinian Israel-Hamas war protest in Westlake Village as he carried an Israeli flag on Sunday. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News\/SCNG)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n![\"Chapman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769436728_957_OCR-L-CHAPMANVOTE-1018-05-LO_8aff2a.jpg\")
Chapman students play air hockey during a Voter Registration Bash in the Attallah Piazza in Orange on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. The event is sponsored by the Argyros Forum Student Union and Student Government Association. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Fred](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769436729_597_OCR-L-OUSDSEATS-0503-11-LO.jpg\")
Fred Smoller, a associate professor at Chapman University in 2024. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\u00a0<\/p>\n