{"id":228826,"date":"2026-03-20T17:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/228826\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T17:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:34:14","slug":"uc-berkeley-agrees-to-settle-antisemitism-lawsuit-for-1m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/228826\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley agrees to settle antisemitism lawsuit for $1M"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

A flyer about antisemitism is posted on\u00a0a UC Berkeley bulletin board outside professor Ron\u00a0Hassner\u2019s office on March 18, 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gabrielle Lurie\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n

UC Berkeley has settled a Zionist organization\u2019s lawsuit by agreeing to instruct students, faculty and staff on the dangers of antisemitism and to pay $1 million to cover the group\u2019s legal fees and costs. But the settlement does not appear to have accomplished the suit\u2019s main goal: requiring student groups to allow Zionists, who define Israel as a Jewish state, to speak at their meetings.<\/p>\n

The suit by the Louis D. Brandeis Foundation<\/a>, filed in 2023, accused UC Berkeley of discriminating against Jews by allowing student groups to bar Zionists as speakers, a policy then followed by 23 of the 100 organizations in Berkeley\u2019s 1,100-student law school, according to the suit.<\/p>\n

In a statement Thursday announcing the settlement, the Brandeis Foundation declared that the university had agreed to ensure that student organizations \u201ccannot exclude persons from \u2026 speaking regardless of their support for Israel or Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But the settlement says only that the bylaws of student organizations registered with the university, which define such things as an organization\u2019s overall mission, cannot prohibit any category of speakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Registered student organizations, or RSOs, \u201cmay not limit officers, board members, or speakers based on a category that is protected under federal or state law,\u201d the agreement says. \u201cThis does not limit the discretion of RSOs to determine which speakers to invite or the content of and positions taken in any speech sponsored by the RSO.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That means the organizations remain free to make their own policies for speakers at their meetings, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the settlement, student organizations may continue to have policies as to who they will invite as speakers, including on the basis of viewpoint,\u201d Chemerinsky wrote in a message to the Berkeley law community.<\/p>\n

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In contrast to a student group\u2019s mission-defining bylaws, Chemerinsky told the Chronicle, the university\u2019s rules, and the constitutional right of free speech, allow those groups to decide whom to invite as guest speakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the extent their press release says that student groups can\u2019t have policies based on speakers\u2019 viewpoints, they\u2019re misrepresenting the settlement,\u201d Chemerinsky said.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for the Brandeis Foundation disagreed.<\/p>\n

Anti-Zionism \u201chas been used as a pretext for discrimination against Jews,\u201d attorney Paul Eckles said in an interview. That means, he said, that under the university\u2019s stated policies, \u201cgroups cannot discriminate against speakers based on Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the settlement, Eckles said, such disputes can be referred to a UC Berkeley office that considers complaints of bias, but, if necessary, they will be taken to court.<\/p>\n

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The 2023 lawsuit alleged a \u201clongstanding, unchecked spread of antisemitism\u201d at UC Berkeley, citing the exclusion of pro-Zionist speakers and the university\u2019s refusal to restrict protests against Israel\u2019s military operations in Gaza, following the October 2023 attack by Hamas.<\/p>\n

The settlement requires the university to send an annual message to students that \u201cdiscrimination or harassment on the basis of Jewish religion \u2026 or Israeli national origin will not be tolerated,\u201d and to provide anti-discrimination training to faculty and staff. When reviewing complaints of antisemitism, the university must consider\u00a0\u2014 though it will not be required to follow\u00a0\u2014 a definition by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance that says anti-Zionism can be considered antisemitic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A flyer about antisemitism is posted on\u00a0a UC Berkeley bulletin board outside professor Ron\u00a0Hassner\u2019s office on March 18,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[184,7,332,15,143,145,144,13,2012,2013],"class_list":["post-228826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-education","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-politics","tag-university-of-california","tag-us-and-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}