Colleges and universities have become masterful at the sophistry of claiming that their discrimination isn’t discrimination, not really. A new example from Berkeley is very close to the line.

The Berkeley Law chapter of Law Students for Justice in Palestine announced over the summer that it had altered its bylaws to prohibit “speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views or host/sponsor/promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel and the occupation of Palestine.” Eight other student groups adopted similar bans. In response, two lawyers filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights claiming that the ban amounts to antisemitic discrimination. DOE is investigating.

The lawyers, Arsen Ostrovsky and Gabriel Groisman, argue,

The student groups at Berkeley Law are being willfully deceptive. Rather than simply exclude Jewish speakers, they exclude speakers who have expressed and continue to hold views in support of Zionism. Zionism refers to the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and liberation in their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. It is not merely a “viewpoint” as the Dean suggests, but rather something that has for millennia formed an integral and indispensable part of Jewish identity. A rejection of those who identify as Zionists, which is a vast, overwhelming majority of Jews, is therefore no different to excluding anyone else on the basis of their faith, shared ancestry or national origin. And Title VI of the Civil Rights Act specifically states that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in … any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title VI also provides protection from discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.

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