Regents deny campus place for anti-Zionism

In response to anti-Semitic incidents throughout the University of California (UC) system’s 10 campuses, its Regents have released a draft Statement of Principles Against Intolerance.

Last year, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) student council denied undergraduate Rachel Beyda an appointment to its Judicial Board because some council members were concerned that her being Jewish might bias her decision-making. Under pressure, the council reversed itself.

The Regents’ new statement calls “on University leaders actively to challenge anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination when and whenever they emerge within the University community” but does not define anti-Semitism. The breakthrough is not in the text, but in the accompanying 15 word “contextual statement:” “Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.”

Here, for the first time, a major American university will acknowledge that extreme “anti-Zionism” is “a form of discrimination” like racism or sexism or homophobia.

To be clear, the Regents do not say that anti-Zionism will be banned. Nor should they. Indeed, the Regents state that “the University will vigorously defend the principles of the First Amendment and academic freedom against any efforts to subvert or abridge them.”

At the same time, they declare that anti-Zionism has “no place at the University of California.” They speak here not as censors but as leaders. They use their own freedom of speech to announce that anti-Zionism, like any other form of bigotry, is inconsistent with their values and should be publicly condemned.

The Jewish community did not get everything it asked for. Specifically, the Regents did not adopt a definition of anti-Semitism, as many experts and activists urged them to.