LATimes | University of California regents said Wednesday that anti-Semitism has “no place” on a college campus but declined to issue a broad condemnation of anti-Zionism as a form of discrimination.
Instead, they unanimously approved a report on intolerance that decried only “anti-Semitic forms” of the political ideology, which challenges Israel's right to exist in Palestine.
The move reflects the regents' struggle to balance their desire to combat intolerance with their commitment to protect free speech. The report provides no sanctions for anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist speech, but calls on educators to “challenge” bias.
Israel advocacy groups had pushed for a broad censure of opposition to Zionism, which they said was needed to protect Jewish students from hostile attacks. Last year, a Jewish fraternity house at UC Davis was defaced with a Nazi swastika and students at UCLAquestioned whether a Jewish sophomore should be disqualified from serving on a campus judicial panel because of her religion.
But free-speech advocates said the original, broader version of the statement would have illegally restricted the right to criticize Israel and its actions. If the regents had approved it, they would have become the first governing board of any major U.S. university system to condemn the rejection of Zionism.
