September 2011
In recent years many campuses
have debated whether speakers, works of scholarship or student activities that
are harshly critical of Israel constitute anti-Semitism or bias that is illegal
under federal law. While it’s easy to say (and most of those in the debate
agree) that one can criticize Israel’s government without being anti-Semitic,
one person’s cogent critique is another’s bigoted attack.
In an effort to promote better
discussion of these tensions, leaders of the American Association of University
Professors and the American Jewish Committee in Aprilissued
a letterthat urged greater scrutiny for claims that anti-Israel
statements and activities on campuses amount to illegal intimidation of Jewish
students. In particular, the letter said that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 — which bars discrimination by organizations receiving federal funds —
is not generally a tool for resolving such disputes. And the letter urged
colleges and universities to place an emphasis on promoting rigorous debate on
all topics — even those like the Middle East on which people strongly disagree.
The letter wasseen
by its signatoriesas a way to promote a better campus environment, but
wasattacked almost
immediatelyby some pro-Israel groups. As of now, the joint statement may
be down to one party. The head of the American Jewish Committee has repudiated
the letter and said that it shouldn’t have been signed.
David Harris, executive director
of the American Jewish Committee, sent a letter to a critic of the letter this
month in which he said: "AJC’s internal system of checks and balances did not
function well in this case. We believe that the letter was ill-advised and
regret the decision to have released it."
The Harris letter was first
reported Tuesday byThe
Jewish Daily Forward,after which the AJC released the brief letter
from Harris, but declined to comment further. The repudiation is notable because
the AJC signatory on the letter with the AAUP was not some low-level official
but Kenneth Stern, director of the American Jewish Committee’s program on
anti-Semitism and extremism, and someone who is generally considered to be a
leading expert on anti-Semitism. A spokesman for the American Jewish Committee
said that Stern was on sabbatical and was not commenting on the situation.
Much of the criticism of the
joint letter concerned its discussion of Title VI. The U.S. Education
Department’s Office for Civil Rights found in 2010 that some kinds of
anti-Jewish activity (it gave as examples the use of swastikas or bullying
directed at Jewish students) could constitute the type of ethnic or racial
harassment banned by Title VI. The AAUP-AJC letter does not disagree.
But it issued a strong caution
against the use of Title VI in some of the disputes that have broken out on
various campuses. "Title VI is a remedy when university leadership neglects its
job to stop bigoted harassment of students; it is not a tool to define
‘politically correct’ campus speech," the letter said. "Anti-Semitism should be
treated with the same seriousness as other forms of bigotry. But one should not,
for instance, suggest that a professor cannot make an argument about immigration
simply because some might see any such argument as biased against Latino
students. Nor was Title VI crafted with the notion that only speakers who are
‘safe’ should be allowed on campus. By trying to censor anti-Israel remarks, it
becomes more, not less, difficult to tackle both anti-Semitism and anti-Israel
dogma. The campus debate is changed from one of exposing bigotry to one of
protecting free speech, and the last thing pro-Israel advocates need is a
reputation for censoring, rather than refuting, their opponents."
Via e-mail, Cary Nelson,
president of the AAUP and the co-signatory of the April letter, said that he
stood behind it. And he was also critical of attempts to focus on Title VI as a
means to promote a better campus environment.
"The attempt to assemble a set
of unconnected phenomena — from visiting speakers to student group activities
to classroom speech — to qualify under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is
unlikely to survive a full court test," he said. "Thus whatever maneuvering the
AJC or other groups do now has more to do with internal politics and community
relations than with any principled or carefully thought out legal position. In
any case, neither Ken Stern nor I acted without consulting colleagues in our
respective organizations."
Inside Higher Ed. August 17, 2011.
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