West Coast LDB law students have been influential in fighting against anti-Semitism and standing up against injustice this past month.

At the University of California Los Angeles this past Wednesday, LDB law students sent a letter in support of Graduate Student Association (GSA) President Milan Chatterjee, who had been the subject of a wrongful impeachment campaign. This impeachment campaign stemmed from his decision, and that of his GSA Cabinet, to remain neutral on the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel Movement. Since November, op-eds and articles were published against Mr. Chatterjee in the UCLA Student Newspaper, The Daily Bruin; at the prompting of UCLA students, websites such as Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss wrote articles against Mr. Chatterjee; he was attacked on social media, attacked verbally, campus petitions were circulated against him, and false statements were made against him at GSA meetings.

After months of this inflammatory rhetoric, Mr. Chatterjee’s accusers asked the GSA to impeach Mr. Chatterjee, and presented a thirty-two page document containing eight bogus charges of overwhelmingly repetitive personal statements offered as “evidence” of these charges.

LDB law student leaders at UCLA wrote a letter in support of Mr. Chatterjee, including that “ousting a student government official from office for his good faith pursuit of his responsibilities discourages student participation and sends a chilling message to the student body.” (The full text of the letter can be found below.)

At the meeting on Wednesday evening, the counsel voted to censure President Chatterjee, though thankfully not impeach him.

A bit further north, LDB law students are also standing up for what is right. At the end of March, in response to numerous anti-Semitic incidents throughout the University of California system’s ten campuses in recent years, the UC Board of Regents was deciding on whether to adopt an important new Statement of Principles Against Intolerance, along with a “contextual statement,” that included the important statement that – “Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.” The LDB law student chapter at University of California – Berkeley wrote a statement to the Regents, saying that, “[w]e, as UC Berkeley law students and leaders of the Berkeley law student chapter of the Louis D. Brandeis Center, call on the UC Regents to adopt not only the Statement of Principles, but also the important accompanying ‘contextual statement,’ to help address and prevent anti-Semitism on all UC campuses.” (The full statement can be found below.)

The UC Regents ultimately adopted both the Statement of Principles, along with the contextual statement.

We are proud of our UCLA and UC Berkeley law students, and all of our law students across the country, who are standing up for their beliefs and fighting against anti-Semitism and injustice. (more…)