The Louis D. Brandeis Center had been actively engaged in addressing these events, which had previously led to the imposition of discipline against Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Last May, SSI hosted “Reservists on Duty,” a group of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reservists who visit campus meetings to discuss IDF policy. The Reservists visited UCI during SJP’s annual anti-Israel hate week (marketed misleadingly as an “Israel Apartheid Week”).  Their goal was reportedly to engage in educational conversations and present an alternative perspective.

During that week, on May 10, 2017, SSI hosted an on-campus discussion featuring the five Reservists. This event was disrupted by members of SJP. Initially, the SJP students who came into the room asked the panelists questions respectfully; however, as the SJP students became increasingly dissatisfied with the Reservists’ answers, their behavior became more unruly and hostile. They began clapping and interrupting the speakers, and eventually began chanting at the Reservists in protest. Their anti-Zionist chants included: “Israel Israel, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”; “Israel Israel what do you say, how many people have you killed today?”; and “Hey hey, ho ho, these colonizers have got to go!” Despite numerous requests from SSI and UC Irvine administrators to stop their disruption, the SJP students refused, and would eventually leave the forum only to continue their chants outside of the room. The UC Irvine Police Department was called and had to escort the attendees of the event out of the area.

The following day, on May 11, 2017, an SJP leader admitted in a megaphone on campus, that SJP had purposefully disrupted the event the night before and an event the previous year, despite the administration telling them not to disrupt (she shouted, “we went to disrupt their event to let them know that we refuse to allow the normalization of their presence here…”).

Following these events, the Brandeis Center called on the UCI administration to investigate the event disruption. In two letters sent to UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman in May and July 2017, the Brandeis Center, joined by StandWithUs and SSI, urged UCI to take action to rectify the situation. The Brandeis Center’s May letter insisted that “more must be done … to prevent SJP from engaging in this type of discriminatory and disruptive behavior again against Jewish and pro-Israel students.” The Brandeis Center’s July letter called on the administration to “consistently enforce its own policies and regulations,” in accordance with the UC Regents’ Principles Against Intolerance. Additionally, it advocated for future training of staff on how to more effectively prevent and minimize disruptive protests on campus. The Brandeis Center also joined a June 2017 letter, organized by the AMCHA Initiative urging further action from UCI. Following this advocacy, the UCI administration sanctioned SJP in August 2017, placing the group on disciplinary probation for two academic years, ending in the Summer of 2019.

At the same time as the investigation was ongoing against SJP, SJP filed a complaint against SSI, alleging that the Reservists on Duty, hosted by SSI, verbally threatened, sexually harassed, and followed SJP members in the days surrounding the May 10 SJP event disruption. SJP alleged that SSI was complicit in the behavior exhibited by the Reservists on Duty, violating student conduct policy. Although ten witnesses had provided written complaints to the Office of Academic Integrity & Student Conduct, only two witnesses agreed to schedule interviews with the investigating Student Conduct Office. Neither of these witnesses claimed any knowledge of SSI’s actions with respect to inviting the Reservists on Duty to campus. Additionally, the Student Conduct Officer interviewed a leader of SSI who possessed intimate knowledge regarding the actions of the group. In his interview, he disagreed with the SJP witness testimony, saying that it was “members of Students for Justice in Palestine [who] were the ones ‘getting in faces’ and not the other way around.” In addition, he testified that he made it clear to the Reservists on Duty that they should remain “civil and nonviolent” when engaging in educational conversations with students. Using a preponderance of evidence standard, the report exonerated SSI of any wrongdoing.

While SSI is now vindicated, SJP continues to serves its 2-year disciplinary probation.

The Brandeis Center has been focused on UCI for quite some time. Almost one year to the date before the May 2017 SJP event disruption, SJP and their affiliates at UCI disrupted an SSI-sponsored screening of the film, “Beneath The Helmet.” UCI Jewish student Eliana Kopley was chased and intimidated during the course of this disruption, and forced to hide in a kitchen under the protection of UCI staff. The Brandeis Center represented Kopley during the aftermath of this incident. Following advocacy by the Brandeis Center, Hillel International, Hillel of Orange County, and other organizations, UCI found that SJP had violated the Code of Conduct, which resulted in a six-month “warning” period for SJP (which lasted until March 29, 2017), and required SJP to host a program that would educate about the behavior demonstrated during the incident.

Prior to the 2016 and 2017 SJP event disruptions, the Brandeis Center was heavily involved in the UC Regents’ process for developing the “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance,” specifically intended to deal with the long history of anti-Semitic incidents in the UC system. LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus had served as one of the Regents’ two national experts on anti-Semitism in developing the Statement, which was unanimously approved by the Regents in March 2016. In its introduction, the Statement importantly included that, “Anti-Semitism, anti-semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.”

Brandeis Center attorneys have repeatedly urged UCI to fully implement these principles in addressing incidents such as the ones described above. Following LDB’s advocacy in 2016, UCI tasked Vice Chancellor Douglas Haynes with the responsibility of developing policies to implement the Principles into their policies.   VP Haynes’ efforts resulted in the release of a report: “Higher Ground: The Alignment of UCI’s Policies, Principles, and Practices with the UC Regents’ Principles Against Intolerance.” While the report and recent disciplinary actions against SJP for violations of the university code are steps in the right direction, more work remains.

As anti-Semitic sentiment remains pervasive on college campuses across the country, the Brandeis Center continues to keep a watchful eye and lend a voice to those who might not otherwise have one, and remains committed to stopping this pernicious form of bigotry.