May 25, 2013 “Statism” Was NOT Hitler’s Worst Crime I recently read a reminder that—while liberalism certainly has its failings—there is still ample reason to be concerned about right-wing misunderstandings of history and of the dynamics of prejudice and discrimination. A case study is PJ Media’s recent decision to give a platform to Walter Hudson, a Minnesota talk radio host whose self-appointed task is […] Blog
May 24, 2013 Brandeis Center Resolves Concerns With UC Davis The Brandeis Center is delighted to announce that it has successfully resolved campus anti-Semitism concerns that it had raised with the University of California at Davis. In a press release to be issued later this morning, the Center will laud UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi for her leadership in responding to a November 2012 incident on […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
May 23, 2013 Federal Mandate Imposes Draconian National Collegiate Speech Code Two weeks ago, I began my week of guest blogging for the Brandeis Center blog. Before my final blog post, however, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a letter issued jointly by the Departments of Education and Justice to the University of Montana. While the ED and DOJ were investigating the University of […] Anti-Semitism
May 22, 2013 Brandeis Center Welcomes First Intern Class Today, the Brandeis Center announced its first intern class as it continues the ongoing expansion of its campaign against campus anti-Semitism. LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus welcomed the Brandeis Center’s first Civil Rights Law Clerk Nicole Galletta and its first Development Intern, Christina Gathman. A second Development Intern, Andrew Loeb, will join the Center next week. Galletta and […] Anti-Semitism Blog
May 21, 2013 Brandeis Center and SPME Defend Tammi Rossman-Benjamin Against Attacks The Brandeis Center and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) have just issued the following statement: WASHINGTON, DC — The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East today issued a Joint Statement in defense of University of California at Santa Cruz lecturer […] Anti-Semitism Blog
May 21, 2013 While the Mideast Burns, “The Elders” Fiddle, and Ireland Scapegoats Israel Rubberstamping the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement’s drive to delegitimate and demonize “Apartheid” Israel, the Irish government has announced that produce from the West Bank should be declared “illegal” by the EU. Giving their blessing on a Dublin visit were the so-called “Elders,” the seven-member “peace-making” delegation that includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, […] Blog
May 20, 2013 Turkey’s “Darwinian” Islamization: Implications for Israelis and Jews As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan returns home from his visit to his biggest western fan, President Barack Obama, only to prepare for a controversial pilgrimage to Hamas-controlled Gaza, Turkey’s educational system is being mocked internationally. A spoof in “The Scientific American” focuses on revelations that Istanbul textbooks have pictured Charles Darwin as “a […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
May 16, 2013 Norway’s New Generation Quislings Because it “gives support to old conspiracy theories about Jews controlling media,” the Oslo Newspaper, “Dagsavisen,” recently took down from its site pro-Palestinian activist Siri Lill Thowsen’s article: “Is There Jewish Dominance over International and Norwegian Media?” Though the anti-Israel Lobby is howling in protest that the removal demonstrates Thowsen’s thesis, nothing could be further […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
May 14, 2013 The Church of Scotland Turns Its Back on Its Own History—and the Jews In the face of fierce Jewish criticism, the Church of Scotland is rewording its draft report—“The Inheritance of Abraham”—denying that Jews have a claim the land of Israel rooted in either the Bible or the Holocaust. The draft still favors the BDS’s anti-Israel boycott. Calvinist Scotland—which transplanted Presbyterianism to the U.S.—was once the redoubt of […] Blog
May 11, 2013 Anti-Semitism Without Many—if Any—Jews The phenomenon of anti-Semitism without many—if any—Jews has again been placed in the spotlight by a survey of Polish middle school students about Jews in relation to the seventieth anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The finding that the children’s knowledge about the Uprising was “extremely weak” has been disputed by Magdalena H. Gross in […] Anti-Semitism Blog
May 10, 2013 AAUP: Israel Boycott Violates Academic Freedom In a stinging rebuke to the Asian-American Studies Association, the American Association of University Professors has just strongly reaffirmed its opposition to academic boycotts. The new AAUP statement responds to both Stephen Hawking’s recent controversial decision to boycott Israel as well as the AASA decision to endorse the anti-Israel boycott. The AAUP acknowledges that individual […] Anti-Zionism Blog
May 9, 2013 So Why Did Stephen Hawking Think It Was OK to Visit China and Iran? Left Foot Forward, a left-wing British political blog, asks this excellent question today about Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott the State of Israel. Indeed, Hawking reportedly traveled to both China and Iran over the last few years. His decision to boycott Israel was reported yesterday, then retracted, then confirmed by the end of the day. Hawking […] Anti-Zionism Blog
May 8, 2013 Is BDS Anti-Semitic? Join the FB Conversation Do you think that the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS) is anti-Semitic? Does it matter whether BDS is aimed at Israel’s activities in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, or whether it is aimed at the entire country? Is this a meaningful distinction? A lively discussion is proceeding on the Brandeis Center’s popular Facebook […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
May 8, 2013 Is Art Criticizing Suicide Bombers “Hate Speech”? My second of three posts for the Brandeis Center examines the use of “hate speech” policies on college and university campuses. Specifically, I want to focus on several cases in which these policies have been used to censor or punish students and faculty for expressing speech even mildly critical of Islam. These cases demonstrate that […] Anti-Zionism
May 6, 2013 Free Speech on Campus and the Spirit of Louis Brandeis I was pleased earlier this year when Ken Marcus, President of the Brandeis Center, asked me to guest blog for the Brandeis Center regarding my recent book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, and my work as President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The First Amendment and […] Blog
May 5, 2013 LDB Academic Advisor Alvin Rosenfeld Honored Professor Alvin Rosenfeld, a distinguished scholar and member of the Louis D. Brandeis Center’s Academic Advisory Board, has just received a major award from his home institution, Indiana University. The Brandeis Center congratulates Dr. Rosenfeld for this distinction and commends IU Provost Lauren Robel for bestowing the honor. WASHINGTON, DC, May 5, 2013 — The […] Anti-Semitism Blog
May 5, 2013 Berkeley Student Senate Guts Anti-Israel Divestment Resolution The University of California’s long, ugly battle over anti-Israel divestment has just gotten even messier. Brandeis readers will recall that Berkeley’s student senate passed a resolution on April 18 urging divestment from companies that do business with Israel. Berkeley’s Chancellor Robert Birgeneau immediately repudiated the measure and announced that it would have no impact on […] Anti-Zionism Blog
May 3, 2013 Louis Farrakhan at 80: A Needless Legacy of Hate There are those—like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.—taken from us too soon. Then there are those who live on into historical obsolescence. And so it is that Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan who turns 80 this month. Had Farrakhan’s battle with prostate cancer ended soon after 1996’s Million Man March on Washington, his […] Anti-Semitism Blog
May 3, 2013 Free Speech Expert Greg Lukianoff to Appear on Brandeis Center Blog We’re pleased to announce that Foundation for Individual Rights in Education President Greg Lukianoff will appear as a guest on our blog next week. WASHINGTON, DC, May 3, 2013 — The Louis D. Brandeis Center www.brandeiscenter.com for Human Rights Under Law, an independent civil rights organization established to fight campus anti-Semitism, announced today that civil […] Campus Administrators
May 1, 2013 UC Berkeley Faces New Campus Anti-Semitism Charges Attorneys Neal Sher and Joel Siegel have filed new campus anti-Semitism charges against the University of California at Berkeley as part of their continuing case against Berkeley before the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The new claims are based on the hostile environment which they allege Jewish students faced in the […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog
April 30, 2013 “Wake Up to the Anti-Semitism, You Complacent British Middle Classes” In today’s Ha’aretz, Britain’s’s former Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, pens a trenchant critique of English anti-Semitism, bitingly entitled: “Wake up to the anti-Semitism, you complacent British middle classes.” MacShane has seen hard times recently, but today’s intervention demonstrates that he is still a vital voice on the global scene. In this new piece, MacShane […] Anti-Semitism Anti-Zionism Blog