The Brandeis Center, Jewish Federations of North America and the American Jewish Committee each urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to take action on anti-Israel bias in financial ratings.

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Financial ratings firms that provide specialized ratings based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have been found to incorporate biased methodologies and sources that systematically produce worse ratings for Israeli companies and companies doing business related to Israel, potentially without full knowledge of the investors who rely on those ratings.

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Brandeis Center Vice Chair and General Counsel L. Rachel Lerman has written extensively about anti-Israel bias documented in an ESG ratings product owned by Financial Services firm Morningstar.

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“The new rulemaking will require transparency across the board, and we are asking the SEC specifically to require ESG-related funds that focus on the social aspect of ESG to tell investors how they derive ratings for such companies, how they check for and eliminate anti-Israel bias in their sources, and whether they include anti-Semitism on their human rights radar,” declared Lerman, regarding the Brandeis Center’s joint effort to urge the SEC to remove this bias from all ESG systems, not only Morningstar’s.

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Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus Criticizes BDS at Berkeley Law

Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus criticized a pro-BDS bylaw adopted by a handful of student groups at Berkeley Law – in an article by J Weekly.

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The bylaw, written by Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, calls upon other student groups not to invite “speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views … in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”

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The students in this case, “are taking a step down a very ugly road,” stated Marcus. “Berkeley Law wouldn’t be Berkeley Law if students didn’t engage in a certain amount of wrongheaded political nonsense. This is different, because it’s not just a political stunt. It is tinged with anti-Semitism and anti-Israel national origin discrimination.”

Last month’s USC announcement – the fourth, concurrent U.S. investigation into campus anti-Semitism based on a Brandeis Center-filed complaint – dominated academic, Jewish and mainstream news. The USC complaint details anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination against Brandeis Center client Rose Ritch, who was effectively pushed out of her position as student government vice-president in 2020 due to her Jewish Zionist identity.

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News sources continue reaching out to Brandeis Center Director of Legal Initiatives Denise Katz-Prober for insights and context about the case.

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“We hope that universities will take note of this case, and we think that they are starting to get the message,” stated Brandeis Center Director of Legal Initiatives, Denise Katz-Prober to JewishPress.com.

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“USC’s failure to acknowledge or respond to the form of discrimination that Rose Ritch experienced is, unfortunately, not uncommon,” Katz-Prober told Campus Reform. “When Jewish students, like Rose Ritch, are targeted for marginalization and exclusion from campus activities merely because they express pride in or support for the existence of a Jewish state in the Jewish people’s ancient homeland, that is a form of unlawful discrimination, not a political debate.”

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LDB Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus shared his insights about the historical context and significance of a Supreme Court case involving discriminatory admissions policies at Harvard and University of North Carolina.

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“Universities first adopted the diversity framework, not because they wanted to have more Black or Hispanic students, but because they wanted to have fewer Jewish students,” Marcus explained. “Much of the way that universities continue to look at diversity is based on some of these building blocks that are actually very dubious in their historical background. Even if the current admissions officers have different ideas in mind, it probably shouldn’t be shocking that some of these diversity elements that were initially developed for exclusionary reasons are not quite as perfect as the higher education administrators would like us to believe.”

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Earlier this year, the Brandeis Center and the Silicon Valley Chinese Association Foundation (SVCAF) filed a joint amicus brief in support of Students for Fair Admissions’(SFFA) petition for certiorari, in which the parties argued that Harvard’s admissions plan was developed with the intent of limiting enrollment of Jewish undergraduate students and that it has had the continuing effect of excluding Asian Americans today.

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The Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism published a book review by Chairman Marcus in its spring edition.

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Marcus’s article is a book review of ‘Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism’ – a collection of 21 essays that serves as a handbook to educate college instructors on the nature of anti-Semitism.

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Marcus’s review highlights the increasing divide in anti-Semitism studies. The book’s editors argue that anti-Semitism must be studied within the broader context of different manifestations of evil. Marcus argues anti-Semitism is a unique phenomenon, rather than a manifestation of other evils.

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Former Brandeis Center intern Hilary Miller co-published an article in the same edition with David Hirsh, titled ‘Durban Antizionism: Its Sources, Its Impact, and Its Relation to Older Anti-Jewish Ideologies.’ Editor-in-chief and law school professor Lesley Klaff serves on the Brandeis Center’s academic advisory board.

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