Brandeis Center Sr. Counsel Rory Lancman accompanied Brandeis Center client Professor Dafna Golden as she testified before Congress

Brandeis Center client Dafna Golden, a professor of Geography at Mt. San Antonio College in California, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives last week at a hearing examining the impact on faculty of unchecked anti-Semitism on college campuses.

“I am here today to share the distressing experiences I have endured at Mt. SAC as a Jewish professor in the wake of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel,” testified Professor Golden. “I have experienced an anti-Semitic hostile environment at Mt. SAC and anti-Semitic discrimination specifically directed at me, which Mt. SAC – my employer — has failed to properly remedy or protect me from. Mt. SAC is my workplace, and in my opinion, this is unacceptable and illegal in any workplace.”

The hearing was conducted by the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and titled “Combating Workplace Antisemitism In Postsecondary Education: Protecting Employees From Discrimination.”

Rory Lancman, the Brandeis Center’s Director of Corporate Initiatives and Senior Counsel, has been assisting Professor Golden since shortly after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, which unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism across the globe and on American college campuses in particular.

The discrimination began in earnest when Professor Golden objected to the college’s support for a professor’s planned screening of the film, “The Occupation of the American Mind,” just weeks after the October 7th attack.  Narrated by Roger Waters, the film’s central thesis is that a cabal of “leaders of major Jewish organizations” have conspired to use their power to control and thus “occupy” the minds of innocent Americans so that they would support Israel. The movie is basically a screen version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and serves no academic function.

In retaliation for voicing her objections to the film and the college’s withdrawal of its endorsement, the professor instigated a campaign of harassment against Professor Golden through email and in-person to his students by falsely labeling her a “violent Zionist” and a “former soldier in the IDF” and inciting his students “to stand up” to her.

In response, an organization on campus, Shut It Down 4 Palestine, vandalized Professor Golden’s bulletin board outside her office; the college library was pressured into removing a non-ideological, academic exhibit she installed on Israel’s changing borders over the years; her profile on RateMyProfessors.com was bombarded with fake negative reviews; anti-Israel students made public comments at a college Board of Trustees meeting demanding that she be fired and declaring a boycott of her classes; and her spring semester on-campus class was canceled due to low enrollment, limiting her to online teaching, making it impossible for her to maintain the collaborative relationships with her colleagues that is so essential for the multi-disciplinary program she manages.

Mt. San Antonio college did nothing to protect Professor Golden or address the discrimination, harassment, and ostracization she experienced.

“Like so many of my Jewish colleagues at colleges across the country, the general anti-Semitic hostile environment turned to focus on me directly – because I am a Jew; because I won’t hide or reject my connection as a Jew to the Jewish state and the Jewish people,” testified Professor Golden. “And my employer – Mt. SAC – did not help me; did not protect me; and did not fulfil its responsibilities under the law.  Despite filing a complaint with HR, no disciplinary actions were taken against the professor.  My employer – Mt. San Antonio College – refuses to act; refuses to take any disciplinary or remedial action.”

“Colleges are also workplaces, and the laws prohibiting anti-Semitic discrimination in the workplace apply no less to college faculty and staff than they do to workers in other settings,” said Mr. Lancman. “College administrators who fail to protect their faculty from workplace anti-Semitism of the kind experienced by Professor Golden are violating the law, plain and simple.”

Watch Professor Golden’s testimony below — or read its transcript.

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LDB Client Professor Dafna Golden testifying at the U.S. House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. Professor Golden’s opening statement begins at 44:17, and her closing remarks can be found at 2:28:08

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Contact: Nicole Rosen 202-309-5724  

May 8, 2024 — Washington, DC — A student group at Washington, DC’s largest high school, which had sued to compel the school to screen a documentary filled with antisemitic tropes and conspiracies, has agreed not to show the film. A coalition of Jewish groups and Jewish parents had supported the school’s decision to stop the film from being shown.

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (the Brandeis Center), American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington (JCRC), had filed an amicus brief in the case in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. 

The brief argued that Jackson-Reed High School was within its rights to prevent a screening of The Occupation of the American Mind because it was “an unabashed piece of hate propaganda” narrated by Roger Waters, “a virulent anti-Semite.”  As the groups argued, the First Amendment does not give the right to present a film rife with hate speech in a high school setting.

Under its agreement with the high school, the Arab Student Union will withdraw its request for a preliminary injunction that, if granted, would have allowed it to show the film. Jackson-Reed will allow the group to show one of three other films that the school had previously determined were less objectionable and free of antisemitic rhetoric.  According to the District of Columbia Public Schools’ (DCPS) filing, the Arab Student Union could have shown any of these movies even without filing suit. 

“Jewish students and their families have felt threatened and demonized in the seven months since the Hamas massacre in Israel,” said Edna Friedberg (who provided a declaration with the brief), the parent of a Jackson-Reed student and who is a Holocaust historian. “There is still more work to be done, but this is a victory for all of us who cherish our public schools as safe and inclusive communities.”

“The school has become an intolerable place for Israeli and Jewish students, and I am thankful that at least this film will not be allowed to add flame to the fire and create an even more inhospitable place for many students,” said parent Jennifer Knoll.

The film has come under attack for being replete with factual errors and antisemitism. It includes accusations that American Jewish organizations met in Jerusalem in the 1980s to discuss how to manipulate the American media. 

Claims of Jewish control over the media are part of a longstanding conspiracy theory of secret Jewish power, according to AJC’s Translate Hate glossary of antisemitic terms.

“The school was right not to allow the screening of a film that would have further polarized a student body already divided over the Israel-Hamas war,” said AJC Chief Legal Officer Marc Stern. “High schools should be a place for constructive dialogue on important issues. This film would have prevented that.”

“High schools should not be sanctioning movies, teacher lesson plans, or any ‘educational’ activities that present a one-sided, biased perspective, often laced with antisemitic tropes about Israel and Jews. That is not education,” stated Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education.  “Schools have every right to exclude anti-Israel propaganda.”

“We are gratified that this antisemitic film, the screening of which the JCRC has battled for years, will not be shown at Jackson-Reed. We appreciate DCPS for refusing to allow the film to be shown and defending its position in court,” said JCRC Associate Director Guila Franklin Siegel. “Most of all, we are relieved for the school’s Jewish and Israeli parents and students, who have endured persistent, searing harassment, often with little or no response from DCPS to protect them. Our goal must be to reduce conflict and increase mutual respect and empathy at Jackson-Reed, not to further inflame tensions.”

BakerHostetler in Washington, led by partner Paul Levine with assistance from Ken Reisenfeld, Jason Hoffman, and Ben Janacek, represented the Jewish groups and parents in writing the amicus brief. 

Steve Gosset, American Jewish Committee, gossets@ajc.org, 917-596-3529
Guila Franklin Siegel, JCRC of Greater Washington, gfsiegel@jcouncil.org, 301-651-2625
Nicole Rosen, Brandeis Center, Nicole@rosencomm.com, 202-309-5724

Washington, D.C., May 7, 2024—A coalition of Jewish groups today said it backed a Washington, D.C. high school’s decision to ban the screening of a documentary that traffics in antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, at a time when Jewish and Israeli students at the school have felt threatened since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.

Jackson-Reed High School, and its principal, Sah Brown, are being sued by the school’s Arab Student Union, with the help of the ACLU, for refusing to let the Arab Student Union show a version of The Occupation of the American Mind. The 2016 film claims that American Jewish groups and Israel are part of a conspiracy to manipulate the U.S. media and mislead the public about the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. 

In an amicus brief filed today in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (the Brandeis Center) and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said Jackson-Reed was well within its rights to prevent a screening of the film. They noted the First Amendment does not give the Arab students or any group the right to present a film rife with hate speech in a high school setting.

“Jewish students at the school already have safety concerns, feel isolated, and do not feel safe expressing their Jewishness.  The Court need only look at the experiences ongoing in society, threats to Jews, and the espoused safety concerns made by Jackson-Reed’s Jewish students to show that these hateful messages should not be shown in school,” the brief said.

The film, which is narrated by musician Roger Waters, a virulent antisemite, has come under attack for being replete with factual errors and antisemitism.

It includes accusations that decades ago, leaders of American Jewish organizations met in Jerusalem to discuss how to manipulate the American media. Claims of Jewish control over the media are part of a longstanding conspiracy theory of secret Jewish power, according to AJC’s Translate Hate glossary of antisemitic terms.

Cases explain that courts may limit speech in school when it will invade the rights of others.  For example, courts have barred Instagram posts from students that contained racist imagery, even when made outside of school, because “vilifying people based on their race threatens the targeted students’ sense of physical, as well as emotional and psychological, security.”  Another case barred the wearing of t-shirts that stated “there are only two genders” because of the impact on vulnerable students.  The playing of the anti-Semitic Occupation of the American Mind is no different. 

Brown, the principal at Jackson-Reed, Washington’s largest high school, told students in December that the screening would not be allowed, in part because it was an unsanctioned event that would be polarizing and “cause a further divide among the student body.”

That divide, the brief said, was also being widened by some Jackson-Reed teachers, including one who posted a Palestinian power fist on her wall.

“One science teacher even included an assignment asking about the climate change effects of Israel’s genocide; that same teacher also stated in class that President Biden is funding genocide,” the brief notes.

The brief also rejects claims from the Arab Student Union that it was being censored, pointing to an April 25 Palestinian Cultural Night at the high school, where the Israeli government was compared to white supremacists and the conflict in Gaza was likened to the Holocaust.

“The most distressing part was the final performance, which includes a song that calls for crushing Zionism and shooting missiles at their enemies,” according to the brief. The Arab Student Union has asked the court for an injunction that would allow it to screen the film before the end of the school year on June 7.