The Brandeis Center Holds Second Annual National Law Student Leadership Conference

The Brandeis Center hosted its second National Law Student Leadership Conference in Washington, DC on December 29-30.  This event took place as part of the Center’s recent law student and public outreach initiatives.  Many of the students in attendance were members of their universities’ chapters of the Brandeis Center.  Our law student chapter program fills an important gap in American legal education, offering educational programming that connects students’ legal education to pressing Jewish civil rights issues.  The conference’s primary focus was on engaging the students in dialogue with each other about the issues facing them as aspiring lawyers and proponents of civil rights through a series of lectures, panels, and roundtable discussions with several prominent figures in academia, government and professional law.  In attendance were the LDB chapters of University of Pennsylvania, CUNY, UVA, University of St. Thomas, UCLA, and ten others.  Several other students are in the process of forming their own chapters and others plan to do so in the coming weeks.  The conference’s events covered a variety of legal and political issues related to the Brandeis Center’s core mission, such as the power of student leadership, federal protection of the civil rights of Jewish students, and fighting anti-Semitism.

The conference began with addresses from the Brandeis Center’s own Aviva Vogelstein and Kenneth L. Marcus at the District Architecture Center.  Vogelstein welcomed the students and guests to the forum. Marcus began his speech by asserting the importance of combating anti-Semitism through legal action and then by recounting the history of the Brandeis Center’s student chapter program, whose level of success has exceeded all expectations praising the member-students’ demonstrated ability to accomplish goals with unparalleled enthusiasm. Law students, according to Marcus, have the responsibility to focus on more than just succeeding in school – they need a broader sense of what it can truly mean to be a lawyer.  However, Marcus warned, taking stands on important issues will inevitably foster adversity, which is why crusading for civil rights is a task that merits the utmost respect.  He expressed gratitude to the students for their efforts to strengthen the LDB’s fight against injustice.  Marcus ended his speech by discussing the importance of a fair educational system. “To understand what’s happening locally,” he remarked, “you have to have an understanding of what’s happening globally.” And with that, he introduced the keynote speaker, Hon. Ira Forman, the US State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

Forman gave an engaging, off-the-record speech about his experiences fighting against anti-Semitism abroad during his time with the State Department.  Forman, former Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, gave a highly informative speech that drew upon his extensive experience dealing with discrimination in order to put some of the conference’s central topics in a larger historical context.  The students were thrilled to get the opportunity to hear from a high-ranking governmental official on an issue of such importance to them.

After Forman’s speech, everyone journeyed next door to Carmine’s for a delicious family-style Italian dinner.  After the meal, we were treated to a lecture from Professor William Jacobson entitled “For Academic Freedom, Against BDS.” Professor Jacobson’s speech centered on the campaign to weaken Israel through a series of boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS).  Jacobson debunked the myth that the BDS movement is rooted in the wishes of “Palestinian civil society” through a recounting of its history as a product of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic advocates conspiring against Israel during the World Conference against Racism at Durban.  He also went on to address several of the buzzwords and catchphrases that supporters of the BDS movement have used to attack Israel and its supporters.  He gave special attention to the calls for the end of “Israeli apartheid” and explained why such a notion is not only inaccurate but also offensive.  The entire BDS campaign, Jacobson explained, is a shining example of modern anti-Semitism for numerous reasons, the least of which is that it holds Israel to a double standard.  An academic boycott, he went on, would not only penalize Israeli students for their home country’s controversial foreign policies, but also prevent the sharing of important academic research.

The next morning’s events began with a lecture from Professor Abraham Bell, entitled “International Law, Lawfare and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”  Professor Bell’s main focus was on defending Israel against accusations of human rights violations and breaches of international law.  In doing so, he pointed to the fact that Israel actually has a praiseworthy record with its citizens’ human rights, in spite of BDS supporters’ claims.  Professor Bell supported his commendations of Israel’s history of protecting civil rights by comparing it to those of its neighboring countries in the Middle East, whose mistreatment of citizens’ human rights has been well documented.  He also discussed the necessity of double-checking sources that report on conflicts involving Israel, such as Human Rights Watch, because many of them have been known to misreport data to vilify the Jewish state.  Professor Bell concluded his speech by encouraging the students to continue educating themselves on these important matters.

Kenneth Marcus and Aviva Vogelstein then gave a presentation on “Law and Campus Anti-Semitism.”  This lecture was aimed at educating the law students on how to identify anti-Semitism on their respective campuses and what to do about it.  Marcus and Vogelstein used several recent events as examples and informed the students of various legal mechanisms on both federal and state levels, such as the Office for Civil Rights, at their disposal (as well as the services of the Brandeis Center).

The next activity directly engaged the law students in an exercise in legal activism.  This breakout session split students into groups and had them decide amongst themselves how to best address examples of on-campus discrimination, all of which were based on real-life incidents.  The drill provoked intense discussions about the definition of anti-Semitism and about the extent to which students can rely on governmental intervention.

The last speaker of the conference was attorney Alyza Lewin – partner at Lewin & Lewin, LLP – who spoke about Judaism and legal advocacy.  She told the crowd about her firm belief in the power of students and young people to make a difference – a point she emphasized with the stories of two cases her firm had taken on at the adamant behest of Jewish high school students faced with institutional anti-Semitism.  She called upon the young people in the audience to work hard to recognize discrimination when they see it.  “Stand up and fight it,” she urged.

Kenneth Marcus, Prof. Jacobson, Prof. Bell, and Alyza Lewin came together for a group panel, “Legal Career Directions and the Pursuit of Justice,” in which they provided some words of wisdom to the students for the road ahead.  They explained what the students should expect as lawyers and as Jewish activists, encouraging them to keep fighting for their beliefs even in spite of the opposition they would encounter.  The conference wrapped up with a student-led roundtable discussion, led by Shuki Greer (UCLA) and Marla Benedek (University of Pennsylvania), about how to best continue the fight against anti-Semitism beyond the conference and back at school.

The students spoke highly of the conference as a whole.  “The professors were all very well-rounded and have shared a great deal of knowledge, expertise, and varying perspectives on many different areas of civil and human rights,” claimed Corey Lederman and Angela Shamay of CUNY.  Students attending school in the Chicago area Matt Gold, Brian Brothman, Michelle Milstein, Ilana Schwartz, and Maria Ziskind praised the forum’s commitment to justice ethics, calling it “a meaningful avenue for practitioners and law students to discuss the legal tools to defend the civil and human rights of the Jewish people.”  Joel Goldenberg (Brooklyn Law), Daniel Goldenberg (Brooklyn Law), and Shuki Greer (UCLA) called the conference “wonderfully illuminating,” saying that it provided them with important tools to go on defending their beliefs through legal action.