Trial Date Set for Lawfare Project Anti-Semitism Lawsuit Against SFSU

A trial date of March 4, 2019 has been set for a lawsuit brought against San Francisco State University (SFSU) by two Jewish students represented by The Lawfare Project and others. This lawsuit, which was originally filed in June of last year and re-filed on January 30, 2018, alleges that SFSU was complicit in the “intentional and discriminatory exclusion of Hillel and its members from the ‘Know Your Rights’ fair.”

This fair was intended to serve as an informational and training aid for those vulnerable populations who felt targeted in our present political climate. According to the lawsuit, Hillel was originally intended to be “excluded from participating in the fair and was only invited to the fair by accident.” After this invitation was extended, the organizers of the event then found a way to exclude Hillel from attending the fair by changing the cut-off date for student groups’ registration. The intention and result was the exclusion of “Jewish students from full and equal participation in the event.”

Furthermore, not only was Hillel precluded from attending this fair, but the SFSU administration had “direct and active involvement” in this discriminatory conduct. After the decision was made to exclude Hillel from the event, it was then sanctioned by high-ranking university officials, which, as the lawsuit claims, is “denied full and equal treatment to Plaintiffs Volk and Kern,” who were members of Hillel.

Speaking on why Hillel was excluded from the fair, one of the organizers stated, “Providing a table to Hillel, whose conduct has threatened the safety of campus Palestinians and other advocates for justice in Palestine, is akin to giving a table to ICE at a gathering of undocumented communities, or having the Ferguson Police Chief table at an event discussing police brutality against black teenagers.” This statement, in conjunction with the fact that SFSU administrators approved the decision to exclude Hillel from the fair, is indicative of, “a larger systematic pattern of discrimination against Jewish students” at SFSU. The lawsuit claims that SFSU’s conduct is a violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which requires that “government entities, including state universities, refrain from taking actions that suppress the rights of students or deprive any students of full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services based on their religion, race, ancestry, or certain other characteristics.”

With the trial date now set, SFSU may now be held accountable for their failure to provide a safe and cooperative learning environment for their students.