'Hostile environment' reported to the Office of Civil Rights
By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it is launching an investigation into the University of California Berkeley Law School due to concerns of anti-zionism.
Gabriel Groisman, an attorney and partner at LSN Law, P.A., and Arsen Ostrovsky, an Israel-based attorney, and CEO of The International Legal Forum filed a complaint with the OCR on Nov. 18, according to the Cleveland Jewish News. The complaint came as a result of multiple student groups adopting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions bylaws associated with the pro-Palestine movement, that banned pro-Israel speakers from their chapters.
The OCR agreed Tuesday to conduct an official investigation into the “hostile environment” at U.C. Berkeley Law, according to the Cleveland Jewish News.
“Whether the University failed to respond appropriately in the fall 2022 semester to notice from Jewish law students, faculty, and staff that they experienced a hostile environment at the law school based on their shared Jewish ancestry when University-recognized student organizations passed a bylaw against inviting speakers who support ‘Zionism, the state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine,'” the OCR stated in the letter.
Ostrovsky told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the notion that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not related was false.
“Zionism is an integral and core component of Jewish identity. So in other words when they use the excuse saying ‘no Zionists [are] welcome’ what in effect they are actually saying that no Jews are welcome,” he stated.
In August, students from the student chapter Law Students for Justice in Palestine at Berkeley Law passed bylaws banning pro-Israel speakers from being invited to events and required its board members to attend a “Palestine 101” training, according to the chapter’s Instagram. The bylaws were passed by nine other student chapters on campus.