Summary
An Israel advocacy organisation that The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US places at the centre of campaigns against students, faculty and Middle East Studies programs, including Title VI complaints, demands to cancel courses and events, and, in fall 2014, a blacklist of more than 200 Middle East Studies professors it declared “anti-Israel” (PDF p.6, p.14-15).
Details
- AMCHA, with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Zionist Organization of America, filed complaints alleging Title VI violations by universities tolerating speech critical of Israel, and AMCHA and the David Project mounted campaigns against individual students and faculty (PDF p.14-15).
- Its founder Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, in a 2013 lecture, described Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim Student Association students as having “ties to terrorist organizations” (PDF p.21); she filed the 2009 UC Santa Cruz Title VI complaint (PDF p.37) and threatened a Title VI complaint against UC Hastings in 2011 (PDF p.29).
- AMCHA demanded cancellation of UC Riverside’s student-led “Palestinian Voices” course in spring 2015, citing the “State Department definition” of antisemitism, and campaigned in 2012 against BDS links on UCLA Professor David Shorter’s course website (PDF p.19).
- AMCHA accused Rabab Abdulhadi of abusing taxpayer funds to meet with “known terrorists”; SFSU found the allegations lacked merit, and AMCHA then complained to the California State Controller (PDF p.21-22, p.32).
- A student spying for AMCHA at UC Santa Cruz wrote it a confidential report on a university delegation to Israel and Palestine, leaked documents revealed (PDF p.18).
- In 2014 AMCHA and the Brandeis Center published reports on federally funded Middle East Studies centres demanding defunding or intrusive oversight (PDF p.32).
Related pages
The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Rabab Abdulhadi, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964