Summary
Proposed United States legislation that would adopt a version of the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism (the Department of State definition) for campus Title VI purposes, opposed in Kenneth S. Stern’s November 7, 2017 testimony as, in the words of his Academe article with Ernst Benjamin, a hate speech code that “will do much damage to the university and to the Jewish students proponents seek to protect” (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.8).
Details
- Stern argues the Act would effectively declare anti-Zionism to be antisemitism, settling an internal Jewish debate for campus, create a presumption in hostile-environment inquiries, and direct administrators toward policing anti-Israel political speech at the expense of climate surveys, antisemitism courses and complexity-teaching (PDF p.10-13).
- He argues it would put professors at risk for assigning writings of Jewish thinkers skeptical of Zionism, such as Hannah Arendt and Martin Buber, or of contemporary Palestinians (PDF p.14).
- Parallel state efforts are discussed for South Carolina, where the legislation did not pass (PDF p.8).
Related pages
Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Academic freedom