Summary
An Israel advocacy organisation focused, in its own words as quoted in The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US, on confronting the “resurgent problem of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism on university campuses”, and, with the AMCHA Initiative and the Zionist Organization of America, a filer of Title VI complaints arguing that speech critical of Israel creates a hostile educational environment for Jewish students (PDF p.14-15).
Details
- The Brandeis Center is among the organisations the report names as filing at least six Department of Education complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; none was sustained, and the UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley complaints were dismissed in 2013 (PDF p.6, p.36-37). The UC Berkeley complaint was filed by attorneys serving on the Brandeis Center advisory board (PDF p.37).
- Its director and general counsel Kenneth Marcus, described in the report as the architect of the Title VI strategy, is quoted explaining that rejected cases still work: “These cases—even when rejected—expose administrators to bad publicity. … No university wants to be accused of creating an abusive environment.” (PDF p.37)
- In 2014 the Brandeis Center and AMCHA published reports on federally funded Middle East Studies centres, focused on UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies, demanding defunding or intrusive oversight (PDF p.32).
Related pages
The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US, AMCHA Initiative, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Antisemitism Awareness Act