Summary
The United States District Court case, W.D. Texas, Austin Division, decided October 28, 2024, in which the court found that incorporating the IHRA definition of antisemitism into Texas university policies under Governor Abbott’s executive order was viewpoint discrimination, in the ruling Kenneth S. Stern quotes at length in his 2025 testimony (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.13-14).
Details
- The executive order mandated that university policies include the IHRA definition to guide university personnel and students on what constitutes antisemitic speech (PDF p.13).
- The court held the revised policies chill a kind of expression that is a hallmark of university activity and that the defendants could not show the expression rose to the level of a substantial disruption; a student calmly stating that she finds Israel’s policies similar to the Nazis’, seated in a classroom, could hardly be a per se substantial disruption, yet under UT Austin’s revised policy her expression is defined as antisemitism and could be punished as harassment (PDF p.13-14).
- The ruling quotes the bedrock First Amendment principle that government may not prohibit expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable (PDF p.14, footnote 47).
Related pages
Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, Students for Justice in Palestine, EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, Academic freedom