Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern

Summary

Kenneth S. Stern, executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation and the lead drafter of the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, testifies against the proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act on November 7, 2017: the working definition was drafted for data collectors comparing Antisemitism across borders, “was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus”, and enshrining it in law for Title VI campus cases would harm Academic freedom, Jewish students and faculty teaching Jewish and Israel studies, while campus antisemitism itself is, in his account, real but not an epidemic (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.3, p.7).

What the file is

Written testimony for the November 7, 2017 hearing “Examining Anti-Semitism on College Campuses” of the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. 18 PDF pages (printed p.2-18 on PDF p.2-18; PDF p.1 unnumbered), about 6,744 words in the supplied count (6,696 words in the text copy by word count). Main text PDF p.1-15, then Appendix A (2002 presidents’ ad), Appendix B (Bollinger’s 2007 statement) and Appendix C (Joe Levin keynote excerpt). The text copy is clean and complete, with footnotes at page foot; on PDF p.6 and PDF p.8 a footnote block interrupts the running text and is reassembled in reading order in the reading notes. The title page prints “UNITES STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES” as printed.

Section by section

• Opening and biography (PDF p.1-2): Stern introduces the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, his Bard College teaching on antisemitism, and four questions: how to understand campus antisemitism, how it is manifested, what works to combat it, and what might make it worse. He began in the 1980s as a Portland, Oregon lawyer, heard antisemitism from progressive colleagues protesting the 1982 War in Lebanon in terms reminiscent of the Posse Comitatus, joined the American Jewish Committee in 1989 as its antisemitism expert for 25 years, wrote an early-1990s monograph with Brooklyn College President Robert Hess’s group of presidents (do not violate academic freedom or free speech; speak out promptly; punish conduct; review curriculum; train staff; survey climate), and trained over 200 presidents.
• Presidents’ ads, 2002 and 2007 (PDF p.2-3): In 2002 he organised a New York Times ad with over 300 presidents after attacks on Jewish students and property (text at Appendix A). In 2007, after the British University and College Union voted to advance an academic boycott of Israel, he worked with Columbia President Lee Bollinger; over 400 presidents signed (text at Appendix B). Lessons: James O. Freedman’s advice that anti-antisemitism efforts must be consistent with and ideally promote academic freedom, and Michael Brooks’s “When you make it about Jews, you lose.” A counter-boycott of British academics is rejected: “An academic boycott is a blacklist”.
• The scale of the problem (PDF p.3-4): The Evergreen State College example of a genuinely hostile campus is given, then rejected as the norm: “There are thousands of campuses in the United States, and in very few is antisemitism – or anti-Israel animus – an issue.” A Stanford study of five California campuses found few Jewish students saw antisemitism, but the pro-Israel / pro-Palestinian binary made them less likely to join Jewish campus life. The Israel on Campus Coalition reported pro-Israel events outnumbering anti-Israel events two to one in 2016-2017, only 20 BDS campaigns, and no university divestment despite resolutions since 2002.
• Title VI and the Vestal case (PDF p.4): The 2010 Department of Education “Dear Colleague” letter afforded Title VI protection to Jews, Muslims and Sikhs as ethnic groups. Stern’s AJC complaint for Vestal School District Jewish high-school students — called “cheapie”, “Heil Hitler” and “Nazi” chants, a “Kick a Jew Day” — was successfully resolved with no definition and no evidence of the bullies’ motive. Other groups then filed campus complaints treating anti-Israel expression transgressing the Department of State definition as a hostile environment.
• Drafting the working definition (PDF p.5-7): In the early 2000s the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia needed a common definition to collect comparable data on antisemitic hate crimes in Western Europe. Stern drafted it (Rabbi Andrew Baker negotiating, Professor Yehuda Bauer among the experts consulted) to focus data collectors on whether an actor selected Jews as victims, not whether the actor hated Jews — the motive/intent distinction from Wisconsin v. Mitchell. Israel-related examples (holding all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions, comparing Israeli policy to the Nazis, denying Jews self-determination such as by claiming Israel’s existence is a “racist endeavor”) were data-collection examples, while criticism of Israel like any other country was excluded. Stern promoted its use by the State Department’s Special Envoys, and from a 2010 conference onward warned against campus misuse. Footnote 8 adds, in Stern’s account, that the Brandeis Center’s FAQ cites both his 2010 conference review (at its footnote 2) and his article with Dr. Dina Porat explaining the proposed definition (at its footnote 3), and that an Electronic Intifada article — a website Stern describes as “sometimes hateful and always stridently anti-Israel” — is largely correct about how the working definition was created despite errors, among them that Stern “was not at the meeting with Winkler, as it states” (PDF p.5, footnote 8).
• Abuse in Title VI cases and the legislative turn (PDF p.7-8): Stern’s 2011 article with AAUP President Cary Nelson described the working definition being abused in Title VI cases against West Bank occupation programs, BDS films, classroom materials and an “Arabs and the Holocaust” program. All the cases lost; proponents said the chill on pro-Palestinian expression was itself a benefit, sought University of California adoption, failed, and turned to Congress and state legislatures.
• Pandora’s Box (PDF p.8-10): In the South Carolina debate (legislation did not pass) proponents were clear their intention was to curtail speech; Jewish studies professors warned teaching would become difficult; a Columbia Jewish Federation official foresaw other groups seeking their own legislated definitions. Stern imagines parallel definitions of racism, anti-Palestinianism, and definitions for Hispanic, Muslim, Armenian and Turkish students, and notes indicia of bigotry change over time.
• Congress deciding an internal Jewish question (PDF p.10): Satmar Jews’ religious objection to Zionism is accepted inside the Jewish family, while other Jewish objectors are called traitors, antisemites, self-hating, even “kapos”. Stern: “I am a Zionist, and I don’t know how this internal Jewish debate about who is in and who is out of the “family” should be decided.” Declaring anti-Zionism to be antisemitism would have Congress decide it for campus.
• Application of the definition (PDF p.11-12): Israel on Campus Coalition data: 40 disruptions of pro-Israel speakers, February 9, 2010 to May 11, 2017, all but seven events completed. Disruption is likely political, not ethnic targeting, Stern argues (with the Ann Coulter and Charles Murray heckler’s-veto parallels). Jewish students supporting Palestinian rights or divestment at UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara were told by other Jews they were not real Jews — a fact question a definition would skew, creating a presumption that anti-Zionist motive is antisemitism but not the reverse. Beyond the Israel debate, Joe Levin’s warning about the alt-right recruiting on campus and the debate over whether Jews are white are presented as larger, non-legislative issues.
• The damage the definition would do (PDF p.12-15): Against trigger warnings, safe spaces and micro-aggression frameworks in general, Stern argues proponents seek the same protection from unpleasant speech for pro-Israel students. The practical damage would dominate: groups hunting speech transgressing the State Department definition and pressing administrators with Title VI threats; climate surveys, antisemitism courses and complexity-teaching crowded out — “The law will be like a black hole, sucking out the ability to do things that actually will help improve the campus for Jewish students.” Professors, already targeted by online dossiers and Canary Mission, would avoid modern Israel and Zionism, and avoid assigning Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber or contemporary Palestinians. The United Kingdom’s adoption is cited: an “Israel Apartheid Week” event cancelled, a Holocaust survivor’s talk title censored at Manchester, and a Bristol professor investigated (and not disciplined) in an exercise Stern calls chilling and McCarthy-like. Close (PDF p.15): “My fear is, if we similarly enshrine this definition into law, outside groups will try and suppress – rather than answer – political speech they don’t like. The academy, Jewish students, and faculty teaching about Jewish issues, will all suffer.”
• Appendix A (PDF p.16): Text of the 2002 New York Times presidents’ ad: academic standards and an intimidation-free campus, classrooms open to all, debates without threats, taunts or intimidation, and a record of death threats, property defacement and libelous posters against Jewish students and Zionists.
• Appendix B (PDF p.17): Text of Lee Bollinger’s 2007 statement: the UCU boycott is “utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment”; Columbia should be added to the boycott list.
• Appendix C (PDF p.18): Excerpt of Joe Levin’s October 20, 2017 keynote at Gonzaga University’s Institute for Hate Studies: white nationalist and alt-right recruiting on campuses — Identity Evropa fliers at University of Massachusetts Boston, Nathan Damigo and Jared Taylor quoted on recruiting, Richard Spencer at Texas A&M, and fliers such as “Protect Your Heritage.”

Key passages

• “The definition was not drafted, and was never intended, as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus.” (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.7)
• “An academic boycott is a blacklist” (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.3)
• “When you make it about Jews, you lose.” — Michael Brooks, as quoted by Stern (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.2)
• “My fear is, if we similarly enshrine this definition into law, outside groups will try and suppress – rather than answer – political speech they don’t like. The academy, Jewish students, and faculty teaching about Jewish issues, will all suffer.” (Written Testimony of Kenneth S. Stern, PDF p.15)

Evidence the work relies on

• Stern’s own biography and drafting role: AJC antisemitism expert from 1989 for 25 years; lead drafter of the EUMC working definition, with Rabbi Andrew Baker and experts including Yehuda Bauer (PDF p.2, p.5).
• The Stanford study of Jewish students at five California campuses and the Israel on Campus Coalition 2016-2017 year-end report and its February 9, 2010–May 11, 2017 disruption data, sent to Stern at his request (PDF p.3-4, p.11).
• The Vestal School District Title VI complaint Stern filed at AJC (PDF p.4).
• Wisconsin v. Mitchell, for the motive/intent distinction, on which Stern was a secondary author of an amicus brief (PDF p.5-6, footnote 9).
• The record of the lost Title VI cases, the 2011 Stern–Cary Nelson article, and Stern’s cited writings against University of California and legislative adoption, with opposition by Erwin Chemerinsky, Steve Lubet and PEN America (PDF p.7-8, footnotes 12-16).
• South Carolina debate reports (Post and Courier, Daily Gamecock), including Cheryl Glantz Nail’s statement (PDF p.8-9).
• Student accounts from UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, a Columbia professor’s September 7, 2016 email and a Barnard student’s Simchat Torah account (PDF p.10-11).
• United Kingdom application reports (Guardian, Times of Israel, Telegraph, Campaign Against Antisemitism) for the cancelled Israel Apartheid Week event, the Manchester talk-title case and the Bristol inquiry (PDF p.14).
• Appendices A-C as primary texts: the 2002 ad, Bollinger’s 2007 statement, and Joe Levin’s October 20, 2017 keynote excerpt, quoted with permission (PDF p.16-18).

Analysis

The testimony’s method is insider authority plus institutional consequence: the definition’s own lead drafter testifies to its original purpose (a data-collection tool keyed to victim selection, not motive) and argues that transferring it into campus law changes its function, creating a presumption equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, privileging one side of an internal Jewish debate, and re-directing administrators and professors away from education toward speech policing. Its evidence for the current campus climate is the two reports it cites and its author’s case experience; it acknowledges contrary evidence in footnote 6 (a Brandeis Birthright-applicant study suggesting harassment related to support of Israel) and in the Evergreen example, without quantifying campus antisemitism beyond those sources. It is advocacy testimony by an interested party — a Zionist, in his own statement, and a former AJC official whose 2011 position AJC later withdrew support for, as footnote 12 records — and its claims about proponents’ intentions and business model are presented as the author’s assertions, with the footnoted articles as his support.

People, organizations, places and events

Kenneth S. Stern, Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, American Jewish Committee, United States House Committee on the Judiciary, Antisemitism Awareness Act, EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, University and College Union, Lee Bollinger, Israel on Campus Coalition, Canary Mission, Joe Levin, American Association of University Professors, Hannah Arendt

Concepts

Antisemitism, Academic freedom, Academic boycott, BDS movement, Zionism

How it relates to other sources

• Against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights on the Academic boycott: Barghouti defends PACBI’s institutional boycott of Israeli academic institutions as a rights-based tactic and critiques the AAUP’s academic-freedom position; Stern, who coordinated the presidents’ response to the 2007 UCU boycott, calls any academic boycott a blacklist and makes academic freedom the test of any anti-antisemitism measure — while also opposing, with the AAUP’s then-president, the use of the working definition to punish BDS-related speech. The two sources agree that the early Title VI complaints about BDS and occupation teaching were brought and lost, from opposite evaluations of them.
• On BDS movement figures: Stern’s ICC figures (20 BDS campaigns in 2016-2017; no university divestment since resolutions began in 2002) are a United States campus snapshot for 2017, later than Barghouti’s 2011 account and Falk’s 2010-2013 posts in Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, which present BDS as a growing global solidarity movement.
• On Zionism and antisemitism: earlier sources treat Zionism as a settler-colonial project (Sayegh, Pappe, Said, Makdisi); Stern’s testimony treats the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism as a contested definition Congress should not settle, and himself declares “I am a Zionist” while defending anti-Zionist Jews’ protection.
• On Hannah Arendt: Said quotes Arendt on the Jewish question producing Arab refugees; Stern names Arendt, with Martin Buber, as a leading 20th-century Jewish thinker skeptical of Zionism whose writings professors would fear to assign under the Act.

Open questions

• The testimony gives no date, publisher or full citation for the Stanford report beyond its footnote URL, and no authorship for the ICC disruption data beyond the Coalition; neither report is itself in raw/.
• Footnote 6’s Brandeis study, suggesting some Jewish students are harassed related to support of Israel, is noted but not reconciled with the Stanford finding that few students saw antisemitism; the testimony does not give figures for the Brandeis study.
• The title page prints “UNITES STATES” for United States; the slip is in the original as printed — the original PDF shows the same wording on its title page.
• The testimony does not reproduce the text of the proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act or of the Department of State definition; both are referred to by footnote URLs only.
• Stern says the South Carolina legislation did not pass and that all the early Title VI cases lost, without case names or dates for the Title VI losses beyond the June 25, 2009 Rossman-Benjamin letter cited in footnote 13.

Coverage

PDF p.1-18 of 18, read in full.