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Jewish Civil Rights Group Challenges UC Berkeley Motion to Dismiss Antisemitism Lawsuit
Aftermath of pro-Hamas group’s occupation of a University of California, Berkeley administrative building. Photo: Michael Wai Lee via Reuters Connect
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on Wednesday filed a legal brief challenging the University of California, Berkeley’s (UC Berkeley) motion to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of failing to address antisemitism on campus.
The Brandeis Center is the plaintiff in the suit, which it brought in November to prove its contention that UC Berkeley willfully refused to discipline student efforts to expel Jews from campus groups and pressured Jewish students and faculty into denouncing Zionism after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
The complaint provided several examples of antisemitic harassment and exclusion on campus before Oct. 7, however, including a bylaw banning Zionists speakers that 23 Berkeley Law groups adopted in Sept. 2021; campus groups Women of Berkeley Law and the Queer Caucus requiring support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel to join its ranks; and the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and Justice banning Zionists from submitting articles and speaking at its events.
Jewish students, the Brandeis Center added, were victims of a double standard, being the only minorities not protected from discrimination by the university’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging.
UC Berkeley argued in a motion to dismiss the case, filed in February, that its anti-Zionist students were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and that not disciplining them was “consistent with long-established constitutional principles.” It added that it has not had sufficient time to address the issue and said the Brandeis Center’s “claims should be dismissed.”
Now, the Brandeis Center, in addition to challenging the motion to dismiss, has amended its original complaint, arguing that antisemitism at Berkeley is worse than when it first sued it and that the school’s attempt to dismiss the suit is audacious.
“Amazingly, the UC Berkeley Regents have the nerve to claim that they shouldn’t be held accountable because they haven’t had enough time to investigate the situation,” Brandis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said on Wednesday. “It’s been now more than half a year since their system president admitted that they have a problem, and yet they haven’t had enough time? When the university makes this sort of argument to a court of law, their opposition brief is the least of what needs to be dismissed.”
Rachel Lerman, the Brandeis Center’s vice chair and senior counsel, noted that several months after the complaint was filed UC Berkeley saw an event which it later described as a “black mark” on its history. In February, a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at its Zellerbach Hall featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.
Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach. The mob then, according to witnesses, eventually stormed the building — breaking windows in the process, according to reports in The Daily Wire — and precipitated the decision to evacuate the area. During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — assembled by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
“UC Berkeley’s inaction has had consequences: Jewish students on campus continue to be physically assaulted spat at, and subjected to discrimination,” Lerman said. “UC Berkeley cannot abdicate its legal obligation to create a campus environment that is free from harassment and discrimination. The Brandeis Center will continue to use legal recourse to stand up for Jewish students and faculty at UC Berkeley and across the country.”
UC Berkeley has denied the Brandeis Center’s allegations, arguing that the school has “long been committed to confronting antisemitism, and to supporting the needs and interests of its Jewish students, faculty, and staff.” A school spokesperson has cited as evidence the school’s establishment in 2019 of a “groundbreaking” Antisemitism Education Initiative.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Challenges UC Berkeley Motion to Dismiss Antisemitism Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Kurdish-led SDF Say Five Members Killed During Attack by Islamic State in Syria
Islamic State slogans painted along the walls of the tunnel was used by Islamic State militants as an underground training camp in the hillside overlooking Mosul, Iraq, March 4, 2017. Photo: via Reuters Connect.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Sunday that five of its members had been killed during an attack by Islamic State militants on a checkpoint in eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zor on July 31.
The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Islamic State in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State has been trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia. Deir el-Zor city was captured by Islamic State in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.
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Armed Groups Attack Security Force Personnel in Syria’s Sweida, Killing One, State TV Reports
People ride a motorcycle past a burned-out military vehicle, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria, July 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Armed groups attacked personnel from Syria’s internal security forces in Sweida, killing one member and wounding others, and fired shells at several villages in the violence-hit southern province, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Sunday.
The report cited a security source as saying the armed groups had violated the ceasefire agreed in the predominantly Druze region, where factional bloodshed killed hundreds of people last month.
Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had long-standing tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week. Syria said it would investigate the clashes, setting up a committee to investigate the attacks.
The Sweida bloodshed last month was a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, after a wave of sectarian violence in March that killed hundreds of Alawite citizens in the coastal region.
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Netanyahu Urges Red Cross to Aid Gaza Hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he spoke with the International Red Cross’s regional head, Julien Lerisson, and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza.