UC regents’ committee OKs ‘anti-Zionism’ as discrimination
With the deft addition of three words, a University of California regent defused rising tensions Wednesday over whether UC would declare “anti-Zionism” — opposition to the state of Israel — an official form of discrimination at the famously free-thinking school.
The contested language appeared in the introduction to an otherwise widely praised document on tolerance and free speech adopted Wednesday by a regents committee that is expected to be approved by the full board on Thursday.
“I think the amendment is a good start,” said David McCleary a UC Berkeley graduate student and Palestinian rights activist who identified himself to the regents as a “proud Jewish student” before urging them to reject the statement equating anti-Zionism with discrimination.
The 12-page “Principles Against Intolerance” and its controversial introduction were developed over several months by a group of regents and UC employees responding to a rise in reports of anti-Semitism at UC campuses.
Thousands of students, faculty and outsiders on all sides of the issue have signed petitions and emailed the regents their views of the issue UC President Janet Napolitano called one of the university’s “thorniest.”
Before introducing the amendment, the regents heard from 15 speakers, including UCLA graduate student Omar Zahzah, who asked the board if UC intended to stifle his ability to talk about his family history.
Noted feminist and UC Berkeley comparative literature Professor Judith Butler told the regents that she was the daughter of Holocaust survivors and that “anti-Semitism is a despicable form of discrimination.”
There were others, each encapsulating their experiences into arguments for or against the idea that expressing views against Israel chills the campus atmosphere for Jewish students.
“I enthusiastically support this (document) and the amendment,” said Regent Bonnie Reiss, a member of the educational policy committee that unanimously approved the Principles of Intolerance.