Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti at Brooklyn College in February
(Image via Brooklyn College SJP)
Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti at Brooklyn College in February An investigation over a high-profile event at Brooklyn College on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has absolved student organizers of charges that they were anti-Semitic. The inquiry, undertaken by the City University of New York’s (CUNY) General Counsel and an outside law firm, finds that the students behind the February event did not discriminate against four Jewish students they ejected from the event, nor did they discriminate against members of the media. It was released last Friday.
The publication of the CUNY report puts an end to a saga that started weeks before the actual event, as Israel advocates sought to alter or cancel the talk featuring Omar Barghouti and Judith Butler on the BDS movement. What most incensed local politicians and supporters of Israel was that the school’s Political Science Department had co-sponsored the event. One City Councilman threatened the funding of Brooklyn College, though he later backed off.
The report is a detailed examination of the procedures for entering the event, student organizers’ media policy and the removal of four Jewish students during the event–the action that caused the most controversy. While the report criticizes aspects of how the school and student organizers handled admissions to the event and media policy, it puts to rest the controversy over anti-Semitism. The CUNY General Counsel, Frederick Schaffer, and the law firm interviewed over 40 witnesses to determine what happened during the event with Barghouti and Butler.
“It is a relief that CUNY recognizes that we intended for this to be a forum for open dialogue about how to achieve Palestinian human rights,” said Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) Sundus Seif, a student at Brooklyn College, in a statement. “It took us by surprise to handle a forum that went from being a normal student event to getting national media attention with hundreds of people trying to get in, and with unprecedented security, that we were not equipped to handle.”
The scrutiny did not die down after the event. While Butler was speaking, four Jewish students affiliated with Hillel were ejected from the event. Tablet magazine ran a story the day after reporting that the students said they were kicked out merely for holding anti-BDS flyers in their laps. The story also insinuated that the students were kicked out because they were Jewish. This line quickly spread to the New York Daily News, an outlet that also implied it was anti-Semitism that led to the students being kicked out. The student organizers with SJP strongly disputed how the media was telling the story. They told Mondoweiss in interviews that the students were being disruptive by passing out flyers amongst themselves and talking during Butler’s portion of the event.
The report gives voice to all sides of the story relating to the ejection, and criticizes aspects of how student organizers and the school handled the ejection of students. “It is clear that there was no justification for the removal of the four students. They did not create a ‘disturbance’,” the report reads. But the document also says that “the evidence does not permit a confident inference about whether the removal of the four students was for a discriminatory purpose. In our view, there is no support for an inference of discrimination based on religion.” The report also criticizes the Brooklyn College administration for giving the student organizers “primary responsibility for maintaining order unless there was a threat to physical safety.”
The report strongly rejects any claim that students had trouble getting in because of their political views–a claim Tablet published. “The evidence does not support a finding that religious or political discrimination infected the admission process. The mechanisms employed in creating the RSVP list were cumbersome and error-prone, and the repeated changes in the registration procedure led to confusion,” the report reads.
The student organizers’ media policy also came under scrutiny in the aftermath of the event. In particular, a Jewish reporter for the Daily News, Reuven Blau, implied that he may have been blocked from the event because he had a yarmulke on.
The report criticizes how the student organizers handled press policy, saying that it may have been a “mistake” for the college administration to allow students to bar full access for the press. The students organizing the event made that policy due to space considerations and a concern that the evening would turn into a press conference. Journalists who had signed up as any member of the public did were allowed in, though. But it again rejects any claim that journalists were turned away because they were Jewish.
Publication of the report likely puts to rest concern that Brooklyn College could have been targeted by a Title VI civil rights claim, a favored tool of Zionist organizations. In the week after the event, Israel boosters held a press conference where a right-wing CUNY trustee and a lawyer threatened to file a federal civil rights complaint over claims of anti-Semitism related to the ejection of the four students.
“Students are bearing the brunt of a nation-wide campaign to chill Palestinian rights activism. We are seeing this pattern all over the country, where accusations of anti-Semitism and threats of legal action are pressuring universities to unfairly obstruct and denounce the activities of those expressing one side of an important domestic and international issue,” said the Center for Constitutional Right’s Maria LaHood in a statement. “The threats of legal action and the university’s investigation in this case have already had a chilling effect on students and others supporting Palestinian rights. We hope the results of this thorough investigation will allow students to continue their First Amendment activities without undue interference.”
Title VI as a tool of Zionist organizations seems to be a spent bullet. So far, the pinnacle of their achievement in this respect are some federal cases that are lingering without resolution, as far as I can recall.
In this context, I am positively impressed by the rapid conclusions by CUNY General Counsel. Mind you, we are talking about top corporate lawyers of a huge public organizations, those people are usually risk averse and have considerable stature and reputation to lose. But attacks by the press and high ranking politicians raised the stakes. Basically, it started as a smallish event that should attract scant attention in a city of 8 millions — City Council and the mayor really should have no problems finding more important potholes to debate.
The idea that the students were ejected because they were Jewish is preposterous, as there were any number of Jewish (indeed, easily seen to be Jewish) people at tthe meeting including one speaker.
They might have been ejected because they were pro-Zionist. That is not religious discrimination. If they were not making a disturbance (or reasonably anticipated or marginally feared to make a disturbance) then they should not have been ejected. This talk was held in a public (government) building and the government is forbidden by the constitution to interfere with (political) speech.
From the report: “Nadya Drukker is the Director of the Brooklyn College Hillel. Typically, she does not encourage Jewish students to attend pro-Palestinian event.” I think this is horribly misleading, deliberate mis-speaking by Nadya Drukker. Surely she means “Zionist students” or “my Jewish students”, not “Jewish students.” And we akll know the trouble many Jewish students have been having getting permission to have pro-Palestinian meetings inside Hillel premises. We all know — for sure — and so do Hillel leaders that there are plenty of anti-Zionists and non-Zionists among Jews and among Jewish students.
Discrimination doesnt seems to be the problem, but paranoia.
Interesting, this coming so close upon the dismissal of the case brought against the UK University and College Union https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2013/04/landmark-identity-semitism.html It almost appears there is a brick wall these people can come up against.
I am wondering if those (groups or individuals) wrongly accused of anti-Semitism, and suffering in consequence, may have recourse to compensation in the civil courts. It is clear that a lot of the accusations thrown around are intended to scare people from criticism of what are, after all, flagrant violations of law, UN resolutions and acceptable standards of behaviour. Recourse to law, particularly if harm has been suffered in consequence of false accusations, as it often is, might help stem the tide. Something has to be done because, apart from the negative effect on individuals and groups, such accusations may actually provoke attitudes which tend towards anti-Semitism.
Just a quick perusal of the beginning of the report reveals that Carlos Guzman who was in charge of security was not a student at Brooklyn College, indeed not even a current student at Hunter College at the time of the event. Thus the person in charge of kicking out people and allowing access on the day of the event was someone who was not a student. Thus it was not a student who the Brooklyn College security people were listening to when commanded, but some apparatchik of the SJP. Is this any way to run a college event? I think not. Congratulations for a less than mediocre job CUNY. Congratulations for finding in favor of allowing some apparatchik to be in charge of your security people for a media event. Great job, bozos!