It must be a day ending in “y”, because free speech is once again at issue on the University of California-Berkeley campus.
A recent campaign by Law Students for Justice in Palestine (LSJP), a student group supporting Palestinian liberation, asking other progressive student groups to pledge not to host speakers that support Israeli apartheid has provoked a wave of condemnation and disinformation.
Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky publicly condemned the campaign in a statement, strongly implying it ran afoul of free speech and anti-discrimination principles. Chancellor Carol Christ, too, condemned the campaign, suggesting that excluding speakers with particular views on Israel would endanger the safety and security of Jewish community members. Following these statements, a Democratic member of Congress and a long list of Israel lobby organizations and professors piled on. And to add to the absurdity, an article in Jewish Journal falsely alleged that the campus was creating “Jewish free zones” by permitting the adoption of the pledge.
Source: The Daily Beast
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