UC Berkeley on Thursday said it would revise campus nondiscrimination policies, prohibit student organization bylaws from banning Zionist speakers and pay $1 million in legal fees to settle a lawsuit by two Jewish groups over alleged antisemitic incidents following protests in response to the Hamas-Israel war in 2023.
In addition, UC Berkeley said it would revamp an online nondiscrimination page to clarify that it considers a controversial antisemitism definition promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance when evaluating discrimination complaints.
That definition says “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, such as by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor,” is antisemitic. The definition has been criticized by pro-Palestinian and human rights groups who accuse Israel of giving Palestinians who work and live within its borders and in Gaza and the West Bank unequal rights in comparison with Israeli Jews.
UC Berkeley has considered the IHRA definition since 2024, based on Department of Education guidelines. What is new is that the campus has agreed to refer to the definition on its Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination web page.
The settlement is the latest among UC campuses that have closed out lawsuits and civil rights complaints stemming from contentious pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests that reached a crescendo in 2024 with pro-Palestinian encampments at all nine undergraduate campuses and a violent attack against pro-Palestinian activists at UCLA in April of that year.
Incidents at UC Berkeley and UCLA have been focal points of Trump administration antisemitism investigations, including a lawsuit the federal government filed against UCLA last month alleging employment discrimination against Jewish and Israeli workers.
In a statement, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said the settlement built upon work already underway.
It “reflects UC Berkeley’s long-standing values and objectives when it comes to combating abhorrent antisemitic expression, harassment, and discrimination when it occurs on the Berkeley campus,” Mogulof said.
“Since this litigation was filed in 2023, the university has taken significant steps to build upon its existing policies, programs and practices that address discrimination and harassment against Jews and Israelis, and to support the quality of Jewish life on campus, which the Anti-Defamation League describes as ‘excellent’ in its latest ‘Campus Antisemitism Report Card.’
Ken Marcus, chair of the Brandeis Center, which filed the suit, said in a statement that the agreement was about “free speech and fairness.”
The case included several discrimination complaints by Jewish community members involving the law school, where student groups had passed bylaws banning the invitation of campus speakers who were Zionists and supporters of Israel.
“What began as a ban on Zionist Jewish voices, regardless of the subjects they wished to address, and mushroomed into a widespread hostile environment will no longer be tolerated,” Marcus said.
“What happened at Berkeley is a cautionary tale. Universities, unions, corporations, and political parties cannot create an anti-Zionist exception to their conduct codes,” he said. “They cannot silence Jewish Americans on the pretext of advancing their own political agendas. As we have now seen time and again, if left unaddressed antisemitic bigotry, whether or not masked as anti-Zionism, only continues to expand.”
The settlement now bans such bylaws.
In a message sent to the law school Thursday, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said that students may “choose speakers based on their views” but cannot have bylaws that ban specific types of speakers.
“Under the settlement, student organizations may continue to have policies as to who they will invite as speakers, including on the basis of viewpoint,” Chemerinsky said.
“However, under the settlement, the bylaws of the student organization cannot state a policy of restricting who may speak at the organization’s events,” he said.
The settlement also includes a commitment from Berkeley to adopt mandatory anti-discrimination and antisemitism training for staff and faculty and beef up its process for handling discrimination complaints.
In December, UC Berkeley also agreed to pay an Israeli sociologist and dance researcher $60,000 for an incident in the fall of 2023 in which the instructor said she was not invited back to teach a course despite the success of the class.
The Brandeis Center represented the woman when she sued in state court, alleging she was rejected because of her Israeli nationality.
