[News] Trump’s Education Department Targets UCLA with Investigation into Palestine Advocacy

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://palestinelegal.org/news/2020/1/10/trumps-education-department-targets-ucla-with-investigation-into-palestine-advocacy?utm_source=General+Interest&utm_campaign=5bc0005622-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_20_07_05_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1d77981866-5bc0005622-130147237 



  Trump’s Education Department Targets UCLA with Investigation into
  Palestine Advocacy

January 10, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has reportedly 
*opened two investigations* into UCLA’s response to Palestine advocacy 
including a student conference in November 2018 and a guest lecture 
<https://palestinelegal.org/news/2019/5/31/ucla-wrongly-investigates-lecture-linking-zionism-with-white-supremacy> 
by Professor Rabab Abdulhadi last May.

The investigations into UCLA come just weeks after Trump signed an 
executive order 
<https://palestinelegal.org/news/2019/12/11/trumps-anti-palestinian-agenda-comes-home> 
adopting a *distorted redefinition* 
<https://palestinelegal.org/redefinition-efforts>*of antisemitism that 
targets advocacy for Palestinian rights.*


    *NSJP 2018*

In November 2018, students from throughout the United States and Canada 
gathered on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, for 
the *eighth annual**National Students for Justice in Palestine* 
<https://www.nationalsjp.org/2018-conference.html>*conference*.

The conference, which convened students from diverse backgrounds *to 
discuss achieving equality for Palestinians*, was successful despite a 
barrage of attempts by Israel proxy groups to shut it down 
<https://palestinelegal.org/2018-report>.

Within hours of the conference beginning, the Zachor Legal Institute, an 
anti-Palestinian group that has*repeatedly demanded criminal 
investigation of human rights activists*,filed 
<https://twitter.com/ZachorLegal/status/1064587903177617414> a federal 
complaint against UCLA claiming that discussing Palestinian rights was 
an attack on Jewish students.

Over a year later, the Office for Civil Rights has *reportedly accepted 
the complaint* and opened an investigation.


    *Complaint against lecture*

In October 2019, *a right-wing group with close ties to the Israeli 
government* filed a second complaint targeting Palestine advocacy at UCLA.

The*complaint from StandWithUs arises from a May 2019 lecture* by 
Professor Abdulhadi that focused on Islamophobia and its interplay with 
concepts such as settler colonialism and imperial feminism. The 
complaint alleges that a student attending the lecture was shocked and 
surprised that a lecture on Islamophobia would address Zionism and its 
impact on Palestinians and that UCLA failed to properly intervene after 
Professor Abdulhadi’s refusal to support Israel brought the student to 
tears.

The complaint acknowledges that *UCLA conducted an investigation* into 
whether the student had faced religious discrimination or retaliation 
and that administrators met with her multiple times over the course of 
months*before concluding in August 2019 that there had been no wrongdoing*.

The complaint *directly attacks free speech and academic freedom 
protections*. For example, StandWithUs argues: "Professor Abdulhadi 
first expressed her disagreement with [the student’s] position of 
support for the existence of the State of Israel, a blatantly 
antisemitic statement according to the IHRA Working Definition of 
Antisemitism."

The logical conclusion of this argument is that federal law requires 
UCLA to intervene when professors fail to support Israel. *The law can 
require no such thing. *As the Supreme Court explained in 1943, “If 
there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that 
no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in 
politics.”


    *Student responses*

*UCLA students have spoken out* against the Trump executive order and 
its chilling impact on their campus. They are demanding that UCLA defend 
the rights of students and faculty because the complaint is baseless.

“According to Trump’s narrative, it is now a violation of ‘civil rights’ 
to speak out against Israel’s dispossession and ethnic cleansing of 
Palestinians,” *explained Omar Zahzah, a doctoral candidate, teacher, 
and activist at UCLA*. "This mirrors how some claim it is a violation of 
‘academic freedom’ to boycott Israeli universities /complicit in 
depriving Palestinians of their right to education/ vis-á-vis 
colonialism and military occupation."

“*There is no legal basis to make capitulation to Israeli propaganda 
imperative*,” continued Zahzah. “As scholars, intellectuals and 
educators, we have not only a right but an ethical /obligation /to 
ensure that students are exposed to the urgent political questions of 
our day and age, and this must include the Palestinian struggle for 
justice.”

Zahzah organizes with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Graduate 
Students for Justice in Palestine, UCLA (GSJP-UCLA).

For information about the lecture and UCLA's initial investigation, read 
our blog post from last May 
<https://palestinelegal.org/news/2019/5/31/ucla-wrongly-investigates-lecture-linking-zionism-with-white-supremacy>. 


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