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<h1 class="reader-title">Trump’s Education Department Targets
UCLA with Investigation into Palestine Advocacy<br>
</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">January 10, 2020</div>
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<p>The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights
has reportedly <strong>opened two investigations</strong>
into UCLA’s response to Palestine advocacy including a
student conference in November 2018 and a guest <a
href="https://palestinelegal.org/news/2019/5/31/ucla-wrongly-investigates-lecture-linking-zionism-with-white-supremacy"><span>lecture</span></a>
by Professor Rabab Abdulhadi last May. </p>
<p>The investigations into UCLA come just weeks after
Trump signed an <a
href="https://palestinelegal.org/news/2019/12/11/trumps-anti-palestinian-agenda-comes-home">executive
order</a> adopting a <a
href="https://palestinelegal.org/redefinition-efforts"><strong>distorted
redefinition</strong></a><strong> of antisemitism
that targets advocacy for Palestinian rights.</strong></p>
<h2><strong>NSJP 2018</strong></h2>
<p>In November 2018, students from throughout the United
States and Canada gathered on the campus of the
University of California, Los Angeles, for the <strong>eighth
annual</strong><a
href="https://www.nationalsjp.org/2018-conference.html"><strong>
National Students for Justice in Palestine</strong></a><strong>
conference</strong>.</p>
<p>The conference, which convened students from diverse
backgrounds <strong>to discuss achieving equality for
Palestinians</strong>, was successful despite a
barrage of attempts by Israel proxy groups to <a
href="https://palestinelegal.org/2018-report">shut
it down</a>. </p>
<p>Within hours of the conference beginning, the Zachor
Legal Institute, an anti-Palestinian group that has<strong>
repeatedly demanded criminal investigation of human
rights activists</strong>,<a
href="https://twitter.com/ZachorLegal/status/1064587903177617414">
filed</a> a federal complaint against UCLA claiming
that discussing Palestinian rights was an attack on
Jewish students.</p>
<p>Over a year later, the Office for Civil Rights has <strong>reportedly
accepted the complaint</strong> and opened an
investigation. </p>
<h2><strong>Complaint against lecture</strong></h2>
<p>In October 2019, <strong>a right-wing group with
close ties to the Israeli government</strong> filed
a second complaint targeting Palestine advocacy at
UCLA. </p>
<p>The<strong> complaint from StandWithUs arises from a
May 2019 lecture</strong> 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. </p>
<p>The complaint acknowledges that <strong>UCLA
conducted an investigation</strong> into whether the
student had faced religious discrimination or
retaliation and that administrators met with her
multiple times over the course of months<strong>
before concluding in August 2019 that there had been
no wrongdoing</strong>. </p>
<p>The complaint <strong>directly attacks free speech
and academic freedom protections</strong>. 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." </p>
<p>The logical conclusion of this argument is that
federal law requires UCLA to intervene when professors
fail to support Israel. <strong>The law can require
no such thing. </strong>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.” </p>
<h2><strong>Student responses</strong></h2>
<p><strong>UCLA students have spoken out</strong>
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. </p>
<p>“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,” <strong>explained Omar Zahzah, a
doctoral candidate, teacher, and activist at UCLA</strong>. "This
mirrors how some claim it is a violation of ‘academic
freedom’ to boycott Israeli universities <em>complicit
in depriving Palestinians of their right to
education</em> vis-á-vis colonialism and military
occupation."</p>
<p>“<strong>There is no legal basis to make capitulation
to Israeli propaganda imperative</strong>,”
continued Zahzah. “As scholars, intellectuals and
educators, we have not only a right but an ethical <em>obligation
</em>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.”</p>
<p>Zahzah organizes with the Palestinian Youth Movement
(PYM) and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine,
UCLA (GSJP-UCLA).</p>
<p>For information about the lecture and UCLA's initial
investigation, read our blog post from <a
href="https://palestinelegal.org/news/2019/5/31/ucla-wrongly-investigates-lecture-linking-zionism-with-white-supremacy">last
May</a>. </p>
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