As incidents of antisemitism rise across the country, a group of Jewish students at UC Berkeley say they don’t feel safe on campus and are suing the university to make changes.
“I do not feel safe. If I hide parts of my Jewish identity, then I’m able to be safe,” said student Hannah Schlacter.
The students are suing the university for not doing enough to prevent the hate, but say they don’t want money.
“Jewish students on campus right now want to see both systemic change on campus and also cultural change to combat not just the rising antisemitism or the present antisemitism on campus but also the hostility that we are experiencing,” said Schlacter.
She is part of Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, one of two groups listed in the lawsuit that claims for more than a year, the university has allowed antisemitism to grow on campus and specifically at the Berkeley School of Law.
They say incidents of harassment, assault and discrimination have increased since the October assault on Israel by Hamas and claim the university is failing to implement anti-discrimination policies.
“We can not limit what someone says no matter how much I don’t like it,” said Schlacter. “The difference though, when Jewish students are assaulted on campus, why are they not being investigated as hate crimes? When teachers repeatedly use the classroom for political indoctrination why does the problem keep happening?”
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“This lawsuit describes a place that simply doesn’t exist. UC Berkeley has confronted the scourge of antisemitism for many years, it didn’t start in early October,” said university spokesperson, Dan Mogulof.
The university claims it has addressed personnel issues with the faculty. It also says there has only been one reported incident of violence. UC police are investigating that report and have not ruled out a possible hate crime.
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Mogulof explains in the last month it has increased resources for students and staff. At the same time, he said the university can’t prevent protests or demonstrations.
“We understand how disturbing it is,” he said. “So, we can’t prevent speech that is protected by the First Amendment but we are doing everything in our power to ameliorate the impact that speech is having on our Jewish students.”
