As a matter of law, that can\u2019t be right. With apologies to Walt Whitman, even violent bigots may contain multitudes<\/a>. Klansmen tormenting Black families, for example, may genuinely be motivated by economic anxieties or other feelings of inadequacy. But that doesn\u2019t mean their purpose isn\u2019t also to deprive Black families of their political and economic rights. For how else, in their view, can they address those anxieties other than to knock Black people down a peg or two?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here, if Torres and Wilson\u2019s allegations are true (and at this stage of litigation, courts must assume as much), then the rioters were motivated to take the actions they did\u2014occupying a building, issuing demands, and attacking perceived \u201cJew worker[s]\u201d and \u201cJew lover[s]\u201d who got in their way\u2014partly because they wanted to harass and intimidate Jews. To bar them from buildings. To impede their studies. To limit their participation in campus and civic life. And to exclude them from positions of power. After all, if the janitors were, as the rioters allegedly said, \u201cworking for the Jews,\u201d wouldn\u2019t it be necessary for the rioters to knock those all-powerful Jews down a peg or two?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s possible to imagine a less clear-cut case, one in which people accused of bias could reasonably contend that their brand of anti-Zionism didn\u2019t have any indicia of anti-Jewish animus. But that would have to be a case in which rioters didn\u2019t allegedly toggle between anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish slurs. It would have to be a case in which those who deployed the term intifada<\/em> and who sought to portray it as a benign reference to peaceful \u201cstruggle\u201d hadn\u2019t themselves used that term to describe their own violent, anti-Jewish riot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In such a hypothetical case, a court might reasonably struggle with deciding whether the riot was anti-Jewish. Then, depending on the law at issue, the court might have to consider whether an anti-Zionist riot, even if not anti-Jewish, might still amount to discrimination based on national origin. (Israel is a country, and Columbia has Israeli students, staff, and faculty who enjoy the same rights as non-Israelis.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But that was not this case. Given the facts alleged by Torres and Wilson, it is baffling that the court failed to recognize the riot\u2019s anti-Jewish nature and purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The court\u2019s view\u2014that the rioters merely wanted to seize a building and use the unfurled banner to effect transformative changes to Columbia\u2019s policies\u2014seemed to confuse tactical and strategic intent. True, the rioters allegedly deployed the tactic of taking over a building. But that doesn\u2019t mean they did not have broader, anti-Jewish strategic aims. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand what racism is and how it works. Racism does not cease to exist just because racists typically have a set of policy demands.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The second error was no less glaring and galling. In assessing the rioters\u2019 alleged objectives, the court seemed to say that the evidence cited by Torres and Wilson could not possibly establish discrimination if it took the form of what the court called \u201cpolitical speech.\u201d This included unfurling \u201cintifada\u201d banners and slurring Torres and Wilson as \u201cJew lover[s]\u201d and \u201cZionists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But political speech can, of course, be racist. The phrases \u201cAmerica first\u201d and \u201cSpend your money with Americans only,\u201d for example, are undoubtedly examples of political speech. And shouting those phrases, without more, is undoubtedly free expression protected by the First Amendment. But both phrases happen to have been popularized by the Klan. So if someone shouts them while committing a violent crime, that speech\u2014though \u201cpolitical\u201d\u2014not only fails to excuse the crime but also may demonstrate that the crime was extraordinary, precisely because it was motivated by anti-Black racism.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Judge Colleen McMahon whiffed on this crucial point. Shouting about \u201cintifada\u201d or \u201cZionists\u201d or \u201cJew lovers\u201d while committing crimes doesn\u2019t\u2014or, at least, shouldn\u2019t\u2014save Torres and Wilson\u2019s alleged tormentors.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Third, the court remarked that \u201cthe Jewish community itself is divided over whether anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic.\u201d Seemingly relying on that intramural dispute, the court declined to acknowledge that anti-Zionist rhetoric can<\/em> be racist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n By inserting the modifier inherently<\/em>, Judge McMahon gave away the ghost. What does it matter if some Jews think anti-Zionism is not inherently<\/em> anti-Jewish? Characterizing someone as \u201ca Jew\u201d isn\u2019t inherently bigoted either. As Adam Sandler has demonstrated<\/a>, it might be downright celebratory. Yet it also, depending on the setting, can be racist. If someone menaces a woman on the subway, attacking her while calling her \u201ca Jew\u201d (or \u201cJew lover\u201d), courts would certainly view such an utterance as evidence of anti-Jewish animus.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It is therefore stunning to see this court hold that the term Zionist<\/em>\u2014even when used as a slur\u2014can\u2019t<\/em>, as a matter of law, ever be antisemitic or racist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n We struggle to believe that any court would apply similar standards to other groups and other code words or symbols. Some Black people are reportedly<\/a> comfortable<\/a> with the Confederate<\/a> flag<\/a>. But we would hope that no judge would use those reports as evidence that all<\/em> Black people are estopped from alleging racism if someone takes over a building and raises the Confederate flag from its balcony.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The truth is that no minority group is monolithic. But diversity within a racial, ethnic, or religious group can\u2019t be a reason to weaken civil rights protections for that group. Does anyone seriously think that if college campuses were to experience a wave of anti-Kwanzaa violence, the application of civil rights laws to that violence should hinge on polling Black people about their pro- or anti-Kwanzaa views? Again, we hope no court would think that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Courts should not invent a different approach for Jews. Many Jews, including those experiencing the lion\u2019s share of harassment and violence on college campuses and across the United States, feel that a connection to the ancient and present Jewish homeland (aka Zionism) is constitutive of their religious, ethnic, or national identities. Anti-Zionist Jews aren\u2019t required to feel the same way. But neither are they empowered to deprive other Jews of the protections of this country\u2019s civil rights laws.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n And if that deeply felt connection between many Jews and Israel wasn\u2019t enough to defeat an emerging anti-Zionism exception in civil rights law, the alleged facts of this case would be. The ease of fluency with which the rioters toggled among calling the janitors \u201cJew lover,\u201d \u201cJew worker,\u201d men who were \u201cworking for the Jews,\u201d and \u201cZionist\u201d should have sufficed in this case to bring Torres and Wilson within the protection of the KKK Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fourth\u2014yes, there\u2019s more\u2014the court seemed to think it mattered that Torres and Wilson were neither Jewish nor trying to defend Jews. Whether they\u2019re incorporated into Sandler\u2019s \u201cChanukah Song\u201d <\/em>lyrics is completely irrelevant. The KKK Act nowhere requires proof that plaintiffs are themselves members of the disfavored group. They need only be victims\u2014collateral damage, if you will\u2014of those who sought to target that group.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n And for good reason. If white, Christian neighbors refuse to allow the Klan to run across their yard to reach a Black or Jewish family\u2019s home\u2014and are assaulted for their troubles\u2014they are, justly, afforded a civil rights remedy. No one probes the victims\u2019 motives, which could range from racial solidarity to human decency to the preservation of a newly sodded lawn. Otherwise, campaigns of racial or religious subordination could be advanced solely through the systematic targeting of third parties, leaving vulnerable minorities even more isolated and defenseless.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n We assign no malice to the district court. But we genuinely wonder why Judge McMahon bought into a set of deeply problematic assumptions about the forms that anti-Jewish bias can take. If allowed to stand, her ruling will not only wrong Torres and Wilson, whom the court recognizes were treated \u201cdespicabl[y],\u201d but also signal to other non-Jews\u2014laborers, cops, and university presidents<\/a> alike\u2014that they, too, are at the mercy of the mob. Just as dangerously, the ruling could embolden more anti-Jewish agitators, effectively furnishing them with a virtual blueprint to harass without violating the KKK Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Our wonderment is heightened because, so far as we can tell, Judge McMahon\u2019s ruling wasn\u2019t generically hostile to civil rights plaintiffs of all kinds and creeds. It was distressingly bespoke, limiting the rights of people who are Jewish or Jewish adjacent. While we would hate to see an across-the-board retrenchment of civil rights, we can\u2019t help but feel the sting that comes when one group, and one group alone at a moment of special<\/a> peril<\/a>, is denied the equal protection of the law.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Traditionally, this nation has made good on its constitutional promises by broadly construing civil rights protections, thereby bringing more groups into the fold. With some notable exceptions, this has been especially true of civil rights protections codified by statute. Even the current U.S. Supreme Court, with its conservative bent, recently read<\/a> a civil rights law enacted in the 1960s expansively to protect transgender persons. Now, at a time when Jews are increasingly targeted for hate and violence, often under the troublingly talismanic anti-Zionist banner, Jews and their allies are being denied protection under existing civil rights laws by the very courts charged with applying them. The divergence of two sets of antidiscrimination norms\u2014a broadening set of antidiscrimination protections for many groups and a narrowing one for Jews and their allies\u2014is unmistakable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n We therefore hope that Torres and Wilson will appeal their case and that the court of appeals will recognize the district court\u2019s missteps and make things right. To deter and punish anti-Jewish violence, our legal system must be capable of diagnosing it.<\/span><\/p>\n Jon Michaels<\/strong> is Professor of Law at UCLA Law School. The views expressed here are solely his personal views and do not reflect those of any employer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Matthew Segal<\/strong> is Professor of the Practice in the Department of Political Science at Tufts University. The views expressed here are solely his personal views and do not reflect those of any employer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em> It\u2019s Not Biased if It\u2019s Against Jews Jon Michaels and Matthew Segal Civil rights law has always recognized coded discrimination, but a federal court decision suggests that may no longer apply to Jews\u2014or their allies A rioter breaks the front door windows of Hamilton Hall on the Columbia University campus in order to secure a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131438"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131458,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131438\/revisions\/131458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>It\u2019s Not Biased if It\u2019s Against Jews<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\nJon Michaels and Matthew Segal<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n To paraphrase Law & Order<\/em>, in the American legal system, bias-motivated offenses are considered especially reprehensible. Punching someone is bad. Punching them for racist reasons is worse. So various laws, both criminal<\/a> and civil<\/a>, prescribe enhanced penalties in those situations. Sometimes the racism is unmistakable. At other times, it\u2019s hidden behind code words or dog whistles\u2014thugs<\/em><\/a>, urban<\/em><\/a>, globalists<\/em><\/a>, etc.\u2014or seemingly neutral markers like hair<\/a> and dress<\/a>. No matter; courts, prosecutors, and legislators have become quite adept<\/a> at sniffing out crafty bigotry.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Yet the invocation of Zionism has, inexplicably, thrown them all for a loop. In the United States and across the globe, participants in purportedly anti-Zionist movements are committing crimes and civil offenses. Sometimes they harm Jews. Sometimes they harm non-Jews. But, in all cases, the people who commit these crimes\u2014as well as their legions of defenders\u2014argue that there is no bias. Any animus, they insist, is not antisemitic or anti-Jewish. It is anti-Zionist<\/em>. Some of their best friends, these assailants are quick to add, are Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n As much as these claims have been dissected, debated and, regularly, debunked in a variety of settings, the courts are just beginning to weigh in. Will they treat the targeting of alleged \u201cZionists\u201d as purely political\u2014and thus not evidence of racial or religious bias? Or will they see it as integral to the racial and\/or religious identity of American Jews?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Earlier this month, a federal district court judge in New York gave us a sneak peek at how the U.S. legal system might resolve what many see as yet another ham-fisted effort to work around long-standing civil rights laws. The results weren\u2019t pretty. The court adopted a number of conclusions that, if accepted by other courts, would substantially weaken the civil rights of those harmed by anti-Zionist campaigns of harassment and violence. That\u2019s bad news for Jews, their allies, and anyone else who happened to get in the anti-Zionists\u2019 way.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n If allowed to stand, the ruling could embolden more anti-Jewish agitators, effectively furnishing them with a virtual blueprint to harass without violating the KKK Act.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Mariano Torres and Lester Wilson, the men at the center of the New York case, got in the way. Neither Torres nor Wilson is Jewish. They are janitors employed by Columbia University. And like so many trying to go about their studies or jobs in Morningside Heights or around the country since Oct. 7, 2023, Torres and Wilson found their efforts impeded\u2014and their lives imperiled\u2014by those obsessed with Jews and Israel, the Jewish state.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n On April 30, 2024, this obsession turned riotous. Masked militants, armed with hammers, knives, bolt cutters, chains, and zip ties, stormed Hamilton Hall and confronted the two working men. Torres and Wilson each refused to yield, which drew the ire of the rioters who then assaulted the janitors, detained them, sought to bribe them, and slurred them as \u201cJew lovers,\u201d \u201cJew workers,\u201d and \u201cZionists.\u201d Eventually, according to their lawsuit, Torres fled, and Wilson was forced out of the building. The rioters, meanwhile, kept going. They seized the building, broke windows to chain the doors shut, barricaded themselves inside, and unfurled banners declaring an \u201cintifada.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Torres and Wilson later filed a civil rights lawsuit. With the help of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Torridon Law firm, the pair relied on the Civil Rights Act of 1871<\/a>, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, to argue that they were victimized by an anti-Jewish riot. A provision<\/a> of that law prohibits people from conspiring to deprive \u201cany person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws.\u201d To satisfy that equal protection component, plaintiffs must generally show<\/a> that the conspiracy was motivated by \u201csome racial or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nCivil rights law has always recognized coded discrimination, but a federal court decision suggests that may no longer apply to Jews\u2014or their allies<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
![](\"https:\/\/tablet-mag-images.b-cdn.net\/production\/6abf7cf37f55f29837a0f1cf7ca0bd2ebfad7b50-2500x1667.jpg?w=1300&q=70&auto=format&dpr=1\")
A rioter breaks the front door windows of Hamilton Hall on the Columbia University campus in order to secure a chain around the building to prevent authorities from entering, April 30, 2024 in New York City \/ Alex Kent\/Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n