Updated at 3:27 p.m. March 19
UC Berkeley will make changes to its nondiscrimination policy and pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the university allowed antisemitic harassment to go unchecked.
The settlement agreement was announced Thursday.
Cal will clarify that the word “Zionist” cannot be used as a “proxy” for Jew or Israeli, according to the settlement, and will “rigorously evaluate” discrimination claims for that purpose.
Bylaws adopted by law school student groups in 2022 that banned outside speakers who support Zionism must also be rescinded, according to the agreement. However, student groups may continue to restrict whom they invite to speak, according to the law school dean.
Unlike other allegations of antisemitic discrimination brought against universities in recent years, the claims central to this lawsuit predate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the Israel-Hamas war.
The primary claims originated with the adoption of the anti-Zionist bylaws, first reported by J., by a number of student affinity groups at Berkeley Law.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed the lawsuit in November 2023 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alongside a group called Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education. The law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher joined the suit last year on behalf of plaintiffs. The $1 million will cover outside attorneys fees and litigation costs, according to the Brandeis Center.
After the war began on Oct. 7 and pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism proliferated on campus, the plaintiffs amended the complaint to include additional incidents.
In a statement, the university said it welcomed the settlement agreement and noted that strides already had been made to address antisemitism.
“The settlement reflects UC Berkeley’s long-standing values and objectives when it comes to combatting abhorrent antisemitic expression, harassment, and discrimination when it occurs on the Berkeley campus,” according to a statement by Cal spokesperson Dan Mogulof.
Mogulof pointed to the recent release of the Anti-Defamation League’s 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card, which gave UC Berkeley a “B,” an improvement from previous years. According to the ADL, the “B” indicates that the university is doing “better than most” to combat antisemitism, due in part to Cal’s increased antisemitism education for new students and its clarification of rules governing campus protests.
Central to the lawsuit was the claim that, for many Jews, Zionism is a fundamental part of Jewish identity and that excluding individuals from campus events for supporting Zionism is discriminatory. It also alleged that after Oct. 7, 2023, the discrimination against Jews accelerated, in part linked to a weeks-long encampment protest at Sproul Plaza where students voiced support for “resistance” against Israel and flew a banner with symbols associated with Hamas.
The settlement, which “denies all liability and wrongdoing” on Cal’s part, requires that the anti-Zionist bylaws adopted by the law school student groups be withdrawn, and that going forward, the bylaws and constitutions of registered student organizations “may not include prohibitions on speakers.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law who has both acknowledged widespread antisemitism on campus and defended the free-speech rights of law students to ban Zionist speakers, sent a statement to the law school community about the settlement.
In it, Chemerinsky, who is Jewish and has described himself as a Zionist, stood by his view that banning Zionist speakers falls within students’ “First Amendment right to choose speakers based on their views.” He added that he personally opposes doing so. “I believe that these Bylaws are inconsistent with the Law School’s commitment to be a place where all ideas and views can be expressed,” Chemerinsky wrote.
Chemerinsky also noted the new rule specifying that groups cannot “state a policy” in their bylaws restricting who may speak at events. Student organizations can continue to have such policies, but cannot write them into the group bylaws.
The settlement also requires Cal to add language to its website about antidiscrimination rules.
On the question of whether discrimination against Zionists is “pretextual,” or falsely providing cover for antisemitism, the rules must state that the “use of tropes, slogans, or stereotypes that are understood to relate to Jews … do not cease to be ‘based on’ or ‘because of’ someone’s Jewish identity simply because the word ‘Zionist’ has replaced the word ‘Jew.’”
The website must also state that UC Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination will consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when investigating claims of discrimination or harassment against Jews and Israelis. The IHRA definition has become controversial, in part, because it suggests that some criticism of Israel, like comparing Israelis to Nazis, can be antisemitic depending on the context.
The settlement also requires UC Berkeley to communicate campuswide that discrimination against Jews and Israelis is not tolerated; to maintain and fund Cal’s Antisemitism Education Initiative; to conduct an annual survey that includes questions about the climate for Jews and Israelis; to prepare an annual written report on the university’s response to discrimination claims; and to commit to “training regarding prohibited discrimination based on Jewish and/or Israeli” identity.
Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus, an alumnus of UC Berkeley, said in a statement that the settlement is a “victory for Jewish American students and for all Americans who care about free speech and fairness.”
He added, “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.”