Group Appeals University of California Ruling; Says ‘Discriminatory Double Standard’ Against Jewish Students is Anti-Semitic

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Jewish student rights group AMCHA Initiative on Friday said it had appealed a federal decision that ended three Title VI suits against the University of California’s Berkeley, Irvine and Santa Cruz schools.

AMCHA co-founder Tammi Rossman-Benjamin was involved in the UC-Santa Cruz case and the appeal was filed in her name on Thursday.

In the 41-page appeal addressed to The Board of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in reference to the August 19, 2013 decision, and seen by The Algemeiner, Rossman-Benjamin accused them of ignoring “the hostile and discriminatory environment that many Jewish students face at UCSC.”

“Your office may no longer be willing to protect Jewish students from a hostile and antisemitic campus environment,” in favor of “the demands of Muslim and pro-Palestinian student groups and the legal, civil rights, and advocacy groups that support them,” she wrote.

She asked the board to weigh its “willingness to invoke federal law so forcefully and immediately to protect African American students at UC San Diego from a hostile environment with racial harassment allegations” with its “unwillingness to consider the longstanding, pervasive and well-documented harassment of Jewish students at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Cruz.”

She described the contrast as “a discriminatory double standard against Jewish students that is antisemitic in effect if not in intent,” and demanded that the AMCHA Initiative claim be reopened for appeal.

Group Appeals University of California Ruling; Says ‘Discriminatory Double Standard’ Against Jewish Students is Anti-Semitic

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