[rad-green] The scholar who wrote the IHRA definition o f anti-Semitism says it’s been subverted

*https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-scholar-who-wrote-the-definition-of-anti-semitism-says-its-been-subverted/
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-scholar-who-wrote-the-definition-of-anti-semitism-says-its-been-subverted/>*

*Times of Israel          **9 January 2020*





*The scholar who wrote the definition of anti-Semitism says it’s been
subvertedKenneth Stern claims the executive order on campus anti-Semitism
will do more to stifle pro-Palestinian speech than protect Jewish
studentsBy ERIC CORTELLESSA *
[image: Students protest at an anti-Israel demonstration at the University
of California, Irvine. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images/JTA)]
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2017/12/Campus-BDS-e1513652282879.jpg>
Students protest at an anti-Israel demonstration at the University of
California, Irvine. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images/JTA)

WASHINGTON — Kenneth Stern drafted the “working definition of
anti-Semitism” that US President Donald Trump used in an executive order to
target anti-Semitism on college campuses. He’s also one of the recent
order’s most vociferous critics.

“It’s not the definition that’s the problem,” Stern told The Times of
Israel. “It’s the abuse of it.”

Fifteen years ago, as an anti-Semitism expert at the American Jewish
Committee, Stern took the lead on formulating a definition that would help
disparate countries have a unified understanding of the world’s oldest form
of hatred. The purpose, he said, was to better track anti-Semitism and
anti-Semitic incidents worldwide.

“It’s really hard for people in different countries to know what to look
for without some certain guidelines and a definition,” he said. “There was
clearly a need to have some kind of roadmap.”

Now, Stern argues, the Trump administration is using that definition to
silence pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses.

“There was never any idea that this would be used as a de facto hate speech
code on campus,” he said. “You wanted to train police officials on it and
so forth. But to curtail speech on a campus, in particular, is something
that was never contemplated.”
<https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2020/01/Kenneth-Stern-Headshot-1-1-e1578277033128.jpg>
Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate (Emily
Stern)

Last month, Trump signed an executive order
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-anti-semitism/>
targeting
anti-Semitism by threatening to withhold federal dollars from institutions
of higher learning if they didn’t sufficiently combat anti-Jewish
discrimination.

It will use the working definition of anti-Semitism— adopted by the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) — as the measure for
what kind of behavior constitutes a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act’s Title VI, which protects against discrimination based on race, color
and national origin.

The move sharply divided the US Jewish community, with some corners
praising the measure as a necessary action to combat a rising tide of
anti-Semitism and others castigating it as a cynical attempt to suppress
speech critical of Israel.

The definition includes
<https://www.state.gov/defining-anti-semitism/> language
that details the following behavior as anti-Semitic: “holding Jews
collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel”; “denying the
Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the
existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”; “and drawing
comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Stern, who now directs the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, said that
right-leaning Jewish leaders had been pushing for the adoption of the
definition in educational settings for a decade.

“Since 2010, people on the Jewish right have been trying to take the
definition, marry it with the powers under Title VI and use it as a way to
try and suppress pro-Palestinian speech on campus,” he said. “As much as I
might agree with some of the criticisms of that speech, there’s a way you
deal with that on a campus: You think critically about it and push back.”

Stern warned against the bind it will put colleges and universities in when
students demonstrate in favor of the Palestinian cause, or critically of
Israel.

“The problem for me is not just how the definition is going to be used
under Title VI cases,” he said. “It’s more that it sets up a system in
which administrators have a reason to either condemn or try to suppress
pro-Palestinian speech because their job is to keep the university from
being sued under Title VI. That’s what I see as a major danger.”

It sets up a system in which administrators have a reason to either condemn
or try to suppress pro-Palestinian speech because their job is to keep the
university from being sued

Others disagree. The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the executive order as
an important step toward combating anti-Semitic incidents on campus.

“In a climate of rising anti-Semitism, this Executive Order provides
valuable guidance on anti-Semitism, giving law enforcement and campus
officials an important additional tool to help identify and fight this
pernicious hate,” said the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, in a statement.

But Stern thinks the order will do little for Jewish students.

“I don’t think it protects Jewish students from harassment,” he said. “A
lot of this comes to whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism or not. It’s
part of this internal debate in the Jewish community about who’s inside the
tent and who’s outside the tent. I don’t like government putting its thumb
on the scales inside of a debate inside the Jewish community.”

Ultimately, Stern argued that the biggest consequence of the order will be
more pressure on silencing certain students from speaking their minds.

“Do I think ultimately a student is going to get kicked out for saying
something anti-Zionist? No. Do I think it’s going to chill speech? Yeah,
and I think that’s the purpose,” said Stern.

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