|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/barring-the-door-to-zionists-means-barring-the-door-to-jews/
Barring the Door to Zionists Means Barring the Door to Jews
(JNS) Lori Lowenthal Marcus and Jerome M. Marcus - The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has officially recognized that differential treatment of people because they adhere to the Jewish commitment to Zionism violates the Jews' civil rights and constitutes illegal antisemitism. As explained in the complaint to which OCR has now responded, opposition to Zionism means "the denial of Jews their inalienable and collective right to self-determination, as expressed in the connection to their ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel." Self-determination by any people can only be exercised in a physical place - a place where that people has the right to determine its own fate. Anti-Zionism is thus at its heart an insistence on perpetual Jewish weakness, on Jews' eternal dependence on the kindness and indulgence of non-Jewish majorities. The offices for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at U.S. colleges and universities are charged with ensuring that these educational institutions do not discriminate against minority populations in their midst. That means they must internalize and act upon the central insight now adopted by the federal government: that "a hostile environment" is created for students and teachers "based on their shared Jewish ancestry" when university-recognized student organizations discriminate against people who support Zionism and the State of Israel. Lori Lowenthal Marcus is Legal Director for The Deborah Project (TDP) and Jerome M. Marcus is President of TDP.