UC Berkeley, Pomona College settles with Jewish groups for alleged anti-semitism
Two of California’s most prominent institutions of higher education said on Wednesday that they have reached agreements with Jews or people who have filed complaints about antisemitism from 2023 and 2024.
UC Berkeley said it agreed to pay an Israeli sociologist and the Dance Council $60,000 for an incident in the fall of 2023 in which the teacher said he was not sent to teach a course despite the success of the class.
Jael Nativ, who was a visiting professor in 2022, sued in the State Court, saying he was rejected because of his Israeli citizenship. Meanwhile, protests against Israel’s war on Gaza were growing on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel.
Last year, a systematic campus investigation found that he faced discrimination. Nativ filed suit after it asked the university to follow up on the results of the reposting investigation and take action to prevent similar incidents in the future. He stated that he did not receive an adequate response.
The University on Wednesday also issued an apology to Nativ and said he was invited to teach the same class “at his discretion.”
“I respect and appreciate Dr. Nativ’s decision to settle this case,” Chancellor Rich Lons said in a statement. “You owe him an apology that I will offer on our behalf. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to Berkeley to teach again.”
Settlement of Pomoma College
At Pomona College, the campus was placed on non-Federal restitution over the Department of Education’s alleged civil rights violations in response to Pro-Palestine demonstrations. During one violent protest in 2024, demonstrators occupied the administrative office, which led to arrests. The College later moved its start to Los Angeles due to setting up camps in the campus section where it was good.
Some Jewish students said the protests had created a “hostile environment” for them and accused college leaders of not responding fully to their complaints or enforcing campus free speech and misconduct rules.
The College said it will hire the title of VI CIVICE ROORDIANCER, create a “Task Fork, Committee or Education Advocate, and make revisions to protest, Masking and ID policies. Table VI is part of the law of human rights that excludes discrimination based on race, color and national origin.
In addition, Pomona said it will look to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of Antisemitism when determining whether conduct is antisemitic. This definition is controversial among some groups, including minority Jewish groups, who say it casts too wide a net in defining anti-Semitic actions and words. The college will update its pages on misconduct to say that the word Zionist “is often used as a codeword for ‘Jews,’ and according to factual intentions.”
Both settlements involve the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights under the law, who represented the Israeli professor and filed a complaint last year with the Department of Education about Pomona College. In the Pomona case, Hillel – the Jewish Student Life Organization – and the anti-defamation league were also part of the complaint.
While the Department of Education’s office for civil rights was involved in mediation, Pomona’s secret location was a private agreement between the parties.
Pomona College President Gabi Starr said in a statement that the site “is because the college takes seriously its responsibility against discrimination and supports the position we can take to strengthen the environment of acceptance and support for our students.”
Starr said that throughout negotiations over the past few months, the College has emphasized that any agreement must protect free speech (including peaceful research; “
In a statement, Brandeis Center chairman Ken Marcus said that “the actions described in this lawsuit will confront Pomona students, and we hope it will encourage others to take legal action against those who violate our constitutional rights.”
Marcus was the head of early rights development at the Department of Education during President Trump’s First Presidency and worked with the George W. Bush Administration.
Under Federal scrutiny
The campuses of Berkeley and Pomona have been terminated by the Trump White House for their handling of their protests in Pro-Palestine, considering that the campuses have included the suspension of investigations, suspensions and legal actions against the higher Harvard and UCLA.
The Trump administration in July suspended $584 million in UCLA medical, medical, scientific and energy grants after it said it found the campus would violate pro-Palestinian Jewish student protests. It then calls for a $12 billion overhaul of campus policies.
A federal judge has upheld almost all of the suspension of the response to UC’s merits lawsuit. The same judge blocked UCLA’s stay proposal and said he believed it might be illegal.
UC is not signing the agreement with Trump and has said it will not be able to pay the fine. At the same time, it has shown that it is open to discussions with the government on the rights related to social rights on campus.
