California Regents Reject Broad Condemnation of Anti-Zionism as Discrimination

University of California regents on Wednesday declined to adopt a blanket condemnation of anti-Zionism as a form of discrimination, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the Associated Press, a committee of the regents instead passed a resolution that condemns “anti-Semitic forms” of anti-Zionism. The resolution now heads to the full board for consideration.

The proposed resolution kicked up a controversy nationwide among critics who said such a condemnation would come at the expense of activists’ free-speech rights.

Anyone who claims to care about free speech on campus should be alarmed by this anti-anti-Zionism proposal https://t.co/KKtPsOpBB8

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) March 16, 2016

Pro-Israel groups in California figure out how to use p.c. logic for their cause https://t.co/6jMvVxLOqk

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) March 16, 2016

The university system’s Academic Council weighed in against the proposal, saying it could prompt “needless and expensive litigation, embarrassing to the university, to sort out the difference between intolerance on the one hand, and protected debate and study of Zionism and its alternatives on the other.”

Last September an attempt by the board to condemn intolerance was panned by critics for not acknowledging the harassment of Jewish students on the system’s campuses. Free-speech advocates also opposed that statement for what they said would be a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas.