Toolkit: Demand “NO IHRA”

CAIR lawsuit challenging Texas executive order on IHRA
Approaches: viewpoint discrimination, singling out Israel for protection, criminalizing normal activity, selective enforcement, universities as protected sites of public expression

• The IHRA definition, once adopted, would transform normal and typical criticism of a foreign country into antisemitism when the foreign country criticized is Israel
• [The Governor’s executive order illegally] aimed to extinguish from public campuses a viewpoint critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinians.
• [Enforcement] revealed a boundless resolve to suppress students and others from expressing common and typical criticisms of one particular foreign country—Israel.
• [The Governor] has been repeatedly willing to press his own viewpoints and abandon even the pretense of following the First Amendment… using the machinery of his government [including overwhelming police force against peaceful protestors] to insulate a foreign country from the criticism students and others… are leveling against Israel.
• [Viewpoint discrimination has been clear as] other student groups [often Christian groups] have gathered in tents [for long periods of time without being policed.]
• Texas law allows members of the public—whether students or not—to gather on public campuses for expressive purposes even without that school’s preapproval.
• [The IHRA definition] labels as bigoted claims that the “State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” even though Israeli political leaders themselves often acknowledge that the country is operating an apartheid system that locks Palestinians into an inferior status
• [The IHRA definition] labels as bigoted any comparisons between Israel’s current policies and those of Germany during World War II, even though an entire academic field—comparative genocide studies—seeks to identify differences and similarities between genocides. The definition thus creates an obvious content-based distinction that restricts students from making certain historical comparisons to the genocide in Gaza today but would allow those same comparisons with countries other than Israel. It does so despite comparisons to Nazi Germany being a hallmark of American
• political discourse—used to pillory Obamacare, climate and immigration policy, our prisons, most foreign leaders, court decisions about reproductive rights, and even campus protests such those organized by Plaintiffs.
• [The IHRA definition] labels as bigoted criticism levied against Israel that is not also made against other countries. Thus… criticism of Israel for indiscriminately bombing Gaza runs afoul of the definition if it is not accompanied by, for example, criticism of indiscriminate bombing elsewhere.

Palestine Legal/CAIR lawsuit challenging Univ. of Maryland
Approaches: content-based discrimination, universities as sites of public expression, international events & civil rights as normal subjects of campus expression
(Note: this lawsuit addressed some of the restrictions on speech that the IHRA definition demands, but focused on a protest ban rather than the IHRA definition.)

• Throughout American history, students have participated in and benefited from the marketplace of ideas on college campuses, particularly with respect to pressing and divisive social and political issues. The student-led Free Speech Movement, which arose on college campuses during the Civil Rights Movement, drew nationwide attention and expanded alongside the movements to demand gender equality and to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
• Particularly since World War II, the central role played by the U.S. government and American institutions on the world stage has led U.S-based student movements to regularly weigh in on matters of international concern.
• [UMD’s] Statement on Free Speech Values states clearly that “it must promote an environment in which any and all ideas are presented”, giving students “the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.”

San Diego State University Senate resolution
Approaches: anti-Palestinian racism, harassment, academic freedom, free speech

• [C]ollege campuses are currently experiencing high levels of anti-Palestinian racism, which specifically seek to silence, erase, dehumanize, and defame Palestinians and their allies who publicly advocate for Palestinian human rights; and which specifically slanders Palestinians and their allies as being inherently antisemitic, a terrorist threat/sympathizer or opposed to democratic values
• [S]tudents, staff, and faculty nationwide and globally are experiencing dangerous levels of harassment and suppression of their right to free speech as shown by the fact that a coalition of more than 500 organizations and law offices have issued an Open Letter calling for support of SWANA and Muslim people, given the overwhelming amount of requests they are receiving from people facing racist attacks due to their advocacy for Palestine and/or their perceived relationship to Palestine
• University Senate endorses the protection of academic freedom and therefore rejects the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been widely condemned for conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, including by one of the original drafters Kenneth Stern, who has gone on record about the potential of such a conflation to threaten academic freedom.

Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs:
Approaches: manipulative wording, shields Israel from accountability, UN guidance, Indigenous rights

• The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.
• This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law (Jewish Voice for Peace)
• Adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is in direct contravention of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN Declaration). Articles 2, 3, 4, 26, and 33 of the UN Declaration in particular uphold Indigenous peoples rights’ to self-determination and self-governance, freedom from discrimination, and rights to lands, territories, and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied, used or acquired and determine that states shall establish and implement, in conjunction with Indigenous peoples, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process to recognize and adjudicate the rights of indigenous peoples pertaining to their lands, territories and resources, including those which were traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used.

Canadian Association of University Teachers
Approaches: history of abuse, academic freedom, impact on academic funding, outside political influence

• [T]he IHRA WDA [working definition of antisemitism] poses a significant threat to academic freedom at Canadian universities and colleges and has already been used on a number of occasions to censor and impede the academic freedom of teachers and researchers who have developed anti-racist and decolonial perspectives on the policies and practices of the state of Israel, and
• [G]overnment adoptions of IHRAWDA can impact federal and provincial academic grants, scholarships and funding for projects that are seen to conflict with the IHRAWDA mandate to shield the state of Israel from criticism and charges of racism and colonialism
• CAUT opposes the adoption of IHRAWDA at Canadian universities and colleges. CAUT supports the academic freedom of its members and recognizes the need to safeguard the rights of scholars to develop critical perspectives on all states, including the state of Israel, without fear of outside political influence, cuts to funding, censorship, harassment, threats, and intimidation.

Canadian Anthropology Society
Approaches: opposition to racism and other forms of discrimination

• That the Canadian Anthropology Society, whose discipline and whose membership are strongly opposed to all forms of discrimination based on “race,” nationality, class and gender, opposes the endorsement or implementation, in their present form, by governments, public bodies and academic associations in Canada, of eleven guidelines concerning antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association. We recognize that the guidelines can, have and will be interpreted so as to equate the defence of Palestinian rights with antisemitism.

Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université
Approaches: unfair burden to prove non-antisemitism, academic freedom

• By placing the onus on people critical of Israel to prove that they are not anti-Semitic, [the IHRA] definition seriously undermines freedom of expression and academic freedom.

Human rights organizations [in Israel] urge UN not to promote IHRA definition of antisemitism
Approaches: coercive tactic, undermines fight against antisemitism

• The Israeli government views and treats the IHRA definition as a coercive tactic and tool to silence dissent to its repressive policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. It does so to delegitimize and discourage peaceful opposition to its entrenching occupation and annexation of Palestine.
• [T]he negative impact of the IHRA definition extends beyond human rights work in relation to Israel and Palestine. It also undermines the fight against antisemitism, by devaluating the meaning of antisemitism and by distracting from the real and imminent threats to the safety and well-being of Jews throughout the world.

Association for Jewish Studies
Approaches: no single definition is useful, no single institution speaks for Jews

• Definitions and their limits: A single definition of antisemitism, as with that of any complicated and multi-layered phenomenon, will always be advisory at best. Universities should remain open to the various ways the term has been defined and should not adopt any single definition as the basis for campus speech codes or processes of adjudication.
• We recommend that universities familiarize themselves with these tools [IHRA, Jerusalem, and Nexus definitions of antisemitism], but resist campaigns pressuring them to codify one particular definition.
• In the United States, no single group or institution speaks on behalf of all Jews on any issue, including antisemitism. …[A] university or department should refrain from issuing statements that even by implication purport to speak for “the Jewish community” or Jews as a collective.

Jewish Faculty Against IHRA
Covers: history of intimidation, Jewish orgs critique of IHRA

• On campuses where this definition has been adopted it has been used to intimidate and silence the work of unions, student groups, academic departments and faculty associations that are committed to freedom, equality and justice for Palestinians. A range of international Jewish institutions have recognized this problem