SFSU Jewish discrimination case gets Nov. 8 hearing

On November 8, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California will hear a case brought by several students at San Francisco State University, represented by The Lawfare Project and the global law firm of Winston & Strawn LLP, alleging that they have been the victims of systematic discrimination and intimidation on campus for being proudly and publicly Jewish.

The lawsuit comes at a time when anti-Semitic acts are on the rise across college campuses, with incidents more than doubling from 2014 to 2016, according to the Anti-Defamation League. In the midst of this alarming increase, the public is engaged in a debate on how to protect free speech while preventing discrimination and hate on university campuses.

SFSU President Robert Corrigan acknowledged the problem of anti-Semitism on campus in 1997, when he admitted that the school was “the most anti-Semitic campus in the nation.” The campus climate has only deteriorated for Jewish students and community members since then. This has also been well documented in several news reports: The Washington Post on June 6, 2017 and the Los Angeles Times on June 19, 2017, among others.

Ahead of the November 8 hearing, we are happy to offer legal experts or Jewish students at SFSU who have experienced harassment on campus for panel discussions or interviews on the case and its implications for the debate on free speech happening across America.