The First Circuit Is Wrong: Antizionism Is Discrimination Against Jews

On October 21, the First Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the Title VI claims brought by Jewish students against MIT. Last week, a federal district court in Massachusetts relied on the same reasoning to dismiss a discrimination suit against Harvard.

Both rulings leaned heavily on a now-familiar and deeply flawed refrain: antizionism is not discrimination. This conclusion rests on three mistaken assumptions:

I am a professor of civil rights and constitutional law. I have taught and studied antidiscrimination law for over a decade, and I have spent my entire life learning about how Jew-hatred manifests and evolves. Here is what I know: the First Circuit is wrong. Antizionism is anti-Jewish discrimination.

The claim that antizionism cannot constitute unlawful discrimination because it is “political” is legally indefensible. Politics and discrimination have always been intertwined.

Discrimination against women? Political.
Anti-Black racism? Political.
Antisemitism? Political.

The idea that political motivations immunize discriminatory conduct is a radical departure from how antidiscrimination law has functioned for decades.

Misogyny, for example, has always been saturated with political beliefs: that women are inferior, unfit to vote, incapable of professional authority, or meant to........

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