A US Jewish advocacy group has taken a new legal approach to combating campus antisemitism, deploying a law used for workplace discrimination in a lawsuit filed last week against a California university.

“A lot of times, these statutes remain dormant and hidden in plain sight. And then someone is like, ‘Why? You know, I think actually it applies to this situation,'” said Matthew Mainen, a lawyer with the National Jewish Advocacy Center who is representing the plaintiffs.

The case is a class-action lawsuit filed by two Jewish students against Chapman University in Orange, California, near Los Angeles. The suit alleges discrimination against Jewish students, abetted by the campus administration.

The university said it was reviewing the lawsuit and stressed its commitment to supporting Jewish students.

One of the plaintiffs, Eli Schechter, was the president of a pro-Israel group on campus. The other plaintiff, Talya Malka, is an Israeli-American. Both graduated last year and the lawsuit focuses on alleged anti-Jewish discrimination after the October 2023 invasion of Israel.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, said that, after the Hamas attack, Jewish students set up a memorial to the victims. Activists from the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine targeted the memorial by stealing its flags, putting a Palestinian flag above the exhibit, and posting the vandalism on social media.

Days later, an anti-Israel student yelled “Fuck Jews” at Jewish students mourning the October 7 victims and sent antisemitic death threats to Schechter, the lawsuit said.

The university allowed anti-Israel flyers to be posted around the memorial. Pro-Palestinian students continued stealing Israeli flags from the memorial and ripping down posters of the Israeli hostages, defacing pro-Israel signs, and posting the footage of some of the vandalism online.

The lawsuit said the university did not discipline the anti-Israel students, told the pro-Israel activists a flag in support of the IDF was “upsetting Palestinian students,” and argued that it should be removed. This was on October 18, 2023, before Israel started its counter-offensive in Gaza. The Jewish students removed the IDF flag.

As tensions escalated between the pro- and anti-Israel groups, some pro-Israel students applied to attend a Students for Justice in Palestine event to “learn more about their perspective.” Students with Jewish-sounding last names were denied entry to the meeting, while another pro-Israel student, who was not Jewish, was allowed in.

The dean of students........

© The Times of Israel