Legal scholars warn of 'anti-Zionist exception' to civil rights law
Courts risk creating an “anti-Zionist exception” that leaves Jews and allies with fewer civil rights protections than other groups, according to a forthcoming Cardozo Law Review essay.Jon Michaels, a University of California, Los Angeles law professor, and Matthew Segal, a Tufts University professor affiliated with Yale Law School’s Brodie Center for Jewish and Israeli Law, penned the essay, which JNS viewed. Titled “Misdiagnosing Anti-Jewish Animus: How the judiciary’s approach to anti-Zionism risks distorting the First Amendment, excusing antisemitism and imperiling all civil rights,” it is slated to be published in 2027.The authors use Torres v. Carlson, a lawsuit brought by Columbia University janitors Mariano Torres and Lester Wilson, neither of whom is Jewish, to explain the emerging exception. The janitors alleged that masked anti-Israel rioters, who were armed with hammers, knives, chains and other weapons, assaulted and detained them during an April 2024 anti-Israel takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia…
A forthcoming essay in the "Cardozo Law Review" by UCLA law professor Jon Michaels and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal warns of an emerging "anti-Zionist exception" in civil rights law. They argue that courts risk leaving Jewish plaintiffs and their allies with fewer protections than other groups. The essay, titled "Misdiagnosing Anti-Jewish Animus," uses the case of Torres v. Carlson, where a federal judge dismissed claims by Columbia University janitors who alleged assault and anti-Jewish slurs during an anti-Israel protest, reasoning that anti-Zionism could not establish anti-Jewish discrimination. Michaels stated the essay is a "reckoning with what Jewish plaintiffs, and plaintiffs who are coded as Jewish allies, are confronting." The authors contend that this approach allows "behaviors styled as 'anti-Zionist'" to be "deemed inherently not discriminatory," effectively excusing antisemitism and imperiling civil rights.
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