UC President Janet Napolitano wants UC to regard some anti-Israel views as anti-Semitic

On the final day of a meeting in San Francisco among the University of California’s Board of Regents, UC President Janet Napolitano said in a ” target=”_blank”>pushing the issue of defining anti-Semitism with state legislators in Sacramento, diplomats in the U.S. State Department, and regents at the University of California 

The California State Senate appears poised to pass SCR-35, a nonbinding bill that would urge each UC campus to adopt formal resolutions condemning anti-Semitism. And the left-wing group Jewish Voice for Peace sent a letter on May 18, signed by 250 academics, to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking the State Department to remove from its definition of anti-Semitism any reference to Israel. JVP also worked with California state legislators to soften the language in SCR-35.

Also this week, the AMCHA Initiative, a pro-Israel campus watchdog, sent two letters to Napolitano—signed by nearly 700 UC alumni, UC faculty, and rabbis—urging the University of California to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, a move JVP would no doubt oppose. AMCHA's cofounder, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, addressed the regents Wednesday and urged them to adopt the definition, dismissing the idea that it would suppress free speech.

“it is simply a tool for identification,” Rossman-Benjamin said.”Anti-Semitic rhetoric is not against the law, but it is bigotry, and it should be identified and called out.” The University of California is not allowed to restrict or punish speech protected by the First Amendment.

According to ” target=”_blank”>New York Times and