Overview
- UC Berkeley will reimburse the Louis D. Brandeis Center $1 million for outside attorneys’ fees to resolve the 2023 suit.
- The settlement requires registered student organizations to remove bylaws that prohibit categories of speakers, with university guidance noting that bans on “Zionists” have been used as a pretext to exclude Jews and can violate campus rules.
- Berkeley will reference its practice of considering the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition when reviewing antisemitism complaints, including on its harassment and discrimination website.
- The university will strengthen Title VI access and compliance, prohibit discrimination and harassment under UC policy, expand antisemitism education and related training, and continue rejecting calls for boycotts and divestment from Israel.
- A dispute remains over speaker-selection latitude: Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky says groups may still choose speakers by viewpoint even as bylaws cannot state bans, while Brandeis Center lawyers say the deal bars discrimination against speakers based on Zionism.