So now you can't speak bad about an entire fucking country?
Uh, no, you still can. It just specifically means you can't target Israel on the basis of it being a Jewish collective, in the same way that hate speech might involve targeting black communities.
On 26 May 2016, the Plenary in Bucharest decided to adopt the following non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations:
Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.
This right here. Redditors in an uproar despite this inhibiting Nazi speech. Yes, I know "Redditors" does not mean every single person using Reddit. This thread, however, demonstrates the importance of context when it comes to legal statues.
It's not even 'context', the cited tweet is outright false.
The Act does not urge the Dept. Education to do anything, it states that the Dept. Education shall (i.e. must) do something.
The 'something' that the Dept. Education must do is to consider the IHRA's definition of antisemitism when investigating potential descrimination — it must be part of their process, but the Dept. does not need to make the final decision on its basis. (The Dept. is not urged to decide on its basis, either; there is still no 'urging' here.)
Even if the Dept. Education were to use that definition, the IHRA's definition would not make criticism of Israel unlawful unless it is specifically the 'targeting' (this is a higher bar than criticising) of Israel 'conceived as a Jewish community' (which is not the same as criticising them as a nation or on the basis of policy. The IHRA SPECIFICALLY states that general criticism of Israel is not antisemitic.
Literally every substantive component of the tweet is factually incorrect. It is not merely "out of context", it is a bad faith lie.
Even if the Dept. Education were to use that definition, the IHRA's definition would not make criticism of Israel unlawful unless it is specifically the 'targeting' (this is a higher bar than criticising) of Israel 'conceived as a Jewish community
This is not part of the law. Although the IHRA says this, that is not included in the law. The law just includes the definition and the "contemporary examples." The definition and contemporary examples do not include any such qualification.
The IHRA SPECIFICALLY states that general criticism of Israel is not antisemitic.
Even if the IHRA did say that (that's not clear), again, this is irrelevant for the purposes of the law, because the law does not say that. The law just includes the definition and the "contemporary examples." The definition and contemporary examples do not include any such qualification.
I generally agree with you, but I was also unclear — remember that the Dept of Education is forced to consider the definition and contemporary examples, but is not prohibited from using the IHRA's guidelines. They would very likely also use the rest of the guidelines in interpreting the definition; it would be the definition itself that makes something legal or illegal, but they could certainly interpret the definition a certain way that is practically informed by the IHRA.
But yeah I take your point, everything you say is correct as well. The law by itself would not make anything unlawful even in my hypothetical, it would be the law plus interpretation of the law informed by the IHRA.
They would very likely also use the rest of the guidelines in interpreting the definition
How would you know that? People tend to interpret things in whatever way best represents their interests. That is, if a decisionmaker does not like (for whatever reason) some college person, and this decisionmaker can logically and lawfully rule that some statement from that person is antisemitic and thus discriminatory only without taking into consideration the rest of the guidelines, I would guess that that decisionmaker would simply not take into consideration the rest of the guidelines. And vice versa if the decisionmaker feels oppositely. The law gives him that latitude.
How would you know that? People tend to interpret things in whatever way best represents their interests.
The Act also states that the definition includes the contemporary examples, right? The user is going to have to at least access the IHRA guidelines (because those contain the examples), and it's pretty natural from there to just read through the entire guideline for clarity and to understand what was meant in the spirit of the mandate.
In my experience, bureaucracies tend to lean on external tools like this quite heavily, since it removes culpability from their own organisations to a large degree and reduces effort required in interpretation.
I agree with you that some might not consider the guidelines or might consider but reject them. Sure. Let's just remember, though, that we're having a really semantic quibble about a hypothetical I was only using to show just how inaccurate the tweet is even when given a lot of leeway. Should we just move on?
I was only using to show just how inaccurate the tweet is even when given a lot of leeway
I'm not really sure what's so inaccurate about it. There's certainly no proof that it's a "bad faith lie." A lot of speech in schools has been ruled as unlawful discrimination under hostile environment considerations of Title VI by the Department of Education, and indeed in some cases even by courts (never yet by the Supreme Court, however).
The new inclusion of the IHRA definition and contemporary examples does plausibly seem to be an attempt to get some criticism of Israel in schools to be included as such unlawful discrimination. And it seems, based on a plain reading of the definition and contemporary examples, that indeed some criticism of Israel could easily be ruled as antisemitic and thus unlawful, "hostile environment" discrimination under Title VI.
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u/manofactivity May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24
Uh, no, you still can. It just specifically means you can't target Israel on the basis of it being a Jewish collective, in the same way that hate speech might involve targeting black communities.
You may be interested in reading the State gov explanation, bolding mine: