Antisemitic students get EXPOSED in giant billboard
January 13, 2023
Accuracy in Media mobilized two billboards to follow two of Berkeley Law School’s biggest antisemites home and hold them accountable even off campus.
AIM’s mobile billboards hit the road in both Plano and Fort Worth, Texas, paying a visit to Cecily Kruger of the Women of Berkeley Law and Maryam Alkahim of the Berkeley Law Muslim Student Association.
BREAKING: @AccuracyInMedia is going toe-to-toe with anti-semitic activists at Berkeley.
We exposed them for their hateful actions on campus and at their homes.
Let their parents explain to their neighbors why their children are excluding Jews on campus!pic.twitter.com/WgUflLy9Yl
— Adam Guillette (@adamguillette) January 10, 2023
Alkahim and Kruger are two of the students whose organization’s signed on to a bylaw at the beginning of the 2022 school year that was introduced by Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine. The bylaw bans speakers who support “Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”
The antisemitic bylaw, adopted by nine different student organizations, effectively created “Jew-free zones” on the school’s campus. It was branded as a “BDS victory” by the introducing organization.
Signatories include the Berkeley Law Muslim Student Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Womxn of Color Collective, Asian Pacific Law Students Association, Queer Caucus, Women of Berkeley Law, Law Students of African Descent, and Community Defense Project.
The move was swiftly condemned by more than 30 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, which slammed it as “unabashed antisemitism.” Further, More than 150 student groups from universities spanning the country signed an open letter similarly condemning the ban.
However, the school itself has yet to condemn the actions of the student groups, with some chalking it up to simply viewpoint differences.
“A student group has the right to choose the speakers they invite on the basis of viewpoint,” Dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky said last month. “Jewish law students don’t have to invite a Holocaust denier. Black students don’t have to invite white supremacists. If the women’s law association is putting out a program on abortion rights, they can invite only those who believe in abortion rights.”
Chemerinsky is both Jewish and a Zionist, and did express concern over the move in an op-ed, noting that “It is very troubling to broadly exclude a particular viewpoint from being expressed.”
Upon learning of the organizations’ move and the school’s ambivalence towards it, AIM in October launched a mobile billboard campaign on campus. The billboard featured a photo of Adolf Hitler, the perpetrator of the Holocaust which saw the execution of more than six million Jewish people, saluting with his right hand. “All in favor of banning Jews, raise your right hand,” it read.
“We do not know if these organizers openly support genocide or are just led by ignorant fools. But we do know that antisemitism has no place in our society,” Adam Guillette, president of Accuracy in Media, said at the time.
AIM didn’t stop there. It then rolled out the first “Berkeley Law’s Anti-Semitic Class of 2023” billboards on campus, naming names.
BREAKING: We're not letting Berkeley's anti-Semites get away with banning Jewish speakers from campus.
We're making sure their classmates know exactly who they are. pic.twitter.com/txyMK1DXIJ
— Accuracy In Media (@AccuracyInMedia) October 26, 2022
When Guillette visited the campus to speak with students, he was met with hostility by antisemitic students who still stand by the ban. Jewish students, however, expressed fear.