"Just one year ago, establishment Jewish groups universally welcomed a decision by the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to expand his department’s interpretation of Title VI to include protection against “harassment of members of religious groups based on shared ethnic characteristics,” effectively including Jews. Prior to Duncan’s reinterpretation, issued in October 2010, Jews were regarded as purely a religious group and therefore outside the purview of Title VI, which does not include religion as a protected category.
But one year later, the Jewish communal world is a picture of discord on the question of when and under what circumstances Title VI should be invoked. The division — much of it focused on when anti-Israel activity tips into anti-Semitism — is apparent not only between organizations but within them, as well. In August, AJC executive director David Harris publicly repudiated his in-house anti-Semitism expert, Kenneth Stern, after Stern co-wrote an open letter warning that “many” complaints being filed under Title VI “simply seek to silence anti-Israel discourse and speakers.” Stern called this trend “dangerous.”
Harris called Stern’s letter “ill-advised” in a message to Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Title VI complainant at the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose case is currently under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
It was this incident that prompted the JCPA to seek out communal consensus to guide Jewish groups on their deployment of Title VI complaints, according to communal officials.
But the JCPA’s draft resolution has raised the hackles of some who see it as sacrificing to political correctness the Jewish community’s responsibility to fight anti-Israel behavior."
