You can read the backstory on this here. The student senate did the right thing.
The FIRE reports:
VICTORY: Columbia University Law School Student Senate grants recognition to Law Students Against AntisemitismOn Jan. 23, the Columbia Law School Student Senate denied official recognition to a student group called Law Students Against Antisemitism after some student senators objected to the group’s definition of anti-Semitism. After FIRE raised viewpoint discrimination concerns in a letter last week, the student senate reports LSAA has now been granted recognition.“Law Students Against Antisemitism was approved as a student organization yesterday,” CLS Student Senate President Justin Onwenu wrote FIRE in an email this morning.“Columbia Law students remain firmly committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of hate while protecting the free exchange of ideas on our campus,” Onwenu noted.In its own words, Law Students Against Antisemitism aims to “raise awareness and educate about both historical and contemporary antisemitism.”Last month, members of the group approached the law school’s student senate to request official recognition, a status that would grant the group the ability to apply for funding and reserve event space on campus, among other privileges. LSAA planned to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “working definition of antisemitism” to define the term at the core of its advocacy — and that’s where they hit a roadblock.According to the Columbia Spectator’s reporting, some student senators objected to LSAA’s use of IHRA’s definition, claiming it could be used to stifle speech. And a group of students urged the student senate to “decline to charter” the group, saying the IHRA definition “conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.” Confronted with these concerns, approximately 33 student senators voted to reject LSAA’s request for recognition.The problem isn’t that students disapproved of a particular definition of anti-Semitism. In fact, FIRE has objected to the use of IHRA’s definition in government policy on the grounds that it could chill constitutionally protected speech. But the right to express this perspective does not sanction obstructing the rights of others to express different views.
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