The American Studies Association has issued the following statement:
In March 2026, the University of California Berkeley reached a settlement with the Department of Justice in response to a 2023 lawsuit filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center (correction: the settlement was actually directly with the Brandeis Center — 4/7/26). Part of the settlement includes a decision of the University to consider the “International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) definition of antisemitism…whenever investigating or assessing claims of discrimination or harassment against Jews or Israeli individuals.” UC Berkeley is just one of several institutions to capitulate to the Federal Government’s weaponization of antisemitism and to silence dissent critical of Israel and of Zionism. The American Studies Associations rejects the IHRA definition of antisemitism and opposes the equation of Zionism with Jewishness and the related repression of scholarship critical of Zionism.
Over the last three years Civil Rights law has been used to silence campus protest and academic scholarship critical of Israeli policy and of Zionism. As a joint report by the AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) makes clear, anti-Zionism has increasingly been framed as a form of discrimination targeted by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following October 7, 2023 antisemitism lawsuits have reached record numbers, as campuses increasingly investigate Palestine solidarity protest as potential targets for Title VI prosecution. Despite the precipitous increase Title VI lawsuits related to claims of antisemitism, the report indicates that, to date, none of these cases have resulted in legal findings of discrimination. And yet, the threat of investigation has encouraged institutions to preemptively comply, by setting up campus taskforces, by expelling campus protesters in support of Palestine, and like UC Berkeley, adopting the flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism, which associates all criticism of Zionism with antisemitism.
ASA members have faced repression and efforts to delegitimate critical study and speech on Zionism, and university and college administrators have increasingly invited Zionist advocacy organizations, donors, and “campus climate” consultants into policy-making processes while withdrawing shared governance, imposing carceral discipline on campus communities, and refusing to defend academic freedom, labor rights, and human rights. We oppose all political strategies that weaponize claims of “antisemitism” – or “anti-Americanism”, “national identity”, “national narratives” or “divisiveness” – as pretenses to target scholars and scholarship that critique power and we are dismayed when universities’ capitulate in the face of these tactics.
The ASA joins the AAUP, the ACLU, and dozens of organizations in rejecting the IHRA definition. As countless scholars in Jewish and American Studies have pointed out, the scurrilous accusation of antisemitism against any criticism of the genocide in Gaza, or even against support for justice in Palestine, does a disservice to actual and real cases of antisemitism. The ASA opposes all forms of racism, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism AND we reject the weaponization of antisemitism to silence legitimate scholarship critical of Israel, its U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, and of Zionism.
The ASA supports our members’ right to engage in research, teaching, public dialogue, debate, and public education and reaffirms our longstanding commitment to stand with all our members who are terminated, disciplined, or otherwise punished by their institutions for scholarship and organizing work that is anti-racist, centered on marginalized or oppressed groups and histories, and/or analyzes structures and practices of power, including that focusing on Zionism, Palestine, Israel, antisemitism, white nationalism, and colonialism.