AMP, coalition to submit report to UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland

A coalition of five organizations, including American Muslims for Palestine, Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus, the Council of American-Islamic Relations - San Francisco Bay Area, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, will be submitting a shadow report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, in October.

The report will outline ways in which the US Department of Education is misusing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to conduct investigations into Palestine solidarity activism on college campuses. The same organizations submitted an "Issue Statement" to the Human Rights Committee in December 2012. This shadow report is an update. 

Title VI ensures students and others are free from discrimination and bigotry on college campuses and in other institutions that receive federal funding. Title VI also governs federal funding to institutions of higher education. Since the Education Department re-interpreted Title VI after years of prolonged pressure by Zionist groups such as the Zionist Organizations of America and the Anti-Defamation League, it has launched investigations at several universities across the country. The investigations are the result of complaints filed by Zionist organizations claiming Jewish students experience a "hostile environment" when pro-Palestine events or lectures take place on campus. These investigations have had a chilling effect on student activism and free speech. The Issue Statement and Shadow Report address this negative impact on mostly Arab and Muslim students and their supporters. Currently, investigations are being conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz and Rutgers University. Most complaints against other universities have been dismissed. 

The introduction of the Shadow Report states: "This Shadow Report provides an update to the Issue Statement submitted by our organizations on December 17, 2012, and concerns the use of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to supress pro-Palestinian viewpoints on college and university campuses by making the unsupported argument that speech critical of Israeli state policies is anti-Semitic.

"Since the submission of our Issue Statement the four federal investigations by the U.S. Department of Education (“DOE”) continue.  Despite attempts by advocates to convey to the DOE the harm done by these on-going investigations, the DOE has responded only that it will deal with the investigations “with dispatch.”  Even if these particular cases are indeed concluded “with dispatch,” there is a significant threat that additional complaints on similar grounds will be filed, and that the same problems with DOE policies will be present in future investigations.  Because these investigations continue and because there is a possibility of other future such investigations, the speech and expression of impacted student organizations, including Muslim Student Associations (“MSA”) and Students for Justice in Palestine (“SJP”) organizations, is being severely and increasingly chilled."