This does not sound right...
A judge has stated that Muslim students who allegedly harassed Jewish students and even assaulted a woman with a cart was engaging in protected political speech.
Jessica Felber claimed in a lawsuit against the University of Berkeley that a leader of a pro-Palestinian group rammed her with a shopping cart as she staged a counter-protest to the anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” conducted by the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine in 2010.
Felber and another Jewish student claimed the University did not do enough to prevent the harassment which included the Muslim group conducting checkpoints around the campus. Students were asked if they were Jewish while passing the checkpoints.
On Thursday U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said the harassment, even if true, constituted protected political speech and dismissed the case against the university.
I'm going to have to assume there's more to the story. Otherwise... WTF?
It seems she was suing the University for not doing enough to prevent her harassment and the judge said (reading between the lines a little bit) that the University had no obligation to do so in this case, and in particular that the shopping cart incident was outside “the context of her educational pursuit,” where the University would have no role.
She could (and should), of course, sue the other student for assault with the shopping cart, but she wouldn’t be federal court then and perhaps not making the political point she wished to make (I’m speculating on that last bit).
I could be completely wrong as there are tons of crazy federal district court decisions (which is why there are the Courts of Appeal), but it seems that the Gazette (possibly) and Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch” (certainly) have decided to use the decision to advance their political agenda.
All that being said, having spent three years at UC Berkeley in law school, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if students espousing perceived conservative views feel persecuted by the majority of other more liberal students, up to an including being assaulted, because, well, they were/are.
that all sounds much more sensible.
Here’s another write up of the lawsuit, which seems to confirm much of what I was thinking above.