First on Fox- Israeli Jewish Ph.D. A University of California Berkeley (UCB) student has filed a lawsuit against her local union, the United Auto Workers (UAW), for alleged discrimination against Israeli and Jewish union members in order to promote an anti-Israel agenda on campus.
Karen Yaniv filed a lawsuit on Friday against her local branch of the labor union, alleging that she and other Jewish Israelis were excluded from full union participation based on their race. The lawsuit alleges that union members acted in a hostile, discriminatory and anti-Semitic manner, which its lawyers say is a violation of the Civil Rights Act and California law.
“The union’s anti-Israel agenda has created a hostile work environment for many of us on campus,” Yaniv said. Fox News Digital. “They discriminate against Israeli members, including me, in union activities, and above all, they go after our academic freedom. This targeted abuse based on our nationality and religion is anti-Semitic, and I want to hold them accountable in this matter.” Court for their actions.
“The hostility and abuse were directed solely at Israeli members and were clearly targeted because of their national origin, race, or religious faith in violation of Article VII.” reads the lawsuit. “The union’s support and participation in these protests created an atmosphere of hostility and terror for Israeli Jews, like Yaniv, who felt ostracized, targeted, and unsafe.”
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Israeli Jewish Ph.D. A student at the University of California Berkeley (UCB) has filed a lawsuit against her local union, the United Auto Workers (UAW), over alleged discrimination against Israeli and Jewish union members.
The UAW, which officially stands for the International Union of Auto, Aerospace and Agricultural Workers of America, is one of the largest unions in North America, with members in broad sectors of the economy, including academics. It was UC Berkeley A A hotspot for anti-Israel sentiment and Anti-Semitic demonstrationsespecially after the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Yaniv's lawyer said the lawsuit is an attempt to highlight the union's alleged role in supporting anti-Israel protests on campus.
In recent years, its members have coordinated and supported anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activities on campus, with union leaders allegedly encouraging members to attend anti-Israel marches and strikes.
The lawsuit charges that the union shared resources with pro-Palestinian university organizations to advance a “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) agenda against Israel and allegedly regularly kept Yaniv and other Israeli Jews out of union communications, including activities related to boycotts of Israel. Activities.
“They now want to institutionalize this, and they have a long-term solution to get us out of here,” Yaniv said.
As a Ph.D. Student (or post-doc), Yaniv was represented by the union whether she was a dues-paying member or not. But after October 7, she said she decided to get more involved and become a paid member so she could engage in dialogue with leadership in the wake of the attack.
“The union issued a statement within days after the atrocities of October 7 that felt like a stab in the back for many of us,” she said. “They blamed Israel for what happened, did not condemn Hamas, and did not call for the release of the hostages. That was a painful moment for many of us in the Jewish communities on campus.”
She added: “We tried to engage in dialogue with them to change this statement or understand our point of view and how we can work together, but we failed, and this lawsuit is about ending the anti-Semitic culture in my union.”
The federation's Executive Board statement criticized the “decades-long violent occupation of Palestine that has led to a horrific escalation of violence,” saying it mourned the killing of Israelis and Palestinians while condemning Israel's “far-right government.”
One of the union's Israeli members, Yael Neidam, has family members kidnapped by Hamas in the October 7 attack, and says that when she spoke out against the union's behavior and targeting of Israeli academics like her, union members laughed. , I interrupted her and wrote “LMFAO (laughing at the f–ing a– off)” in the meeting's Zoom chat. Yaniv asserts that union officials did nothing to stop any of the abusive incidents.
Yaniv's lawyer said the lawsuit is an attempt to highlight the union's alleged role in supporting anti-Israel protests on campus. (Karen Yaniv)
“She (Nidham) was talking as a peace activist about how to bring us together, (but) people laughed at her,” Yaniv said. “This is not new to me. It happened when my Israeli friends spoke, and people laughed. But when it happened to Yael, I felt that this disrespect had become a structural culture of anti-Semitism and discrimination.”
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“The federation’s officials and members used certain slang language such as ‘LMFAO’ at the federation’s meetings, and Yaniv believes that the federation’s members and officials did this intentionally in an attempt to mock Israeli members through language they did not understand,” the lawsuit stated.
In April 2024, as part of UCB The notorious pro-Palestinian campThe lawsuit says union leadership created its own “Union Village” in an attempt to legitimize the camp in the eyes of university administrators.
“The Gaza camp prominently displayed anti-Semitic symbolism and rhetoric on signs and banners, including the inverted red triangle that Hamas used to mark military targets and was notoriously used during the Holocaust to mark political prisoners in concentration camps,” the lawsuit said. “The Union did not condemn this anti-Semitic symbolism or rhetoric and, in fact, established a Union Village near the signs and banners.”
“The university leadership and administration wanted to portray this camp as something (done by) outsiders and not really students,” Yaniv said. “But the union came to the rescue, and put a union village there along with violent rhetoric… (and) violent banners that reminded me of Hamas propaganda. I felt really unsafe.”
In recent years, union members have coordinated and supported anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activities on campus, with union leaders allegedly encouraging members to attend anti-Israel marches and strikes. (Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Yaniv also claimed that the union shared information and resources with outside groups such as the pro-Palestinian group Bears for Palestine, which was responsible for shutting down the website. Speaking event ton the lawyer and advocate for Israeli policy, referring to him as a “genocidal killer” who spreads “Zionist propaganda,” according to the lawsuit.
Yaniv's lawyer, Danielle Sosanj, who serves as executive vice president of the nonprofit law firm the Justice Center, told Fox News Digital that the lawsuit “makes clear that instead of condemning (anti-Semitism) or even neutralizing, the union is choosing sides.” “It is very clear which side they choose.”
“Federal civil rights law, California civil rights law prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion or nationality, so we believe that in this situation, the union has done all three,” she added.
The lawsuit seeks damages and attorney's fees.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators hold signs as they march in front of Sather Gate on the UC Berkeley campus on April 22, 2024 in Berkeley, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
She said unions are responsible for how they treat their members and that they are subject to the same laws as many employers, preventing them from discriminating on the basis of race, religion or nationality. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act states that it is unlawful for a labor organization to “discriminate against any individual because of his or her race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
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“Karen, who has bravely stepped forward and kind of shined a light on what's going on here, at least at UC Berkeley, has revealed the extent of support for a lot of what we've seen happening on college campuses in the last year and a half, at least at Berkeley,” she said. .
Yaniv said she and other postdoctoral researchers tried to go to administration about their experience in hopes of addressing the harassment, but the response from the university was that their hands were tied when it came to union activities.
“October 7 brought a lot of difficult emotions and I did not expect to see what I saw,” Yaniv said. “I did not expect to see the union siding with Hamas or against the existence of Israel. It was really unexpected, and a stab in the back for a lot of us.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the national and local UAW chapters in Berkeley for comment. A university spokesman said that the matter was related to a legal dispute that had nothing to do with the school.
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Fox News' Chris Pandolfo and Ashley Economou contributed to this report.
