Legal challenge halts attempt to impose IHRA in education – for now

JVL Introduction

The Diaspora Alliance launched a High Court judicial review of a Department for Education scheme to fund antisemitism training in schools and universities.

It argued that it should be scrapped because the DfE has stipulated that the training should use the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

As a result, the process of inviting tenders for the scheme has “been frozen indefinitely” according to an email from the DfE, the department enacting “a pause to the procurement”.

RK

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and Leah Levane report

On March 13, an article by pro-Israel rottweiler David Rose appeared in the Jewish Chronicle revealing the shock-horror news:

“Government plans to fund antisemitism training in schools and universities have been plunged into chaos after a left-wing campaign group backed by American millionaires began a High Court case to block them.”

Nowhere in Rose’s  21 paragraphs does he mention that Diaspora Alliance is a Jewish-led organisation.  The clue is in the name David! Dictionary definition of diaspora – “Jewish people living outside Israel.” Its UK director Emily Hilton, quoted in Rose’s story, is a leading member of Na’amod, a growing organisation mobilising mainly young Jews opposed to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

The Alliance’s stated aims are to “counter antisemitism and the ways in which it is instrumentalized”. It does this by various means including:

• Developing and holding workshops and trainings to support understanding of antisemitism and its manifestations.
• Investing in progressive Jewish networks within and across different countries and communities.
• Programming international symposiums and other events on Jewish history, antisemitism, diaspora politics, and internationalism.

But according to David Rose, it is a “left-wing” group working to block “leading Jewish organisations” from tendering for a multi-million pound government programme announced by the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his autumn statement last year, Tackling Antisemitism in Education.

Which leading Jewish organisations is Rose talking about? Campaign Against Antisemitism, the Community Security Trust, Chabad and the Holocaust Educational Trust – all prominent in the relentless campaign since 2015 to crush criticism of Israel as its oppression of the Palestinians grows more vicious and less defensible.

Hunt’s tender offered  a consortium of these groups the chance to bid for financial support to spread their propaganda in UK schools and colleges, just as students and teachers were crying out for the freedom to express their empathy with the Palestinian people.

Rose’s description of what happened last week is accurate as far as it goes:

“But last Thursday, the day before the bidding process was due to close, an email from the Department for Education (DfE) informed all who had shown interest that the process had been frozen indefinitely.”

“The department has enacted a pause to the procurement”, the email said, adding that it hoped the process would soon reopen.

The message was sent a week after the UK branch of the US-based Diaspora Alliance launched a High Court judicial review of the scheme, arguing it should be scrapped because the DfE has stipulated that the training should use the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

According to the Diaspora Alliance the definition “has been used to repress free speech and silence those who campaign against Israel’s government’s actions” and was “really an attempt to create a speech code about Israel”.

Correct Mr Rose. This is indeed what Bindman’s Solicitors argued successfully in submitting judicial review proceedings on behalf of Diaspora Alliance, as can be seen from the statement published on Bindman’s website which we reproduce below. Kenneth Stern, Jewish activist and the main author of the document on which the IHRA definition is based, has become increasingly vociferous in expressing his dismay at the way it is being misused to censor pro-Palestinian speech, especially in academia. Here he is interviewed in The New Yorker in a piece published on the same day, March 13, as David Rose’s Jewish Chronicle story.

Not only does Rose ignore the fact that the instigators of the Judicial Review are Jewish. He homes in on the considerable funding that would be required to pursue a full hearing, if the High Court were to grant permission to proceed, and casts aspersions on the motives of the San Francisco based Tides Foundation which backs Diaspora Alliance.

Rose writes:

Its donors include the US-Hungarian billionaire George Soros. Among its beneficiaries are the Occupy Wall St movement, Black Lives Matter and two Jewish organisations that campaign against Israel’s government, Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) and If Not Now.

Given that Soros is a Jewish financier frequently abused by far-right conspiracy theorists as trying to overturn white Western civilisation by supporting dangerous liberal causes, this reference to him seems just a little bit antisemitic.

No doubt the pro-Israel consortium will regroup and use its considerable resources to resist the Diaspora Alliance’s legal challenge, supporting the Conservative government in pursuing its anti-democratic agenda in this and many other arenas. But for the time being, this particular threat is on ice.

Jewish-led group challenges DfE’s proposed education programme which fails to address antisemitism or protect free speech

BIndmans LLP, 11 March 2024

Bindmans has issued judicial review proceedings on behalf of Diaspora Alliance, a Jewish-led group that fights antisemitism.

The challenge relates to the Secretary of State for Education’s decision to adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism as the ‘cornerstone’ of its proposed training programme for schools, colleges and universities, without making any proper provision for the protection of free speech and wider equalities obligations.

The IHRA working definition has been criticised by many leading academics and human rights organisations (including more than 100 Israeli civil society groups) as ambiguous, difficult to apply in practice and as tending to conflate criticism of the State of Israel or of the political ideology on which that state was founded – namely, Zionism – with antisemitism. The conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism undermines free speech, relations between Jews and other groups, between Palestinians and other groups and the safety of Jews themselves.

Shirin Marker, one of the solicitors representing Diaspora Alliance said:

The Secretary of State’s decision to centre the IHRA working definition at the heart of its training programme is unlawful in circumstances where no provision is being made for bidders to demonstrate how they will ensure that their training programmes comply with free speech or equality issues. This is particularly important in the academic context, where the law has recognised freedom of expression to be paramount.

Emily Hilton, UK Director of Diaspora Alliance, said:

To truly root out antisemitism we need a framework that doesn’t silo the fight against antisemitism from other oppression struggles, including the struggle for Palestinian human rights.

Ultimately we are deeply worried that the shortcomings of the procurement threaten the fight against antisemitism, and thereby the safety and wellbeing of Jews in the UK (and beyond). The government must think again – and seek an inclusive definition of approach to antisemitism training that will best protect our community [and all communities]. We need an approach that reflects the multitudes of frameworks available.

Diaspora Alliance are represented by Alice Hardy, Shirin Marker and Lily Seaborne of Bindmans, Phillippa Kaufmann KC and Danny Friedman KC of Matrix Chambers and Zac Sammour and Ben Mitchell of 11 KBW.