3rd Annual “Law vs. Antisemitism” Conference (February 25-26, 2024)
FIU College of Law, Miami, Florida
You are invited to submit a paper or presentation for the 3rd Annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference. The Conference aims to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to present research and developments on the intersection of law and antisemitism — how law has manifested and perpetuated antisemitism, and how law has been and can be used to combat it.
Areas of interest for the conference include, but are not limited to, the following themes and topics.
- The Working Definition of Antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), its legal implications, critics and competing definitions (e.g., Nexus, JDA)
- Legal efforts in the U.S. and abroad to curtail expressions of antisemitism, e.g., by regulating hate speech, hate speech online, Holocaust denialism, and hate crimes
- Laws that authorize religious expression in public spaces, laws that target Jews and other religious minorities, and generally applicable laws that burden Jewish observance, including abortion bans (in the context of Dobbs)
- Legal responses to the Boycott-Divest-Sanctions (BDS) movement and other efforts to counter boycotts of Israel
- Comparisons between antisemitism and bias and discrimination based on race (including African Americans and Asian Americans) gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, or other categories
- Jews and whiteness, including white privilege, white nationalism, and white supremacy
- Intersectional issues (Jews as a religious/ethnic group; LBGTQ Jews; Black Jews, Jewish women)
- Official discrimination against Jews, both historic and contemporary, including bars to holding office, immigration restrictions, housing and zoning restrictions
- Jews and antisemitism in the legal profession
- Jews as a protected class under federal and state civil rights statutes
- Jews and employment law, including employment discrimination, religious accommodations, and the ministerial exception
- Jews and antisemitism in higher education, including anti-Jewish quotas, Jewish perspectives on affirmative action, Title VI and hostile environments, faculty and student expression and actions concerning Israel and Zionism
- Law and the Holocaust, punishing the perpetrators, restitution for the victims
- The legal construction of Jewish identity (e.g., defining who is a Jew for purposes of the Law of Return, the Nuremberg laws)
- Case studies in antisemitism, e.g., the Dreyfus Affair, the Leo Frank trial
- Translating research on law and antisemitism into practical strategies for countering antisemitism through law
- Pedagogical approaches to teaching about the relationship between law and antisemitism