Anti-Palestinian Deborah Project Files Baseless Ethics Complaint Against Arab-American School Board Member and Law Professor

Updated on 12/27/23: Success! On December 19, the New Jersey School Ethics Commission granted the motion to dismiss the Deborah Project’s complaint in its entirety, finding that Aziz’s personal social media posts were political speech and had no connection to her Board of Education membership.

In her personal capacity, Professor Aziz made the following statement: “This malicious complaint is part of a broader anti-Arab and Islamophobic smear campaign that seeks to harass and intimidate me as the first and only Muslim and Arab woman elected to the Westfield School Board. Its dismissal is not only a victory for free speech, but serves as a reminder that hate has no place in our country. I hope this victory encourages more Muslims and Arabs to run for elected office because we have the same rights to engage in the political process as any other citizen.”

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PHOTO COURTESY OF SAHAR AZIZ

Professor Sahar Aziz, the first Arab and Muslim American woman member of the Westfield Board of Education and Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, is the latest target of baseless accusations attacking her speech in support of Palestinian rights.

The Deborah Project, a group with a history of engaging in lawfare against advocates for Palestinian rights, filed an amended ethics complaint against Aziz with the New Jersey School Ethics Commission in March 2023. Relying almost entirely on the distorted and widely opposed IHRA definition, the complaint alleges that Aziz's social media postings in support of Palestinian rights on her personal Twitter account violated school board ethics obligations.

Aziz’s attorney, Matthew Giacobbe, filed a motion to dismiss in April, arguing that the allegations are meritless; unrelated to Aziz’s role as a school board member; and, “a ploy to dismantle Aziz’s academic scholarship and freedom of speech rights and censor any debate or criticism of Israel.” It also argued that the complaint is frivolous and thus sanctionable. Palestine Legal is providing legal and advocacy advice to Aziz.

“That the complainants’ briefs point only to speech and writings expressed in my capacity as a law professor evinces the real motivation behind this frivolous complaint – to censor me as a Middle East human rights scholar and advocate for Palestinian rights,” said Aziz, speaking in her individual capacity and not on behalf of the Westfield school board. “Not only does such abuse of the legal system threaten all Americans’ free speech rights, but it also furthers divisive stereotypes about Muslims and Arabs,” continued Aziz.

“The complaint is a blatant abuse of the ethics process to stifle speech and smear Professor Aziz for her scholarship and political expression,” said Amal Thabateh, Palestine Legal’s Michael Ratner Justice Fellow. “We urge the New Jersey School Ethics Commission to dismiss it accordingly. Failure to do so will only embolden those seeking to silence anyone who dares to speak up in support of Palestinian rights.”

Policing Speech via the Problematic IHRA Definition

The complaint alleges that Aziz’s social media posts and public statements in support of Palestinian rights compromise the board, relying almost exclusively on the problematic IHRA definition to support these claims. The IHRA working definition of antisemitism conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish discrimination and has been weaponized especially against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim academics and students, who are frequently and falsely smeared solely for their speech in support of Palestinian rights. These smears are often laden with anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim stereotypes.

Aziz is Distinguished Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers Law School. She is the founding director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights, which engages in research, education, and advocacy on law and policy that adversely impacts the civil and human rights of Muslims, Arabs and South Asians, including Palestinians, in the US and abroad. She writes and frequently comments on issues related to racial justice, religious freedom, free speech, and Palestinians’ human rights, subjects in which she has both scholarly expertise and personal interest. As a vocal advocate for oppressed communities and movements, Aziz has been subjected to frequent attacks for her political expression and human rights advocacy.

For example, the complaint cites to Aziz’s signing on to the statement “Palestine & Praxis: Scholars for Palestinian Freedom” as evidence of an ethics violation. The open letter, which Aziz signed in her role as a law professor, was signed by hundreds of scholars from universities across the country. The complaint alleges that the statement’s description of Israel as an apartheid and settler colonial state runs afoul of the IHRA definition.

Similarly, the complaint alleges that Aziz violated ethics rules when she reposted a tweet linking to a report by a coalition of leading Palestinian human rights groups titled “Israeli Apartheid: Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism,” again relying on the IHRA definition to claim that labeling Israel an apartheid and settler colonial regime is a form of anti-Jewish discrimination. These allegations fly in the face of the consensus across the human rights community that Israel’s systematic subjugation of Palestinians constitutes apartheid.

The complaint also alleges Aziz committed ethics violations when she reposted on her personal social media accounts criticisms of the IHRA definition—a subject of much debate among scholars, politicians, and within the legal community—and concerns about attacks on Palestine advocates who themselves have been targets of anti-Palestinian smear campaigns for speech critical of Israel.

Not only do these examples point to the complaint’s lack of merit, but they also offer more evidence of how the IHRA definition suppresses protected speech and perpetuates anti-Palestinian racism.

CAIR-NJ Welcomes Dismissal of Complaint Against Clifton BOE Members for Supporting Palestinian Human Rights

A Broader Pattern of Attacks

Aziz is not the only school board member targeted by efforts to punish expression in support of Palestinian rights. Two members of the Clifton Board of Education in New Jersey, Fahim Abedrabbo and Feras Awwad, spoke about Israel’s attacks on Palestinians during the comment period of a May 2021 school board meeting. Months after the meeting, an ethics complaint was filed, claiming that Abedrabbo’s and Awwad’s comments were discriminatory and inflammatory and compromised public trust in the board. The New Jersey School Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint in its entirety, finding no evidence of an ethics violation. The complainant is appealing the decision with the support of the Zionist Organization of America. The Deborah Project has filed an amicus brief in that case.

The Deborah Project has been a driving force in rightwing lawsuits attacking public education, critical race theory, and the teaching of Black history. In May 2022, the Deborah Project filed a frivolous lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) among others. The lawsuit seeks to ban the Los Angeles Unified School District from teaching about Israel in ways that do not align with the Deborah Project's views on Israel and Zionism.

Deborah Project attorneys served as counsel in Bronner v. American Studies Association, a 9-year harassment campaign against the American Studies Association (ASA) and several of its members over its historic 2013 academic boycott resolution. The case was dismissed in March 2023 after the D.C. Superior Court recognized it as a SLAPP suit brought with the intention to chill speech supporting Palestinian rights.

Groups that oppose Palestinian freedom devote considerable resources to monitor and quash the speech and activities of Palestinian rights advocates by smearing them based solely based on their criticism of Israel. For example, of the 214 incidents Palestine Legal responded to in 2022, 54% involved accusations of antisemitism based solely on speech critical of Israeli policy. These false accusations occur in a context where speech on Palestine is already widely suppressed.

“The complaint against Professor Aziz is part of a larger campaign, fueled by misogyny, racism, and Islamophobia, intended to drive Arab and Muslim leaders, especially women, out of their leadership positions,” said Thabateh. “This is not the first time that Professor Aziz has been attacked for her political expression in support of Palestinian rights, nor is she alone. This complaint is just the latest effort to chill and censor any expressions critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian rights. These efforts will fail as more and more people see them for what they are: an attempt to shield Israel from accountability for its treatment of Palestinians.”