Cardozo students to honor Carter

Widespread protests from Cardozo Law School alumni and supporters of Israel are flooding the phones and emails of the school in response to a student journal’s intent to present an award to former president Jimmy Carter on April 10th.

The Thirteenth Annual International Advocate for Peace Award 2013 is scheduled to be presented to Carter this Wednesday at a ceremony to be held between 3 PM and 8 PM at the Cardozo School of Law, Jacob Burns Moot Court Room. It is presented by the school’s Journal of Conflict Resolution to “an individual who is exemplary in the field of conflict resolution,” according to their website.

The Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School is a division of Yeshiva University. A spokesperson from YU stated that, “Cardozo is not honoring President Carter. The law school’s student-run Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution has invited him to receive its Advocate for Peace Award. President Carter’s invitation to Cardozo represents solely the initiative of this student journal, not of Yeshiva University or the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School.”

On their website, the student editors of the journal bill it as “the country’s preeminent legal journal of arbitration, negotiation, mediation, settlement, and restorative justice,” “heavily cited” in the field of “civil litigation and dispute resolution” and is affiliated with Cardozo Law School’s Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution. It is edited by third year law students and staffed by second year law students, publishing three issues a year, Fall, Winter and Spring. Their IAP awardees in the past included President Bill Clinton, Richard Holbrook, Desmond M. Tutu, Eve Ensler and Dennis Ross.

In response to the selection of Carter for the award, Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel noted YU’s commitment, ties, and support of the State of Israel, citing YU’s many alumni living there and its campus there. He stated that, “The university recognizes the breadth of impassioned feelings engendered by this appearance, and is mindful of the diversity of expressed opinions on the matter… While he has been properly lauded for his role in the Camp David Accords of 1978, I strongly disagree with many of President Carter’s statements and actions in recent years, which have mischaracterized the Middle East conflict and have served to alienate those of us who care about Israel. President Carter’s presence at Cardozo in no way represents a university position on his views, nor does it indicate the slightest change in our steadfastly pro-Israel stance. That said, Yeshiva University both celebrates and takes seriously its obligation as a university to thrive as a free marketplace of ideas, while remaining committed to its unique mission as a proud Jewish university.”

American Friends for a Safe Israel has called for those concerned to contact the dean of Cardozo and the president of Yeshiva University to protest the award. AFSI noted that Carter “has an ignominious history of anti-Israel bigotry. He is responsible for helping to mainstream the anti-Semitic notion that Israel is an apartheid state with his provocatively titled book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” the publication of which prompted mass resignations from the Carter Center. He has met numerous times with leaders of the terror group Hamas, whitewashing their genocidal goals and undermining U.S. efforts to isolate Hamas. And Carter’s record of slandering Israel is so voluminous that both CAMERA and Alan Dershowitz have written books refuting his lies…. It is simply unconscionable for a Jewish affiliated school to honor someone who has played such a high profile role in demonizing the Jewish state.”

Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School, offered to come to the award ceremony at his own expense to debate Carter. He made a similar offer in 2007 when Carter was scheduled to speak at Brandeis University but Carter refused. In various media interviews in response to the news of this award, Dershowitz delineated Carter’s positions supporting terrorists including Yasser Arafat, Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, his support of Saudi Arabia, and as president, his inaction in the massacre of two million Cambodians under Pol Pot. “Carter has prevented peace, encouraged terrorism and done more than anyone else to isolate and demonize the Middle East’s only democracy, Israel,” said Dershowitz to the Jewish Press.

“Except for the Tutu award which I understand took place around 10 years ago, previous awards were not of a similar nature,” said Gary Emmanuel, speaking on behalf of The Coalition of Concerned Cardozo Alumni. “For those familiar with Jimmy Carter’s recent involvement in the Israel-Arab conflict, they will know that he has an ignominious history of demonizing Israel that is surpassed by few. It’s simply unconscionable for a Jewish-affiliated school to honor someone who has played such a high profile role in demonizing the Jewish state. It’s shameful that President Joel was not prepared to take a moral stand on the issue and rescind the invite. Rest assured that if the Journal were to have invited David Duke to Cardozo to bestow an honor upon him, President Joel would not have remained aloof - and therein lies the problem. President Joel, Dean Diller and the entire Board of Overseers have failed the Cardozo community by bringing such a fine academic institution into disrepute. It’s questionable that after this affair that any of them are fit to continue in such leadership roles.”

The Cardozo Board of Overseers issued a statement noting that former President Jimmy Carter was invited by the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution to the school to receive its Advocate for Peace Award. They noted that it is “student run” and “recognized as one of the premier law journals in its field.” They pointed out that the students decided to honor Carter “independently of the Board or the Administration of the School. We take great pride in the fact that Cardozo is a world recognized leader in legal education and has a reputation for legal scholarship and excellence that is widely regarded. The very bedrock of the American legal system and democracy is freedom of speech—a foundation of the Bill of Rights and a liberty that must be championed most vigorously at a law school. While many Board members do not agree with the Journal’s decision to honor Mr. Carter, and while many of us have strong objections to Mr. Carter’s statements and actions on Israel, we vigorously defend the Journal’s right to their decision. Likewise, we recognize there are many in our community who oppose the decision and we defend their right to speak out respectfully in opposition to the invitation. As Justice Cardozo recognized, freedom of speech “is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”