A revived effort at the University of California system to criminalize speech critical of the state of Israel by deeming it "anti-Semitic" is being met with considerable push-back from students and social justice campaigners, who say there is nothing intolerant about human rights advocacy.

A Monday night forum at the University of California Los Angeles campus was framed by the state system as a public hearing on an initiative—undertaken by an eight-member working group of university regents, faculty, and administrators—to redraft a statement of principles against intolerance.

But the hearing itself was denounced as the product of efforts by Israel advocates to press the system to brand criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitic" and "intolerant."