Sep 17, 2015 04:16 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A new proposal at the University of California (UC) aimed at curbing intolerance on campus came under harsh scrutiny by critics who did not think it was addressing the school system's real problem.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the proposal went in front of the system's Board of Regents and was also subject to an open discussion. Chiefly among the criticisms for the proposal was that it did not contain any language about anti-Semitism.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC - Santa Cruz, said in the open forum portion that the UC system should adopt the State Department's definition of anti-Semitism. The director of the AMCHA Initiative, which seeks to protect Jewish college students from anti-Semitism, Rossman-Benjamin argued her suggestion "would not violate anyone's 1st Amendment Rights or shut down free speech," The Times reported.

Kurt Horner, a graduate student at UC - Irvine, was worried that a rule against anti-Semitic speech would ultimately limit what can or cannot be brought up in debate concerning conflict between Israel and Palestine.

UC is the first school system to introduce a policy attempting to curb intolerance on campus, The Associated Press noted, but the Regents were not keen on the draft regardless. The AP also learned UC's Board of Regents ordered a "working group" to review the proposed policy.

Multiple First Amendment experts spoke to The Huffington Post and said the proposal came too close to violating students' right to free speech. More than one expert also pointed out that there does not seem to be a concrete plan for implementing and enforcing it.

"The problem is that it's ambiguous," Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor and First Amendment scholar, told The HP. "Reading it, it's hard to figure out what they're attempting to protect and what they're attempting to restrict."

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