Dear President Napolitano:
We are a group of University of California faculty who wish to express our concern over growing antisemitism on UC campuses. This problem is highlighted by the following recent incidents:
- At UCLA, a candidate for student government was challenged for being Jewish by several councilmembers, who suggested her Jewishness was grounds for disqualification of her candidacy.
- At UC Davis, an anti-Israel divestment vote was accompanied by the heckling of Jewish students with chants of “Allahu Akhbar,” followed by two swastikas spray-painted on a Jewish fraternity house and antisemitic graffiti on the wall of a Hillel building.
- At UC Santa Cruz, anti-Israel faculty and students tried to shut down a Hillel-sponsored LGBT event, threatening that protestors would drown out the speaker and intimidate audience members. As a result of these threats, the event had to be moved to a safer location. Nevertheless, anti-Israel protesters still disrupted the meeting, bursting into the room and declaring Israel an “Apartheid state” and chanting “Long live the Intifada!”
These are just the most recent in a series of anti-Jewish incidents that go back several years on various UC campuses. (See examples of antisemitic activity on UC campuses since 2001).
We are fully aware that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a major point of contention on UC campuses. Indeed, it is a prime motivator of the anti-Jewish expression that has infected our campuses and led to the verbal and physical intimidation and harassment of many Jewish students, especially those who wish to assert their Jewish identity and/or support for the Jewish state of Israel.
While the University of California is not the only university infected by this virus, UC campuses are rapidly acquiring the reputation of being among the most antisemitic in the nation. It is critical for you and the UC Chancellors to speak out and act forcefully. We urge you to do the following:
- Formally adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition of antisemitism, which acknowledges that anti-Israel rhetoric can cross the line into anti-Semitism, and use the definition to accurately identify and publicly condemn future acts of anti-Jewish bigotry;
- Develop and implement training programs for university staff about the nature and scope of campus antisemitism and how to appropriately address the problem;
- Educate the UC campus communities about the dangers of Jew hatred, how it is being spread, and where history has shown that it can lead.
People of good faith can disagree on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and we are not advocating for a silencing of free speech. However, opposition to Israel’s policies or actions is no excuse to cross the line into Jew hatred. The time to act and provide moral leadership is now, before we experience a tragedy on one of our campuses, a tragedy that we all want to avoid.
Sincerely,
[The Undersigned]
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