On October 16, the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council sent a letter to the UC Board of Regents, and the chancellors of a long list of UC schools, stressing:
“In the strongest possible terms, the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, a diverse statewide body that represents over 300 faculty systemwide, rejects recent UC administrative communications that distort and misrepresent the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and thereby contribute to the racist and dehumanizing erasure of Palestinian daily reality.”
The letter also made this bizarre assertion: “On the receiving end of Zionist militarism longer than the Israeli state’s existence, the Palestinian population in the occupied territories has been subjected to a daily stranglehold by air, land, and sea. Theirs is an everyday experience of terror. Failure to recognize the Palestinian freedom struggle as a struggle for basic needs, dignity, and freedom within conditions that fundamentally militate against life is part and parcel of the same logic that deems Palestinians ‘human animals.’”
University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, representing over 300 faculty, criticizes univ. admins for distorting the reality & contributing to the racist and dehumanizing erasure of Palestinian daily reality.https://t.co/r0oNbqGdIo
— Can Aciksoz (@11thThesis) October 17, 2023
Needless to say, the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s letter justified Hamas’ brutal murder, mutilation, beheading, and burning alive of women, children, babies, the elderly, and the disabled.
In response, 115 organizations today demanded that UC reject a proposal for an ethnic studies admissions requirement, arguing that the faculty who wrote this letter are the same faculty tasked with developing the course criteria and standards for the ethnic studies courses that would be taught to all California high school students if the proposal is approved.
“The fact that the Faculty Council defends the inhuman atrocities of a terrorist organization committed to the annihilation of the Jewish state, and has publicly aligned UC ethnic studies departments and faculty with Hamas’ genocidal goals, is not simply morally depraved. It presents a clear and present danger for Jewish students in UC classrooms and beyond,” wrote the groups in a letter spearheaded by the AMCHA Initiative. “One only need note the inflamed university and high school campus climate to realize how a toxic curriculum that vilifies the Jewish state and its supporters and condones their murder will further incite antisemitism. For example, last Thursday, students at Balboa High School in San Francisco walked out of their classes and stormed through the hallway chanting, ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,’ a slogan which the ADL recognizes as a call for dismantling the Jewish state.”
“The UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, in its letter, not only refuses to acknowledge, let alone condemn, the genocidal actions of Hamas, they vilify UC for condemning Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians and demand that UC’s administrative leadership “retract its charges of terrorism,” the letter said, adding, “They insist that the heinous crimes of Hamas, whose founding charter explicitly calls for the obliteration of Israel and the ethnic cleansing and murder of Jews, must not be called terrorism. Instead, they falsely accuse Israel of ‘genocide,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘terrorism.’ The Faculty Council also condemned UC for its public opposition to the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and argued that BDS ‘should be celebrated,’ not opposed.”
The 115 groups’ letter noted that many of the 300 ethnic studies faculty represented by the Council, including the Council’s co-chairs, support and have committed to bringing onto their campuses an academic boycott of Israel––the academic arm of BDS––whose mission is to provide intellectual justification for Israel’s elimination.
“UC faculty who cannot acknowledge that the Hamas massacre is terrorism and a crime against humanity, and who state that anti-Zionism and the elimination of the Jewish state is a core value of their discipline, must not be trusted to establish state-wide ethnic studies standards for California students,” wrote the groups. “The UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s disastrous admissions requirement proposal must be immediately rejected.”
