SANTA CRUZ, California (Press Release) – In the wake of the horrific events of Oct. 7 and the barbaric, evil actions taken by Hamas, the University of California (UC) Ethnic Studies Faculty Council issued a statement legitimizing the massacre of innocent Israeli civilians, including Jewish women, children, and even infants burned and mutilated. The statement went on to rebuke UC leadership for its public comments condemning Hamas.
This same Faculty Council is attempting to get UC to adopt an ethnic studies admission requirement that will force every high school in the state to offer ethnic studies courses developed by their members. These courses will undoubtedly contain material that provides a one-sided, biased and hateful narrative about Israel and Jews, is laden with anti-Zionism, and will incite antisemitic animus and behavior towards Jewish students.
AMCHA exposed the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s appalling letter to the public and UC last week, and on Wednesday, 10,000 UC stakeholders and supporters joined more than 100 organizations in demanding UC reject their admissions requirement proposal. The petition was just launched a few days ago and remains open and continues to grow by the day.
The following petition was sent from the signatories to the UC Regents, UC President Drake and all UC Chancellors:
“We, the undersigned University of California stakeholders and supporters, strongly condemn the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s appalling letter justifying Hamas’ massacre, torture and kidnapping of Israeli citizens and ‘celebrating’ BDS. We stand united with 115 organizations that wrote to you recently, urging you to reject the Faculty Council’s proposal for a UC ethnic studies admissions requirement. If approved, the proposal will force every high school in the state to offer ethnic studies courses based on criteria developed by members of the Faculty Council, which has also openly declared that anti-Zionism should be one of the ‘animating commitments’ of high school ethnic studies curricula.
“We wholeheartedly agree with the 115 groups that, ‘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.’
“We urge you to immediately reject the Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s proposal for a UC ethnic studies admissions requirement (Area H Ethnic Studies).”
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Preceding provided by AMCHA Initiative
Just a few weeks ago, UC Davis ethnic studies Professor Gemma Decristo threatened violence via social media against Zionist journalists and their families. Then I just read the statement from the UC ethnic studies faculty council. Those people are a bunch of bigots. They create this weird hierarchy where certain groups are considered to be the most oppressed. If you’re in one of the oppressed groups, then you’re entitled to do whatever you want to people in the non-oppressed groups. While you might think losing 6,000,000 Jews in the Holocaust makes Jews part of the oppressed group, you’d be wrong. Apparently not enough Jews died. Jews are, in the view of the ethnic studies folks, White, and that that makes us non-important. (These academics apparently have never visited Israel, where the majority of people appear be non-White.) In their letter, the faculty council condemns Islamophobia. Yet they fail to condemn antisemitism despite the recent wave of antisemitic incidents including one perpetrated by their own Professor Decristo. They argue that what happened on October 7 was not terrorism because Occupation justified it. That’s a weird view of terrorism–it’s not terrorism if there is a good reason for it. The problem with that view is every terrorist thinks he or she has a good reason. As a California taxpayer, I wonder why I have to pay with my taxes for these bigots to teach classes that are supposed to make people less bigoted. Why pay money to those who glorify violence targeted at civilians? One wouldn’t, I hope, hire KKK members to teach students to not be racists. Similarly, these folks should not have jobs. As to DEI instruction, it’s become popular. It seems that the UC Regents and taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth with either DEI or ethnic studies. These programs are flawed beyond repair. Let’s get rid of ethnic studies and DEI trainings, which are forms of institutionalized racism. What should these professors do for a living? Read their letter. Theiy’re not that bright. They can get jobs at car washes.