U.S. investigates UC Santa Cruz for alleged hostility to Jewish students; campus denies allegation

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a complaint from a Hebrew language lecturer that the UC Santa Cruz campus was a hostile environment for Jewish students because of anti-Israel protests and attitudes, officials confirmed Thursday. The campus has denied the allegation and predicted that the probe would find the claim unmerited.

The federal department’s Office of Civil Rights is responding to a 2009 allegation, according to a spokesman who emphasized that opening an investigation does not imply any determination in the case. UC Santa Cruz lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin contends that the university has sponsored events about the Middle East that take on anti-Semitic overtones and are hostile to Jewish students and that professors during classes make anti-Israel comments that make it difficult for students.

Carole Rossi, UC Santa Cruz’s campus counsel, said the school looks forward to participating in the investigation and is “confident that the agency will determine that the allegations are unfounded.”

“Our campus is absolutely committed to the enforcement of policies that protect every individual from unlawful discrimination and harassment — and that value and support an atmosphere of personal and intellectual freedom,” she said in a statement.

-- Larry Gordon 

Comments

[RUJoking?!]

No word yet when Uncle Sam will investigate the UC system for hostility to whites, especially males, for affirmative action policies.

On this farm, some animals are more equal than others.

[Chandidevi]

Isn't it time that we stop with the sensitivity about anti-semitism? I grew up as an Italian-American and the prejudice and ridicule I experienced was horrific. What about "The Sopranos", "Jersey Shore", and other such anti-Italian shows. Why do we have to tiptoe around the Jews?

[Ian Struan]

Personally, I think that American foreign policy has been ill served by our close alliance with Israel. We should limit the proximity of our ties with Israel and approach a non-alligned stance on the Palistinian issue. Does that make me an anti-semite? No, of course not. But to many pro-Israeli's I would be accused of anti-semitism. Such trash....

[Hakatau]

Anti-Israel does not equal anti-Jewish. I am sick of our culture being forced to blindly accept Israel as a positive force when clearly it is not.

[Just saying]

I hope that at some time more Jews will wake up and understand that the current liberal left is not their friend.

[bob]

There is bound to be some disagreement over the Israeli subdivisions being constructed in the West Bank. Palestine has no definite borders and Palestinian militants have invaded those subdivisions because they claimed that the West Bank is part of Palestine and they want to evict the Israelis (Jews) who are living in those settlements.

[tigerdude]

No crime committed here. Free speech. Stop whining.

[Ty Tyler]

Why exactly is opposition to the terrorist state anti-Jewish? Just because Jewish people in the United States support the terrorist state does not mean that opposition to Israel is anti-Jewish. Indeed, lots of enlightened Jews in the United States oppose Israeli land grabs.

[marco]

They need to get over themselves!

[RwH]

So what are we talking about here, a federal offense for disagreeing with the policies of Israel. Freedom of speech except when it comes to Israeli policies. What is going to be the next exception?

[helen]

If not for the long history of Jewish persecution, Spanish inquisition, pograms, Holocaust and now Iranian President Ahmadinejad's threats to wipe Israel off the map because it is a Jewish state, I would believe Jewish students were overly sensitive. However, the issue of anti-Semitism can not be isolated from history because we must not repeat it. Does UC santa cruz when it sponsors its Middle Eastern events that criticize Israel-US foreign policies shed light on the historical events that led to the creation of Israel or do they just deny it?

[schmit jones]

the jewish studnets study hard. Most jewish just care for themself. they don't care other people or country. Most of the high positions in financial institutions and universities are occupied by jewish. The most media are controlled by jewish, so they never tell the american about truely jewish. Jewish people never find their deficiency from themself.

[Dave Myers]

OK, at the risk of being called "over sensitive"... I may find the schmidt jones comment slightly anti-semetic?

[Eric]

Anti-israel is not anti-jewish.

[Tim Guichard]

UC Santa Cruz recently instituted an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree in Jewish Studies. Speaking as a former member of this outstanding institution of higher education, which has taught courses in Jewish languages (Hebrew and Yiddish), art, literature, culture and history for more than thirty years, I find this allegation perfectly absurd.

[Trowel]

What a load. I went there, pretty much any gripe group becomes the cause celebre, right now the Palestinians have the narrative. An idiotic stance in my view but for now they get to be The Adored. At UCSC (or any UC for that matter), unless you are a white male there is terrible anguish over any sort of bigotry. Yes, occasionally some dumb-ass or bimbo (like that clueless UCLA student) slips in but it is a big school.
Otherwise it is an ongoing PR war over who can be the most self-righteous victim. I can recall laughing when feminist advocates and Hispanic advocates were at loggerheads (but in a real quandry) over whether Latin-cultural-macho-treating-women-like-crap was a feminist cause or another case of 'cultural imperialism.' Hah!

[Trowel]

I find schmit jones comments to be the exact paranoid rationalization for persecution used by the Nazis.

[SPAIN]

GENESIS 22:18 " AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED...".

IF IT WERE NOT FOR ABRAHAM, THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WOULD NEVER HAVE EXPERIENCED THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB! AFTERE THE FALL IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN, WE REALLY DESERVED NOTHING, FOLKS. READ IN GENESIS WHAT WE WERE RELEGATED TO DEALING WITH AFTER WE DENIED HIS LAW AND CHOSE SIN. IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE RENEWED KINDNESS OF THE GOD OF THE JEWS, YAWEH, WE WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN THE BLESSINGS THAT WE HAVE SEEN IN THIS WORLD. OF COURSE, THE WORLD IS NOT A PERFECT PLACE; OF COURSE NOT. BUT, CAN YOU IMAGINE WERE WE WOULD BE, AFTER GOD 'SANCTIONED' US AND RAN US OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN, WERE IT NOT FOR HIS KIND BLESSINGS ON US, THROUGH ABRAHAM??? SO STOP ALREADY WITH THE HARRASSMENT OF THE JEWS. DECLARE WAR ON YOUR OWNSELVES AND YOUR CONDEMNING, JUDGEMENTAL AND FINGER POINTING DISPOSITION.

[James II]

UC Santa Cruz has the largest Jewish student body in the UC system. It is one of very few campuses in the system that offers a B.A. degree in Jewish Studies. Hebrew is taught as a foreign language (Arabic is not) and Muslim students have a very small presence on the campus. That a professor or student group has discussed the Palestinian problem, or a guest lecturer has criticized Israeli policy (a very different thing than anti-Semitism) should not surprise this lecturer and, if it does, she does not belong in the classroom. Universities are where ideas are discussed. To call such debate "anti-Semistism" is patently absurd.

[woof-woof]

re: 5:13 pm
Affirmative action was ended at UC schools long ago. White male admission has dropped because once their protections were ended, they were out-competed by others. It was the Asian-American students who suffered the brunt of reverse-discrimination.

[Jim in SF]

Amazing to see the "anti-Israel is not anti-jewish" comments, and unsure how many of these are simply trying to veil their antisemitism versus just naively buying the PLO/Hamas narrative. Clearly in any event this is coming from people who have never been persecuted & executed by the millions and who are still threatened with this today. Israel was created (in modern times, anyway) because jewish people have been persecuted and murdered throughout history in other places and they needed a place they could safely call home - returning to their ancestral homeland. Of course, for pseudo-Islamic extremists who think the murder of jews is holy, ANY safe place for the jews is a problem.

Israel is only an issue at all because there are politicians who want to distract from their own corruption & oppression by blaming Israel & the jews, and Islamic extremists to support those forces. I find it sad that left wing people here support the palestinian cause when those same people were the ones literally celebrating in the streets on 9/11, and who will happily kill them given a chance. The total space consumed by Islamic and arab states is several orders of magnitude more than that of Israel, and the Hamas charter still calls for not only the complete destruction of Israel but the murder of every last Jew. Incitement of violence and hate against jews is still taught daily in Iranian, Palestinian, and other Islamic state schools, because it serves a political objective of those who do not want to address the real economic and human rights problems of their people. Don't buy it.

[Dean Blake]

I'd like the LA Times to publish the charges in detail for us to read them along with the laws that have allegedly been violated and the evidence. Then and only then, unlike other commentators here, will I venture an opinion. I certainly have personally experienced anti-semitism in the classroom, repeatedly. I had an instructor in law school, WSU, Mazia was his name (dead now), who took 1/2 of an entire class to share his derogatory views about Jews when he realized I was Jewish, and standing next to me to make his point. Ironically, years later at a continuing ed. class, we were alone in the room and he told me he went to Italy to do geneological research and couldn't find evidence before 1542 until he realized prior to that date his family was Jewish based on the cemetary records and were forced converts from Judiasm to Catholicism!!! I don't know of any Jew who can't tell you humiliating stories like this that have occured repeatedly throughout their lives. These incidents in schools reinforce wrongful actions by young people against Jews, including coercion, intimidation, bullying and assault and battery. Let them investigate and prosecute.

[Moris]

The professors should teach their subjects and not to make false accusations against what they have no idea about. When a professor at UC Irvine, made a pro-Israel statement in his lecture, he underwent a huge scrutiny from the university administration. The same should be true for these so-called educators. They can spew their hate in the confines of their homes and not where they are funded by public money.