UC Santa Cruz's Puzzling Selection of MLK Speaker (Angela Davis)

Hat tip AMCHA Initiative

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Once again, UC Santa Cruz solidifies its reputation as America's Wackiest University. Tomorrow, the university has invited Angela Davis to speak at an event commemorating Martin Luther King. Davis, of course, is a professor at UCSC's History of Consciousness Department-whatever the Hell that is. Aside from being a 1960s radical, she is also an anti-Zionist. In addition, the message she was sending out back in the 1960s was far different from that of Martin Luther King.



In response, the AMCHA Imitative and 19 other organizations have sent a letter to UCSC's clueless chancellor George Blumenthal voicing their concern along with a couple of requests.

UC Santa Cruz Chooses Anti-Zionist Angela Davis to Speak on “Racism, Militarism, Poverty: From Ferguson to Palestine” at Major Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Event Tomorrow

Take action by joining the campaign to urge Chancellor to address UCSC's history of sponsoring events that demonize and delegitimize Israel

Tomorrow evening Angela Davis, a well known anti-Zionist who aggressively promotes boycotts of the Jewish state and has condoned terrorism against it, will be giving a talk entitled “Racism, Militarism, Poverty: From Ferguson to Palestine” as the keynote address at UCSC’s 31st Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation.  Davis’ talk is being sponsored by the UCSC Office of the Chancellor.

Far from being a unique event, UCSC has a long history of providing administrative and departmental sponsorship for antisemitic events which demonize and delegitimize Israel, and many Jewish students have reported feeling a sense of alienation, marginalization and anti-Jewish hostility in response to these events.

This morning, an AMCHA-led coalition of 20 organizations sent a letter to UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal expressing their serious concern with his office’s sponsorship of the Angela Davis talk and urging him to adopt measures which will address the university’s history of sponsoring antisemitic events which have a harmful effect on Jewish students.

You can see the full letter from the 20 organizations below.


TAKE ACTION: In light of UCSC’s longstanding history of sponsoring anti-Israel and antisemitic events, including its most recent selection and sponsorship of well-known anti-Zionist Angela Davis to deliver a talk intended to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state, please join 20 organizations in urging UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal to issue a public statement committing himself to the following actions:

1) Review UCSC’s policies on University sponsorship and neutrality and develop model institutional protocols for such activities.

2) Adopt a definition of antisemitism and provide a model protocol for campus administrators to identify contemporary incidents of antisemitism, which may be sanctioned by University non-discrimination or anti-harassment policies.

You may email Chancellor Blumenthal at chancellor@ucsc.edu.



Here is the letter that AMCHA Initiative and 19 other organizations sent to UCSC Chancellor Blumenthal this morning:


January 27, 2014

Dear Chancellor Blumenthal,

We represent 20 organizations with hundreds of thousands of members and supporters.  We are very troubled by UCSC’s selection of Angela Davis as speaker for the 31st Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Convocation, an event sponsored by your office.  Given the title of her talk -- “Racism, Militarism, Poverty: From Ferguson to Palestine” -- it is clear that Davis will use this event, intended to honor Dr. King’s memory, as an opportunity to promote her own political agenda, which includes the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state. Instead of choosing a speaker who could unite diverse communities, as did Martin Luther King himself, UCSC has chosen a speaker whose well-known hatred of Israel and support for efforts to harm it through antisemitic boycotts, are extraordinarily divisive and deeply offensive to many in the Jewish community.

Even more troubling, however, is the lack of sensitivity shown to those members of the Jewish community, including many UCSC Jewish alumni  who have expressed to you their sincere concerns about this major event.  Rather than publicly acknowledging these concerns and seeking to address the serious issues that underlie them, you issued a statement which completely ignores their concerns and simply asserts the University’s right to sponsor any event on the grounds of freedom of speech and academic freedom.

Although you aver in your statement that the University’s commitment to providing a platform for “the widest range of viewpoints” does not imply "agreement or endorsement” of those views, the reality is that when the University itself sponsors any event — but particularly one as important to the University as the annual MLK Memorial Convocation, involving a rigorous review of possible speakers — there is indeed an implicit endorsement of the views expressed at the event.  For this reason, we do not believe the University would have selected a speaker with a known history of racist or homophobic statements or allowed him or her to speak on a topic which was so obviously offensive to African Americans or members of the LGBT community, freedom of speech and academic freedom notwithstanding.

Unfortunately, the University has a history of selectively ignoring Jewish concerns and giving its official imprimatur to events which have had a deleterious effect on members of the Jewish community, particularly students. This is well-documented in the University of California Jewish Student Campus Climate Report commissioned by former UC President Mark Yudof.  Here are some excerpts from that report, which included substantial testimony from Jewish members of the UCSC campus and general communities:

"Jewish students are confronting significant and difficult climate issues as a result of activities on campus which focus specifically on Israel, its right to exist and its treatment of Palestinians…[and] which portray Israel and, many times, Jews in ways which project hostility, engender a feeling of isolation, and undermine Jewish students' sense of belonging and engagement with outside communities. The issue of anti-Zionism activities was a focal point of our discussions with all of the students, Jewish organizations, faculty and administration."

"One of the most significant issues expressed by Jewish students, faculty and community members is their difficulty with sponsorship of university departments, campus organizations and others of events which are very clearly designed to promote themes which are biased and unbalanced in their portrayal of Zionism and Israel. The students indicated that University administrative offices, such as the multicultural or cross cultural centers, sponsor student organization events that are dominated by groups adopting anti-Zionist platforms. Others indicated that they were doubtful that academic departments exhibited balance in their sponsorship or hosting of events -- symposiums, speaker series, etc. -- as they related to Israel and Zionism.”

"What came through in our discussions...was a sense from Jewish students and others of a double standard when it comes to the themes and language used by those protesting Israel and its policies. Specifically, Jewish students described the use of language and imagery which they believe would not be tolerated by faculty and administration, or would at least be denounced with more force, if similar themes and language were directed at other groups on campus.” 

“[P]ro-Zionist Jewish students and faculty perceive a difference in how the movement against Israel and Zionism is viewed and addressed by those in faculty and administration responsible for dealing with campus climate."

We are aware that in response to the controversy surrounding the upcoming event you have agreed to offer a joint on-campus program with the Anti-Defamation League. While this may be a step in the right direction, it is in no way sufficient to addressing the long-standing and pervasive problems that Jewish members of the campus community have been facing at UCSC, including the harmful effects of University sponsorship of unambiguously anti-Israel events.

We therefore urge you to issue a public statement in which you commit yourself to the following two recommendations from the UC Jewish Student Campus Climate Report:

1) Review UCSC’s policies on University sponsorship and neutrality and develop model institutional protocols for such activities.

2) Adopt a definition of antisemitism consistent with the working definition developed by the European Union and used by the U.S. State Department in its 2008 report on contemporary global antisemitism, and provide a model protocol for campus administrators to identify contemporary incidents of antisemitism, which may be sanctioned by University non-discrimination or anti-harassment policies.

We believe that taking these important steps will help to ensure that UCSC affords all members of its diverse community a safe, equitable and inclusive campus climate.


Sincerely,

Accuracy in Academia
Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity (AEPi)
AMCHA Initiative
American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
American Freedom Alliance
Americans for Peace and Tolerance
California Association of Scholars
David Horowitz Freedom Center
Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET)
Hasbara Fellowships
Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel
Iranian American Jewish Federation
Middle East Political and Information Network (MEPIN)
Proclaiming Justice to the Nations 
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East 
Simon Wiesenthal Center
StandWithUs
Students and Parents Against Campus Anti-Semitism
The Lawfare Project
Training and Education About the Middle East (T.E.A.M.)
Zionist Organization of America

Cc: UC President Janet Napolitano
      UC Regents
      UCSC Associate Chancellor Ashish Sahni
      UCSC Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Herbert Lee
      UCSC Assistant Campus Diversity Officer Sheree Marlowe
      Jewish Community Leaders


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Thank you for your actions to protect Jewish students.

Warm regards,

AMCHA Initiative

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Is it not also curious that the event not only coincides with the recent Martin Luther King Day but also today's Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which Europe commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz? I guess that fact was lost on Blumenthal.