Hat tip AMCHA Initiative and The Israel Group
The AMCHA Initiative, an organization established to fight campus anti-Semitism, has gathered some 80 organizations together to write a letter to the head of the California State University system, Tim White, asking how Jewish students can be protected from being negatively singled out with the mandated (AB 1460) teaching of Critical Ethnic Studies. Under this theory of teaching, one of the points covered is Israel's alleged "oppression" of Palestinians. Another aspect of this twisted teaching is that Jews are "privileged whites". This, says the AMCHA Initiative quite rightly, singles out Jewish students for harassment, already a problem on campuses not just in California but around the nation.
https://amchainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Orgs-to-CSU-Ethnic-Studies-Requirement-10.27.20.pdf
"The “ethnic studies core competencies” developed by the CSU Council on Ethnic Studies, and recently approved by both the CSU Academic Senate and your own office, provide strong evidence that these required courses will be based on Critical Ethnic Studies, a very narrow conceptualization of the field that limits its focus to "four racialized core groups," is firmly rooted in ideologies that divide society into oppressed and oppressor groups based primarily on race, and, as part of its disciplinary mission, promotes political activism to challenge systems of "hierarchy and oppression" as defined by the discipline’s practitioners. In fact, the CSU core competencies don’t only encourage politically-motivated student activism based on these ideologies, they actually require it."
"In this regard, we are particularly concerned about the safety and well-being of CSU's Jewish students, who are not only likely to be targeted for hatred and harm because of their membership in what critical theory derogatorily labels a "racially privileged" identity group, but also because of Jewish students’ identification with and support for the Jewish state of Israel. Since its inception, Critical Ethnic Studies and its practitioners have falsely and negatively portrayed Zionism as a “racist,” “colonialist,” “system of oppression” that must be dismantled, condoned terrorism against Israel as a justified tool of “resistance” and “liberation,” and championed anti-Israel academic, economic and cultural boycotts as legitimate "antiracist practices." For example, Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader, a required textbook in an introductory course on Ethnic Studies at SFSU, includes several essays that demonize Israel with false accusations of “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “ethnic cleansing,” and an essay by the volume’s chief editor “calls on academics and others to mobilize support within the academy for the BDS Campaign.” Alarmingly, CSU ethnic studies faculty who have long used their classrooms for anti-Zionist advocacy and activism can now find justification for their politically motivated and directed behavior in the recently approved “ethnic studies core competencies.” Such highly politicized and unprofessional behavior on the part of ethnic studies faculty not only deprives CSU students of accurate information about a complex topic of global importance and tramples on their right to be educated and not politically indoctrinated, it has a well-documented history of inciting hatred and harm towards Israel’s on-campus supporters, particularly Jewish students."
Fousesquawk comment: I concur with the letter. Having spent 18 years teaching part-time at UC Irvine, I have personally seen and experienced the division that is happening between ethnic groups. Even more, I have seen the anti-Semitism that plays out on campus directed at Jewish students. This Critical Ethnic Studies, rather than bringing people together, only exacerbates tensions. Dragging the Israel-Palestinian conflict into it in favor of one side (Palestinians) has already caused enough misdirected anger at Jewish-American students especially those who support Israel.
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