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Anti-Zionist Faculty at UC Santa Cruz Defy the Law and Betray Jewish Students
McHenry Library at University of California, Santa Cruz. Photo: Jay Miller/Wikimedia Commons
Harvard University, responding to two anti-discrimination lawsuits threatening its Federal funding, recently agreed to acknowledge on its official website, “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Conduct that would violate the Non-Discrimination Policy if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the policy if directed toward Zionists.”
The same day that Harvard’s remarkable agreement was announced, the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) — which was a party to a recent resolution agreement following a Federal investigation into charges that its faculty created a hostile environment for Jewish students – made a different kind of announcement, which thumbed its nose at the US government and doubled down on condoning faculty antisemitism.
Prominently displayed on UCSC’s campus-wide Events page was an announcement for an Education Department talk subtitled, “Centering an Anti-Zionist Commitment in (Early Childhood) Teacher Education,” whose speaker would explore “why and how it is important to center Palestine and an anti-Zionist commitment within teacher education.”
The phrase “anti-Zionist commitment” made it crystal clear that the speaker would not be advocating for teaching children how to critique the policies of a sovereign state. Rather, it seemed to imply that she would be arguing for instilling in children as young as pre-school age a visceral hatred for Israel, which happens to be home to half of world Jewry and central to the identity of the vast majority of Jews on the planet.
The only thing missing from UCSC’s announcement of this event were the words “Jews not welcome here” – though that message came through loud and clear.
Tellingly, this talk was also promoted on the website of UCSC’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter, a group that shares the speaker’s “anti-Zionist commitment” and passion for expressing that commitment in educational spaces. It’s worth noting that more than 40% of the Education Department’s core faculty have publicly allied themselves with this group, which was established a few weeks after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre, mutilation, rape, and kidnapping of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians.
UCSC’s FJP is one of more than 160 chapters of the FJP National Network, a project of the US arm of the Hamas-linked Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Established as the academic brigade of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, FJP is tasked with promoting an academic boycott of Israel, or academic BDS, urging faculty to boycott their school’s Israel-related programming, agreements, or projects, with the ultimate goal of eliminating Zionism and Zionists from academia.
Since its founding, UCSC FJP has diligently executed its marching orders, engaging in academic BDS-compliant behavior that harms their own students, especially those who are Jewish, including by: calling on fellow faculty members to cancel classes “in solidarity with Palestine” and praising graduate instructors for withholding students’ final grades to blackmail the university into boycotting Israel; co-authoring statements demanding the school cut all ties with Israeli universities, including popular study abroad programs, and boycott Jewish campus organizations such as Hillel; and rallying students and faculty to participate in a “March Against Zionism” intended to disrupt a student-organized “Jewish Unity Walk,” by posting to the FJP Instagram page: “UCSC… Let’s make it clear — zionism is not welcome on our campus”.
The school’s Education Department is not the only academic unit with a significant number of faculty openly expressing an “anti-Zionist commitment.” Nearly half of the UCSC Anthropology Department’s core faculty are affiliated with FJP or have signed a public statement in support of academic BDS, as has one-quarter of the Literature Department.
But the true prize goes to the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department (CRES), 85% of whose core faculty are either members of FJP, have expressed public support for academic BDS, or both.
Several CRES professors brazenly display their “anti-Zionist commitment” on their office doors, visually accosting the unsuspecting Jewish passer-by with a bevy of posters and stickers expressing deep animus towards the Jewish State and, presumably, Jews who identify with it. They contain images that speak volumes: a rifle-toting keffiyeh-clad woman; an enormous fist over the words Free Gaza; and a map of Israel draped entirely in a keffiyeh next to the words “Free Palestine”.
Yet even more disturbing than faculty using their positions to express their “anti-Zionist commitment” are whole departments engaging in such behavior, with CRES again leading the pack.
In 2021, CRES issued a statement pledging departmental allegiance to “the struggle for Palestinian liberation” and bringing academic BDS into their teaching and research. CRES also helped launch and closely collaborated with the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ), an antisemitic organization dedicated to producing pseudo-scholarship opposing Zionism and the existence of the Jewish State.
Soon after the October 7 Hamas attack, CRES issued a statement blaming Israel for Hamas’ atrocities, shut down its department to protest Israel’s defensive actions, and urged students to boycott their classes. The department also held a teach-in promising to help graduate teaching assistants “contextualize the unfolding genocide in Gaza” in their classrooms, promoted the student protest “Shut it Down for Palestine,” that closed off all access to the university for several hours, and prominently advertised explicitly anti-Zionist statements.
CRES also acted as the de-facto sponsor of FJP, publicizing an invitation for faculty to join the newly established chapter, which remained on the CRES homepage for the rest of the academic year and beyond.
This academic year, despite efforts by the UC Regents to curb departmental abuse, CRES has continued to express its “anti-Zionist commitment” with impunity. The department’s Fall 2024 newsletter opened with a message from the FJP-affiliated academic BDS-supporting CRES chair, who wrote, “As we return from summer, I want to linger on the joyful note we ended last academic year after feeling uplifted by the solidarity, vision, and conviction of our students and faculty fighting to free Palestine from a globally supported genocide.”
In addition to hosting a series of anti-Zionist events and offering a new course on “Palestine” taught by a professor who has endorsed the call to bring academic BDS into her classroom, this year CRES continued its unabashed promotion of anti-Zionist activism, including by advertising FJP’s “Walk Out for Palestine” event urging “No School, No Work,” which grotesquely took place on the one-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, and inviting students to join SJP and participate in their “Student Intifada.”
Unfortunately, Jewish students at UCSC who identify with Israel don’t only have to worry about the professors who teach them, but also those serving as administrators tasked with providing academic and social support – many of whom have all endorsed an academic boycott whose goal is to purge Zionism and Zionists from campus life.
An even graver threat to Jewish students is the UCSC Academic Senate. Tasked with reining in faculty abuse, it has instead defended and amplified it. An FJP-authored resolution intended to shield anti-Zionist faculty from accountability was overwhelmingly passed by the Senate. Perhaps the fact that one of its five officers and 20% of its Executive Committee have either expressed support for academic BDS, affiliate with FJP, or both, has something to do with the Academic Senate’s abdication of a crucial shared governance responsibility.
Given the pervasiveness of anti-Zionist expression among faculty at UCSC, it’s hardly surprising that UCSC scores a “5 – Extreme” on AMCHA Initiative’s new Anti-Zionist Faculty Barometer, ranking 4th highest out of 730 schools. Without significant intervention and institutional fortitude, the problem will only get worse. But what can be done?
First and foremost, meaningful steps must be taken to ban the implementation of academic BDS and its promotion by UCSC faculty. A terrorist-linked boycott that shuts down the academic freedom and educational opportunities of students and faculty and incites virulent antisemitism has no place on a college campus.
Next, the administration must acknowledge that FJP, the faculty group expressly established to implement academic BDS on U.S. campuses, must be prohibited from operating on campus, receiving university funds or recognition, or partnering with any official university office, department, or registered student organization.
Individual professors who abuse their positions to express their “anti-Zionist commitment” should be sanctioned up to and including dismissal. Such egregiously unprofessional behavior would never be tolerated in any other kind of workplace and should certainly not be tolerated at a publicly-funded university. While faculty are free to engage in political advocacy and activism on their own time and dime, guaranteeing they will not bring their political commitments onto campus and into their classrooms or administrative offices should be a requirement of continued employment at the University.
Departments that believe working towards dismantling the Jewish state is part of their core disciplinary mission should themselves be dismantled.
An Academic Senate that screams loudly to protect the academic freedom of anti-Zionist faculty but loses its voice entirely when it comes to prosecuting those same faculty members’ malpractice and abuse has forfeited the privilege of shared governance, and should not be allowed to have a say in the operation of the University.
UCSC officials who are unwilling or unable to rein in out-of-control anti-Zionist faculty and departmental abuse and ensure that the campus is in compliance with the law should be replaced.
And finally, if UCSC continues to allow faculty antisemitism to flourish, the new administration in Washington should make good on its threat, backed by law, to remove the school’s Federal funding.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a faculty member at the University of California for 20 years.
The post Anti-Zionist Faculty at UC Santa Cruz Defy the Law and Betray Jewish Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.