Connect with us

RSS

Faculty Call on California State University System to Address Antisemitic Hatred Fueled by Professors

Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect

Over 140 faculty of the California State University (CSU) System, which serves over 450,000 students, have signed an open letter calling on chancellor Mildred García and the board of trustees to address antisemitic behavior that anti-Zionist faculty have defended as free speech and academic freedom.

“Since the massacre of October 7th, we have watched in horror and bewilderment as individual faculty and even whole departments have fomented a hostile and threatening climate for Jewish and Israeli members of the CSU community,” said the letter, which was organized by the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), an education nonprofit. “In recent weeks, this has been further exacerbated by new anti-Israel rallies and illegal encampments on several campuses, which are fueling antisemitism.”

The letter explained that anti-Zionist faculty who engage in antisemitic conduct often “conflate” academic freedom with free speech, believing that the former grants them the right to promote racial hatred and discrimination on their campuses. At the same time, the letter continued, they advocate policies  — such as an academic boycott of Israel — which would strip Jews and Israelis who support Israel of their right to free speech and academic freedom.

“As defined by the American Association of University Professors, academic freedom ‘is a professional right extended to members of the profession and is subject to certain limitations. Academic freedom means that faculty are free to engage in the professionally competent forms of inquiry and teaching that are necessary for the purposes of the university. It does not mean that individual faculty members are free to teach or publish whatever they want without repercussions,’” the letter continued. “Under the guise of academic freedom, some faculty have pushed a partisan, antisemitic, and anti-Israel political agenda in and out of the classroom and have encouraged their students to do the same.”

A slew of incidents, which have been undertaken at the urging of anti-Zionist faculty, prompted the letter. Throughout the CSU system, it said, students have posted pictures of Hamas terrorists, called for a genocide of Jews in Israel, and paid antisemitic speakers to lecture about anti-Zionism. The letter added that Jewish and Israeli faculty have faced civil rights violations, including being denied approval to teach subjects in which they are experts, threatened with termination, and physically blocked from showing up to work by mobs of anti-Zionist students.

The formation of several Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapters at CSU campuses is the most recent source of the problem, the letter said, explaining: “These chapters’ chief aim is to bring about the academic boycott of Israel — a key component of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — and establish it on their campuses, in their classrooms, and in other educational spaces. FJP works with Students for Justice in Palestine and other radical antisemitic and anti-Israel groups to push any faculty, staff, or students who disagree with them off campus.”

The document concluded that CSU should immediately act to prevent and protect antisemitic discrimination in accordance with Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act.

The faculty letter came two weeks after Mike Lee — the president of Sonoma State University, which is part of the CSU system — was placed on leave by García for issuing a statement which announced his agreement to adopt the BDS movement in exchange for students ending a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” they had erected on campus. Lee was reportedly not authorized to make such a concession.

An email shared by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter shows that Lee agreed to subject “all” the university’s financial endeavors to SJP’s scrutiny, implement a full academic boycott of Israel — including shutting down study abroad programs in the Jewish state — create a “Palestinian” curriculum within the department of ethnic studies, and issue a statement calling for a “permanent cease-fire in Gaza.”

In a letter which described Lee’s actions as “insubordinate,” CSU announced the next day that Lee would be stepping away from his duties temporarily.

“That message was sent without the appropriate approvals,” García said of Lee’s campus-wide email concerning the agreement with anti-Israel protesters. “The board’s leadership and I are actively reviewing the matter and will provide additional details in the near future. For now, because of this insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave.”

García added, “I want to acknowledge how deeply concerned I am about the impact the statement has had on the Sonoma State community and how challenging and painful it will be for many of our students and community members to see and read.”

The power of faculty — an overwhelming majority of whom identify as leftist — to govern the university and set the tone of its culture has been a key source of radicalism and anti-American ideas that have wielded significant influence in the academy, according to campus antisemitism expert Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who founded the AMCHA Initiative watchdog group.

“Faculty run the university, and they are out of control. They have tenure, and university presidents do not. So, it’s not that administrators are capitulating to students. They are capitulating to the faculty, because they know that if they run afoul of the faculty, they are history,” she told The Algemeiner earlier this month during an interview.

“This situation is not sustainable, and we have to focus specifically on the faculty,” Rossman-Benjamin continued. “Take away their shared governance. Take away their tenure. You have to get rid of tenure because it has protected faculty whose goal is to upend and undermine the university itself. It’s not just about social justice — their aim for decades has been to destroy the university as we know it and to use the university as a tool for revolutionizing society. If you can’t recognize how illegitimate that is, then the universities are lost. We will lose if we do not have the will to take them on.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Faculty Call on California State University System to Address Antisemitic Hatred Fueled by Professors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.

The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.

They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.

Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.

Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.

The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.

The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.

He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.

The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.

Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.

Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.

Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.

Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.

The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News