The current Jewish debate cannot end with a choice between fighting antisemites and strengthening Jewish life. Both are necessary, but neither fully answers what this moment requires.
At UCLA, faculty and departments have moved anti-Zionist activism from the margins into university life, becoming a core engine of campus antisemitism.
This week, the UC Faculty Assembly will vote on whether to adopt the proposal—a decision that will either further erode the integrity of shared governance or take a necessary step toward restoring it.
The Faculty Council’s disastrous ethnic studies admissions requirement is off the table. But vigilance is in order.
Recent actions of the Council’s leadership have provided a frightening glimpse into the kind of “defining role” that UC ethnic studies faculty intend to play in the roll-out of AB 101.
As the first school district to formalize a relationship with LESMC after Governor Newsom signed the bill mandating an ethnic studies graduation requirement, the Castro Valley school board’s decision was particularly sobering for the Jewish community.
The anti-Zionist motivated verbal harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel students is generally treated as free speech and ignored or downplayed by school administrators, while similarly harassing speech directed at other minority groups is addressed promptly and vigorously, with the harassers duly disciplined.
The LA Times Editorial Board believes AB 101 is flawed but can be rehabilitated. It cannot. Governor Newsom must veto this bill, for good.
California legislators must open their eyes to the unintended but inevitable consequences of AB 101, and the dangers they pose for California students.