University of California- Irvine & Its Coddled Anti-Semitism

As I said above, I wanted to read up and view the video before judging.  Watching the video, I feel the administration and the faculty acted properly.  Some students were obviously there with a plan to cause trouble them leave peacefully.

I really have no idea how they could have handled it better.

Plus my son-in-law is an alumni of UCI and he's a nice guy.

big state and given the condition of journalism in this country you may or may not be aware of what goes on in your enormous  backyard. UC-I has been hosting its Hate Week for some years now, and the event has fostered a destructive climate on campus. The Oren event is just one example of what goes on there. I have included here some information on the topic that I hope you might find interesting. One of my favorites is the essay by Judea Pearl for the SPME site.

You ask me: "How do YOU think this incident should have been handled?" I personally do not believe it benefits our country to be tolerant of the intolerant. In this case, it's my view that a tolerance of intolerance mindset should never set the tone for a college or university campus. The students silenced Oren. Their actions were not an exercise of free speech, but actions of hatred and intolerance. (May I dare say racism?) It was there reason for being there. Since they were successful, I wonder who their next target will be.

I believe tolerance of intolerance identifies what is happening at the UC-I campus. I also believe the administration did not handle this incident correctly, because it is a university and the students actions prevented him from speaking. He should have been moved to another venue, and the offending students should have been barred from attendance.

You, Izzie, do not agree with me, and so we will just have to realize we look at the world differently. Anyway, I do hope you find the material below interesting reading.

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1.) This first reading is a UC-I Jewish Student's view of what she experiences at UC-Irvine. It is part of a 2009 report by the Orange Country Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism

http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/another-jewish-student-speaks-out-hatred-protected-at-uci/

Another Jewish Student Speaks out: Hatred Protected at UCI

2.) If you go to YouTube you will find the comments on the following UC-I Hate Week video interesting:

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3.) The Little Green Footbal site also covered Hate Week as far back as 2006, so it is an event that has some history. http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/20657_MSU_Hate_Week_at_UCI_A_Report

MSU Hate Week at UCI, A Report

Fri, May 19, 2006 at 6:00:18 pm PDT

Universities, like religions, are often judged not by what they preach but by what they tolerate.

This painful truth came to mind upon reading Neelie Genya Milstein’s op-ed article in these pages, “Protecting Hate at UC Irvine” (May 22, 2009), in which she describes the atmosphere at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), where the Muslim Students Union (MSU) celebrated a week-long lynching of Jewish identity under the banner “Israel: The Politics of Genocide.”

“At UCI,” Milstein wrote, “hate is a yearly event that lasts for a week. It isn’t just any hatred. It is hatred directed at me, my friends, my community and my history.”

“You are a Jew; a proud Jew, a proud supporter of Israel. Now you are seen as nothing but a racist murderer on your own campus,” she wrote.

Milstein is not alone. Her frustration is shared by many students and faculty at Irvine. What is happening at UCI is part of a coordinated assault on Jewish identity at campuses across the nation, an assault that threatens to erode the dignity, values and peoplehood of all Jewish students in the generation to come. We must understand its anatomy, for universities hold the key to our future.

UCI has long been a proving ground for orchestrated Israel defamation. The combination of a large and highly motivated Muslim student organization, an affluent and supportive Muslim community, a non-confrontational university administration and a divided (what’s new?) Jewish leadership has turned the UCI campus into a veritable petri dish to test the limits of hate, bigotry and intimidation. Pro-Israel students, with the help of organizations like Hillel, StandWithUs and others, have mobilized to reach out to the MSU, but have been unable to temper the rising intensity of their assault. (See Brad Greenberg’s “Quiet War on Campus: Israel Remains Under Attack Despite Fewer Public Protests,” Jewish Journal, Aug. 22, 2008.)

Many Orwellian hyperboles were first tested at UCI, among them: “Genocide in Jenin,” “Zionism is Cancer,” “The World without Israel,” “Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine,” “Holocaust in the Holy Land,” “Israel: The Fourth Reich.” This year, the masters of absurdity upped the ante with mental deformities such as: “Allah is a terrorist” “The Zionist-Jew is a party of Satan,” along with images of Anne Frank in a Palestinian kaffiyeh, blood-drenched Israeli flags and heroic Hamas fighters advancing the cause of peace - all in the prime location on campus, near the flagpoles and the administration building, giving the hate fest the appearance of a university-sponsored event.

Naturally, despite their tireless and honest efforts, university administrators have been powerless to prevent UCI from becoming a national focus of anxieties and expectations. Indeed, on the day the official UCI marquee at the entrance to campus displayed the “Israel-Genocide” sign, I received messages from colleagues as far away as Indiana asking whether California Education Code allows such use of the University of California name. “What next for us?” they asked.

On the other side of the fault line, anti-Israel propagandists have been watching UCI performances thirsting for new ideas and new opportunities for upcoming hate fests on other campuses. I wonder, for example, whether Susan Slyomovics, the director of UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, would have mustered the imagination to choreograph her famous Gaza Symposium last Jan. 22 had she not been emboldened by Irvine’s 2005 workshop “A World Without Israel.” For readers who missed Slyomovics’ show, it was described by a foreign diplomat (not Israeli) in the audience as “the dirtiest Israel-bashing and indeed full-fledged anti-Semitic hate fest I have experienced in my two and a half years in this city” (see my column “Dust Over Campus Life: UCLA at a Crossroad,” Feb. 20, 2009).

Likewise, I would speculate that UCLA Chancellor Gene Block is keenly tuned to the happenings at UCI, for he is facing a similar dilemma: How long can a university refrain from confronting obsessive Israel bashers/deniers - bent on stifling debate and trampling campus norms of civil discourse - and still convince the public that students should feel safe and welcome, and their sensitivities respected?

In 2005, in response to faculty complaints over the hate speeches by MSU’s speaker Malik Ali, UCI Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez wrote that the administration is “legally prohibited from either proscribing or prescribing the content of speech, as long as speakers conform to campus policies and applicable laws.”

This is no longer the current stance of the university. In a recent letter, UCI Chancellor Michael Drake wrote: “We must reject disrespectful and hateful slurs, particularly those based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or any other fundamental aspect of identity…. We reject anti-Semitism. We reject anti-Islamic rhetoric. We reject de-humanizing stereotypes. We embrace dialogue and mutual understanding.”

Theoretically, this is precisely what Milstein requested: “I am not asking the UCI administration to censor the hate speech. I am asking them to denounce this style of rhetoric and displays just as they would denounce campaigns for white supremacy, sexism, or Islamophobia.”

But there is a catch that lies at the core of the issue, which only a few bold university administrators have thus far dared to address. Does the content of “Israel: The Politics of Genocide” fall within Drake’s categories of what “we reject,” or is it deemed to be a commendable model of academic free speech?

Unfortunately, the declarative “we reject anti-Semitism” does not get us closer to answering this question. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and UCI’s MSU have learned to absolve themselves skillfully of charges of anti-Semitism; after all, it is only the “Zionist Jew” who is the Satan, not all Jews. (Imagine Dutch politician Geert Wilders saying: “It is only Sunni Muslims who are morally inferior, not all Muslims.”)

I believe that one of the greatest mistakes Jewish advocacy has made in the past decade has been to argue that anti-Zionism is dangerous because it is a thin cover of anti-Semitism. We should have exposed the immoral character of anti-Zionism in itself and demanded that Israel’s statehood be recognized as a “fundamental aspect of Jewish identity.” As Drake implied in his letter, religion has no monopoly on human sensitivity or group identity.

Drake’s letter does not identify code-breakers, nor does he specify any offenses. It reminds me of the vague anti-terrorism fatwa that American Muslim organizations issued in 2005, a week after the London bombing, which went through a great linguistic effort not to name Bin Laden or Al Qaeda as offenders, and which rendered the fatwa nonbinding. Thus, even if anti-Zionism rhetoric is explicitly recognized as offensive activity at UCI, the MSU will not see itself even remotely involved - naming the offender is essential for reversing the climb in campus temperature.

In 2007, Vice Chancellor Gomez wrote to complaining UCI faculty: “In all honesty, I get dismayed at the fact that even though we have been deeply engaged in creating a safe and dynamic campus community, the attention that continues to be focused on UCI is both distorted and negative.” In fairness to Gomez, the UCI administration has indeed invested a tremendous amount of time, resources and goodwill in efforts to restore civility to the UCI campus. However, the latest MSU carnival proves that there are fundamental limits to what non-confrontational policies can achieve in an academic environment that finds itself attacked by professional, well-funded hate crusaders aiming to test the patience of that environment. The 2009 spectacle made a blatant mockery of everything the administration has labored to develop, including, I worry, the Daniel Pearl Muslim-Jewish Dialogue that UCI hosted in May 2005.

It is time for the university to reassess the way it tolerates the intolerant. Its legal requirement to tolerate that which is wrong does not diminish its moral obligation to point to that which is right.

Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after his son. He is a co-editor of “I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl ” (Jewish Lights, 2004).

be brain dead to not know what was going to happen to Ambassador Oren given the history of the Muslim Student Union. Since the administration did not feel the need to confront MSU students early on and inform them of expectations for the  event or tell them that demonstrations would not be allowed in the auditorium but could occur outside the venue, the administration should have had alternatives set up. (The administration on most campuses can move mountains when necessary.) On the other hand, UC-I's administrations inability to do so only underscores its incompetence.

Oh and by the way, Izzie, just for clarification let me make clear that I do not feel that UC-I is an outstanding university. In fact, I do not feel it deserves that impressive title in any way, shape, or form, since it hasn't seen fit to fulfill it's most basic responsibility, i.e., the guarantee of a free and open environment where a marketplace of ideas can flourish. Many faculty and staff members have repeatedly asked for an end to hate week activities to no avail.The fact that UC-I has allowed Jewish students on its campus to have to endure the insult of its annual hate-fest is beyond the pale and particularly insulting to me as an American, as it should be to all Americans. If it were Muslim students that had to endure that hateful environment, I would feel the same way.

I am posting a new AP story on UC-I below that highlights Jewish reaction to Chancellor Drake's inability to condemn anti-Semitic speech on campus and his role in enabling a history of "bigotry, discrimination and the violation of civil rights" by the school's Muslim Student Union.

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - The Zionist Organization of America on Tuesday asked potential students and donors to the University of California,Irvine to look elsewhere after months of growing tension between Jewish and Muslim students.

 

In a statement, the New York-based organization lambasted Chancellor Michael Drake for not condemning anti-Semitic speech on campus and enabling a years-long history of "bigotry, discrimination and the violation of civil rights" by the school's Muslim Student Union.

 

"We're not asking the university to infringe on anyone's free speech rights, but our contention all along is that the chancellor has his own free speech rights, and for whatever reason, he's refusing to exercise them," said Susan Tuchman, director of the ZOA's Center for Law and Justice. "He can come out and condemn the speech as hurtful and anti-Semitic."

 

Drake and the school had no comment on the statement, spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said.

 

Hadeer Soliman, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Student Union, did not immediately return an e-mail seeking comment.

 

For years, tension has simmered between Jewish and Muslim student groups on the suburban campus about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles. But emotions reached a fever pitch earlier this month when 11 students were arrested by campus police for repeatedly interrupting a talk by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.

 

The Muslim Student Union had issued an e-mail condemning Oren's appearance but said it did not organize the protest.

 

Three of the arrested students were from the neighboring University of California, Riverside campus, and it was unclear if the others were MSU members, Lawhon said.

 

In a Monday editorial in the campus newspaper, Soliman defended the arrested students' right to protest and called Oren the "official representative of a state that engages in war crimes and crimes against humanity."

 

"If the university chooses to selectively enforce its policies in order to punish these students, it is undoubtedly sending a political message and chilling all students' First Amendment rights," she wrote.

 

The Muslim Student Union drew national attention in 2004 when more than two dozen students wore green stoles to their graduation. They said the stoles symbolized their faith, but others said the clothing represented allegiance to the militant group Hamas and was meant to intimidate Jewish students.

 

In 2005, the Zionist Organization of America complained to federal civil rights investigators about alleged anti-Semitic speeches by speakers invited to campus and said the university was discriminating against Jewish students by failing to take action.

 

The investigation concluded in 2007 that while some Muslim student activities could be offensive to Jewish students, the speeches and marches were based on opposition to Israeli policies, not the national origin of Jewish students.

 

ZOA has appealed that finding and another complaint is pending, said Tuchman, head of the ZOA's law center.

Last year, the ZOA also filed a complaint with the university that the Muslim Student Union was conducting fundraising for a group called Viva Palestina at a campus event and alleged that the money was supporting terrorist activities.

 

Lawhon, the school spokeswoman, said UC Irvine is still investigating whether MSU violated school policy by conducting fundraising on campus and has forwarded ZOA's concerns to the FBI.  Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, did not return a call for comment.

 

The students arrested earlier this month face disciplinary action that could range from a warning to expulsion, Lawhon said.

 

The Orange County district attorney's office will decide whether to press criminal charges when it receives arrest reports from the university police, said Susan Schroeder, district attorney spokeswoman.

 

The Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Council of American-Islamic Relations have both condemned the arrests.

 

 

you said you were going to ask a friend who attended the school what he knew of hate week.  Did you find anything out?

Lots of different cultural groups are self-isolating, not just the Jews. Lots of others are arrogant, not just the Jews. IOW, we're human. Being a self-hating anti-Semitic Jew, as many on the Left are, is to deny your own humanity and that's absurd. If some Jews are isolated, insular, maybe it's a normal reaction to the crap around them. If some seem arrogant, how common is it for bright people to be arrogant? Jews bring it on themselves? Really? Isn't that what Hitler said?