University of California, Davis suspended a professor, who posted anti-Israel messages on social media a few days after Oct. 7, “without pay for one academic quarter at the end of 2025,” according to Bill Kisliuk, manager of strategic and critical communications at the public school.
Kisliuk didn’t name the professor—who is widely identified as Jemma DeCristo, assistant professor of American studies—but he responded to JNS queries that included DeCristo’s name without correcting JNS and sharing quotes about the “faculty member.”
“The professor has not taught since spring 2023,” he told JNS. “The period when the professor was suspended is the only period that pay has been withheld.” He added that “the faculty member is not currently teaching” and “remains with the university.”
That appears to mean that the public university has paid DeCristo for two years during which time the professor hasn’t taught. JNS asked the university if that is the case.
The public school responded broadly about faculty roles. “Faculty responsibilities, in addition to teaching, include scholarship and research, as well as work on behalf of departmental and university committees,” Kisliuk said.
Rabbi Ben Herman, senior rabbi of Mosaic Law Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Sacramento, told JNS that it’s “repugnant” that DeCristo has been paid for the two years and “was only given a slap on the wrist.” (DeCristo earns $116,800 annually, per Los Angeles Times reporting in January 2025.)
“The proof is in the pudding as to why many Jewish students do not feel safe at UC Davis,” he told JNS.
The professor has deleted the social media post, which stated, in part, that “Zionist journalists” should “fear us.”
DeCristo added in the since-deleted October 2023 post that “we have easy access” to “all these Zionist journalists, who spread propaganda and misinformation.” The professor wrote that the journalists have “addresses” and “kids in school” and added, in a post with knife, axe and blood drop emojis, that “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.”
Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, welcomed the news of DeCristo’s suspension but told JNS that it’s “unacceptable that she is kept on salary while she offers no apology and merely makes a joke of threatening violence against people who support Israel.”
A nonprofit that partners with StandWithUs filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education in 2024 alleging that the public school failed “to take disciplinary actions against DeCristo, UC Davis students and other faculty for violent rhetoric on social media posts advocating for, justifying or celebrating the murder of Jews.”
“This kind of language targeting Israelis, Jews and Zionists and anyone who supports Israel’s right to exist cannot be tolerated, especially at a public university receiving federal funding,” Rothstein told JNS.
Kurt Schwartz, CEO of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, told JNS that “when anti-Israel extremists at UCLA excluded Jewish students from campus, a federal judge appropriately and strongly condemned the university.”
“The judge’s message in that case was clear. By failing to confront the problem in the name of ‘de-escalation,’ the university was effectively facilitating the discrimination and antisemitism,” Schwartz said.
“By continuing to employ a professor, who incited armed violence against ‘Zionists’ and their children after only a two-month loss of pay, which is nothing more than a slap on the wrist, they are effectively facilitating the hostile atmosphere that Jewish students face on UC campuses,” he told JNS.
Seth Brysk, Northern California regional director at the American Jewish Committee, told JNS that “DeCristo’s actions created significant pain and disruption on campus and represented a serious lack of judgment.”
“Regardless of her excuses, her expressions were abhorrent and potentially dangerous,” he said. “At a time when antisemitism is at record levels, words matter more than ever.”
UC Davis shared an Aug. 21, 2025, letter with JNS in which the university chancellor recommended that the professor, whose name was redacted, be censured for the social media post. He also said he was suspending the professor from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 and withholding the person’s paychecks due on Oct. 1 and Nov. 1, but not the wages that had been prepaid over the summer. (The Chronicle of Higher Education first reported on the letter.)
The public school also shared a copy of its internal investigation conducted in June 2024 by the then-dean of its law school, in collaboration with a law firm, with JNS.
The document revealed that DeCristo told investigators that the post was meant to be satirical. DeCristo did not want to apologize or clarify the statement and said that whenever the matter is discussed publicly, DeCristo receives threats, per the document. (JNS sought comment from DeCristo.)
The investigators stated that while DeCristo “wrote the post to be interpreted as a sarcastic response to distressing geopolitical events,” DeCristo “failed to reckon with the suffering of others that the post caused” and “violated policy by engaging in unacceptable conduct subject to discipline.”
