A faculty group contacted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to air its grievances in response to efforts by Jewish and other organizations to remove antisemitism from proposed public-school curriculums.
The Sept. 8 letter from the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council named Jews as “highly funded lobby groups” and claimed that efforts to counter antisemitism found in previous ethnic studies and diversity curriculum amounted to “censorship” and “racism.”
It was open in stating that anti-Zionism would be among the “animating commitments” of the proposed courses, “part and parcel” with the other subjects.
In response, AMCHA Initiative brought together 99 organizations to oppose the council’s claims. The coalition stated that “UC faculty driving the ethnic studies admission requirement proposal view opposition to Zionism and activism to harm the Jewish state and its supporters as core components of their ethnic studies discipline.”
Groups opposing the council’s antisemitism include the American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, World Jewish Congress North America, Club Z, the Association of Jewish Psychologists, the Daniel Pearl Foundation, the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.