UC Student Groups Harass and Defame AMCHA Co-founder
ACTION ALERT: Urge UC President and Chancellors to Take Immediate Action
AMCHA
Initiative Co-founder and University of California Santa Cruz faculty
member Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is currently the target of a vicious
coordinated campaign of harassment and defamation by the Committee for
Justice in Palestine (CJP) and other affiliated Students for Justice in
Palestine (SJP) groups on UC campuses.
For
the past several years, Tammi has been alerting the the Jewish
community and general public to alarming incidents of antisemitism on
college campuses, including those perpetrated by the SJP and Muslim
Students Association (MSA) groups and their members.
In
retaliation, members of several SJP/CJP groups on UC campuses have
recently launched a series of efforts to discredit and silence Tammi,
including:
-
a defamatory on-line petition accusing Rossman-Benjamin of racism and censorship and calling on UC President Mark Yudof to condemn her
-
defamatory posters about Rossman-Benjamin widely posted on the UCSC campus
-
posting over a dozen videos on YouTube that characterize her as “hateful” and “dangerous”
-
instructing SJP students UC-wide to file hate/bias reports against her on their respective campuses
-
passing resolutions condemning her for “inflammatory, hateful, and racist assumptions” in the UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, and UC Irvine student senates
-
working with groups sympathetic to terrorists (eg. the International Solidarity Movement) and associated on-line publications (the Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss) to more widely circulate these defamatory materials about her.
Tammi
believes SJP and CJP's virulent response is just one example of the
ongoing intimidation and bullying tactics used by these groups to
silence anyone who speaks out against their antisemitic behavior,
including the following:
-
MSA
and SJP members have been responsible for physically harassing and
assaulting Jewish students, vandalizing Jewish communal property,
disrupting pro-Israel speakers, and aggressively confronting Jewish
students at events.
-
MSA
and SJP chapters consistently sponsor speakers, films, and exhibits
that engage in discourse or use language considered antisemitic by the
U.S. State Department.
-
MSA
and SJP chapters associate with individuals and organizations that are
linked to terrorist activity and call for violence against Jews.
-
As
a result of the hostile environment created by the activities above,
Jewish students have reported feeling physically unsafe, harassed, and
intimidated, and some have even reported leaving the university,
avoiding certain parts of campus, and hiding symbols of their
Jewishness.
Tammi
has written a letter to UC President Mark Yudof documenting the
antisemitic behavior of SJP and MSA groups on UC campuses and calling on
UC leaders to take immediate action by:
-
Investigating
these groups to determine if they have violated university policies or
state and federal laws, and if so, to take appropriate disciplinary
measures that ensure the safety and well-being of all members of the
campus community.
-
Publicly
affirming the right of all members of the campus community to speak out
against anti-Jewish bigotry without fear of harassment, demonization,
and defamation.
You can see Tammi’s letter to UC President Yudof here.
Please support Tammi's efforts by writing a letter to UC President Yudof (President@ucop.edu)
expressing your concern about the behavior of SJP/CJP and MSA students
and urging him and all UC Chancellor to take the above two actions
immediately.
For a list of UC leaders that you may wish to copy on your letter, see here.
Please copy or blind-copy the AMCHA Initiative on your letter (Administrator@AMCHAinitiative.org)
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