amcha

UC Berkeley Suspends and Reinstates Course on Palestine

During the fall semester of 2016, pressure on UC Berkeley administrators from off campus organizations resulted in the suspension of a student led course on Palestine – Ethnic Studies 198: Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis.

The cancellation of the course was a violation of free speech and academic freedom and raised a number of questions about governance and procedure at the university. This marks the second time  that an anti-Palestinian organization has attempted to cancel a student led course on Palestine at the UC system.

After strong pushback from students, faculty, lawyers, and academic associations, the course was formally reinstated on September 19th, 2016.

Relevant links regarding the issue are below:

Pressure letter led by AMCHA Initiative and other groups

Palestine Legal Letter

Statement by students of Ethnic Studies 198

Analysis by Academe Blog

Electronic Intifada Coverage

Middle East Studies Association Letter

California Scholars for Academic Freedom Letter

Palestine Legal Statement on Reinstatement of Ethnic Studies 198

California lecturer caught on racist speech video threatens legal complaint after student campaign

By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz in California — and the co-founder of a Zionist group which attempts to use legal harassment to silence and intimidate the Palestine solidarity movement — is bullying and threatening students involved in Palestine solidarity organizing.

She has also threatened to file a legal complaint against the university, and claims that students have violated campus policy by initiating a campaign urging the university to take action to condemn her.

According to students targeted by Rossman-Benjamin, these latest attacks and threats have been allowed to flourish because University of California’s top officials refuse to publicly condemn racist remarks she made.

As The Electronic Intifada has reported, Rossman-Benjamin made racist, slanderous comments against students involved in Palestine solidarity activism on campus and the Muslim Student Association in a video that surfaced earlier this year. In the video, she alleges that such students “have ties to terrorist organizations” and that “many of them are foreign students who come from countries and cultures where anti-Semitism is how they think about the world.”

Rossman-Benjamin is the co-founder of the Amcha Initiative, which has a history of legal threats against students and faculty who criticize Israeli policy. The Amcha Initiative has filed civil rights law (Title VI) complaints at the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, alleging that Jewish students face discrimination and harassment due to Palestine solidarity organizing and the holding of events critical of Israeli policy on campus. Rossman-Benjamin and Amcha filed a Title VI complaint against UC Santa Cruz several years ago, which is still pending.

Students mobilize against hate speech

Students at UC Santa Cruz with the Committee for Justice in Palestine began circulating a petition calling on the office of the university president to condemn Rossman-Benjamin’s hate speech. To date, more than 1,700 persons have signed the petition, but the University of California’s president, Mark Yudof, has so far refused to comment.

Along with the petition to the University of California president, the student group has been collecting signatures on an open letter to UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal and Dean of Students Alma Sifuentes, demanding that they condemn the lecturer’s Islamophobic and slanderous comments.

In March, the University of California at Berkeley’s student senate passed a resolution condemning Rossman-Benjamin’s hate speech and urged the UC administration “to condemn these inflammatory, hateful and racist assumptions by [UC Santa Cruz] lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin against Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian students, and Palestinian rights activists.” The resolution also urges other campuses “to pass similar bills in their respective student governments.”

Rebecca Pierce, a student at UC Santa Cruz and a member of the Committee for Justice in Palestine, helped launch a video campaign in which students give personal testimonials on their reaction to Rossman-Benjamin’s hate speech and the UC administration’s inaction. More than a dozen testimonials can be viewed on the group’s YouTube account.

Rossman-Benjamin is now, in turn, claiming “retaliation,” “defamation” and “terrorization” because of these petitions, and is threatening legal action against the UC Santa Cruz administration for the Committee for Justice in Palestine’s campaign.

Further threats

A recent exchange of emails between Rossman-Benjamin and UC Santa Cruz officials were found by members of the Committee for Justice in Palestine after being posted on two Bay Area Zionist blogs and a now-deleted post on the Amcha website. In the emails Rossman-Benjamin alleges that student conduct policies were violated by the Committee for Justice in Palestine’s public campaign urging the UC administration to condemn her comments, and by students categorizing her remarks as racist and Islamophobic. She then attempts to threaten the students and the administration with further legal complaints.

In the emails, Rossman-Benjamin further claims that the students are “engaging in harassment,” and have “communicated a serious expression with intent to terrorize [me], or have acted in reckless disregard of the risk [of doing so].”

She also threatens to file another Title VI lawsuit with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

One email also notes The Electronic Intifada’s reporting on this issue, calling it “defamatory.”

With the threat of further legal action by Amcha and Rossman-Benjamin hovering overhead, student Rebecca Pierce emphasized that the basis of the campaign is directly quoting Rossman-Benjamin’s hate speech in the video, and sharing how students are perceiving her actions.

This campaign “is perfectly acceptable, ethical, and legal forms of speech protected by the First Amendment,” Pierce told The Electronic Intifada. “I think that any claim that we’re defaming anyone is coming out of left field and is not based in any sort of truth about our campaign or about our organization.”

Prejudice and Islamophobia

However, Pierce — who has been a Hebrew language student of Rossman-Benjamin’s — told The Electronic Intifada that because the University of California’s top administration has not taken any steps to condemn the lecturer’s hate speech, students feel upset and unheard, on top of being bullied.

“I think it’s been hard to watch this whole thing unfold for a lot of reasons,” Pierce said. “Seeing the comments that were made about [the Committee for Justice in Palestine] and [the Muslim Student Association] in the first place, it was shocking and it was hard for me personally as someone who’s in those groups and has had a relationship with the person making those comments.”

Pierce added that it is up to the school to make sure that such prejudicial and Islamophobic views “aren’t allowed to be taken as the views of the university. And right now, no one’s contradicting that idea.”

Even though top University of California administration officials haven’t taken action to condemn Rossman-Benjamin’s hate speech, students with the Committee for Justice in Palestine say they don’t feel that UC Santa Cruz is indicating that the students “are in any kind of [administrative] trouble at all,” at least for now.

Read more at Electronic Intifada

Student senate at UC Berkeley passes resolution condemning lecturer’s Islamophobic hate speech

 

Student senate at UC Berkeley passes resolution condemning lecturer’s Islamophobic hate speech

By Nora Barrows-Friedman

On Wednesday evening, the Associated Students at the University of California (ASUC) at Berkeley voted unanimously to support a resolution “condeming Islamophobic hate speech at the University of California.”

The resolution focused on the recent incident of the outrageously racist and Islamophobic hate speech of Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz,who was videotaped in June 2012 saying that campus activists involved in Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim student organizations have ties to “terrorist organizations.”

Rossman-Benjamin, as The Electronic Intifada has extensively reported, is the co-founder of an outside political group, the Amcha Initiative, which seeks out students and professors who criticize Israel or engage in Palestine solidarity activism, accuse them of “anti-Semitism,” and urge university administrations — or state officials — to take punitive action against them.

Read More at Electronic Intifada

The Bill:

SB 114- AMENDED- PASSED

A Resolution Condemning Islamophobic Hate Speech at the University of California

Authored By: Senator Sadia Saifuddin
Co-sponsored By: Senator Sadia Saifuddin, Senator Klein Lieu, Senator Rosemary Hua, Senator George Kadifa, Senator Daley Vertiz

WHEREAS, the University of California has identified the issue of campus climate as a priority for administration, staff, and students across the UC system; and,

WHEREAS, the UC prides itself on welcoming students from any race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, yet pockets of racism and hate still exist on this campus which makes the UC an unwelcoming experience for certain communities; and,

WHEREAS, Islamophobia is defined as the irrational fear of Islam, Muslims, or anything related to the Islamic or Arab cultures and traditions; and,

WHEREAS, since September 11, 2001, Islamophobia has become the latest “hazing” technique across the United States and has created a chilling effect for Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians in their communities, work-environments, and campuses; and,

WHEREAS, according to a Gallup Study, 60% of of Muslim Americans say that Muslims face prejudice from Americans; and,

WHEREAS, 48% of Muslim Americans say that they have personally faced racial or religious discrimination, which is on par with Hispanic Americans (48%), and African Americans (45%), while 54% of Arab Americans say they have experienced this type of discrimination; and,

WHEREAS, since 2006, Muslim students have been targeted for surveillance by the FBI in Orange County, who said that they are paying particular attention to Muslim students at UC Irvine and UCLA; and,

WHEREAS, this surveillance is occurring on the East Coast as well, with the New York Police Department surveillance of Muslim students at Yale, Columbia, Syracuse, Rutgers, New York University, and Brooklyn College; and,

WHEREAS, these racist and selective surveillance procedures are justified by figures in mainstream media, such as David Horowitz, who defines the core mission of the MSA to “advance the Islamic Jihad against the Jews and Christians of the Middle East, and ultimately against the United States”, and,

WHEREAS, attempts to mischaracterize and chill Palestinian activism have occurred on Berkeley’s own campus, with a lawsuit filed in July 2011(later dismissed in court) against the UC Regents and President Mark Yudof containing extremely Islamophobic and anti-Arab rhetoric referring to Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslims Students Association as “anti-Semitic” and “pro-terrorist”; and,

WHEREAS, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that “the more publicly active SJP may be understood as the more militant arm of the outwardly benevolent MSA” and that SJP, MSA, and MSU all “fund terrorism” and are tied to terrorist groups; and,

WHEREAS, more recently, UC Santa Cruz lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin has been responsible for inciting racist and Islamophobic rhetoric by claimings that students in the MSA and SJP are “…generally motivated by very strong religious and political convictions, they have a fire in their belly, they come to the university, many of them are foreign students who come from countries and cultures where anti-Semitism is how they think about the world … These are not your ordinary student groups like College Republicans or Young Democrats. These are students who come with a serious agenda, who have ties to terrorist organizations.”; and,

WHEREAS, claims such as those cited above create an unsafe and divisive environment for Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian students, and others who may be perceived as being of similar descent, and these claims are completely opposite to the values of a premier university system; and,

WHEREAS, the President of the University of California, Mark Yudof, is responsible for advocating for all students regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation; and,

WHEREAS, the University of California is no place for hateful and inflammatory rhetoric and holds its students, faculty, staff, and affiliates to higher standards that promote a positive and inclusive campus climate; therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, that the ASUC condemn the remarks of lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and those described in the above-mentioned lawsuit as hateful and inflammatory; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the ASUC urge President Mark Yudof to condemn these inflammatory, hateful, and racist assumptions by UCSC lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin against Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian students, and Palestinian rights activists; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that EAVP Shahryar Abbasi write a letter to UCOP condemning the racist and bigoted language by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and President Yudof’s failure to address the matter, as well as passing a similar bill with UCSA; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the ASUC urge other campuses to pass similar bills in their respective student governments.

 

Petition: University of California President Mark Yudof, Condemn UCSC Lecturer’s hateful attacks on Muslim/Arab student groups

Sign this petition urging UC President Mark Yudof to condemn UCSC Hebrew lecturer Tammi Benjamin’s Islamophobic claims that SJP and MSA participants are “anti-semitic” “foreign students” “with ties to terrorist organizations”

A video has surfaced, showing UC Santa Cruz Hebrew lecturer Tammi Rossman Benjamin making extremely offensive comments about the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine groups at an off-campus event in June 2012. Benjamin describes their members as “foreign students who come from countries and cultures where anti-Semitism is how they think about the world.” She makes openly racist and defamatory claims that MSA and SJP are connected to terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Benjamin also singles these student activists out from all others, saying, “These are not your ordinary student groups like College Republicans or Young Democrats. These are students who come with a serious agenda, who have ties to terrorist organizations”.

These comments reflect the worst stereotypes and slurs leveled at Arab and Muslim communities in the post-9/11 era. They have absolutely no place in a university environment and it is completely unacceptable for a University of California lecturer to be making them, especially about students. What is even worse is that these comments are part of a pattern, one that the University of California Office of the President has been complicit in promoting.

Tammi Benjamin leads an extreme pro-Israel group called the Amcha Initiative, which has launched a series of censorship attempts targeting UC and California State University academics and student groups, based on claims that academic critique of Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism. In 2011 they filed a complaint against UCLA professor David Shorter for linking to a page related to the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement on a class website, prompting an improper investigation that was eventually dismissed. In February 2012 the Amcha Initiativetried and failed to shut down Israeli historian Illan Pappe’s speaking tour at CSU campuses, falsely claiming that he was “anti-Semitic” and supportive of terror. Tammi Benjamin was also behind a federal complaint alleging that campus political and academic speech critical of Israel creates a hostile environment for Jewish students at UC Santa Cruz, resulting in an ongoing Department of Education investigation into the school. The ACLU recently condemned the federal investigation into UC Santa Cruz as “disturbing” and having “a chilling effect” on student organizing in a letter criticizing a similar investigation at UC Berkeley.

In March 2012, Tammi Benjamin and the Amcha Initiative sent a letter to UC President Mark Yudof with racist rhetoric tying student groups to terror, and misrepresenting an incident at UC Davis. The next day President Yudof responded with a system-wide email that adopted the Amcha Initiative’s false narrative, without any condemnation of their inflammatory language or baseless claims.

It is no wonder that Tammi Benjamin felt comfortable publicly claiming students were tied to terrorism last June, when the University has rewarded her organization for doing so in the past. These actions are damaging to Muslim and Arab students and their allies, and promote an environment where students are open targets for hate groups. The University of California and the Office of the President must take a clear stand against hate speech directed at marginalized communities, and distance itself from extremists like Tammi Benjamin and the Amcha Initiative that work to smear and silence student human rights campaigners.

We ask that University of California President Mark Yudof:

-Release a statement from the UC President’s Office condemning Tammi Benjamin’s hateful comments in the video and previous Amcha Initiative statements.

-End any UC cooperation and communication with extremist groups like the Amcha Initiative that target advocates for human rights.

-Formally retract any statements issued at the request of the Amcha Initiative, and take proactive steps to address the negative impact the UC’s past cooperation with the group has had on free speech and campus climate for Muslim and Arab students and groups like SJP and MSA.