We’ve been following the story of the U.S. Department of Education’s investigation into charges of anti-Semitism at UC Santa Cruz following a series of events critical of the Israeli occupation. The issue has been contentious on campus, and Rebecca Pierce, a Jewish student at UC Santa Cruz who has been involved in a student-led Palestinian awareness group, sent us a post in March responding to the investigation, saying:
I cannot express how wrong and offensive I find this assessment of our work to be, especially given my identity as a Jewish student with my own unique relationship with and feelings towards the state of Israel. I also know that some of the Palestinian members of our organization are very upset that their desire to share the experiences of their families and people has resulted in their being labeled as anti-Semitic. Those who actually come to our meetings or interact with us face-to-face can see that spreading hatred towards the Jewish people has never been the goal of our organization, and I would like to note that we are not accused of anything other than putting on events that some people disagreed with on a political basis.
Rebecca has now sent us the video above, which she made to respond to a hateful statement posted on the Santa Cruz Israel Action Committee‘s Facebook page. The Israel Action Committee is a student group at UC Santa Cruz, and students leading the group have been vocal supporters of the Department of Education case. The statement in question has since been scrubbed from the Action Committee’s Facebook page, but there are screenshots below. From the video, it seems that the threat of a governmental investigation hasn’t intimated Rebecca, and other UC Santa Cruz students, from speaking out.
Here are the screenshots:
