UC Student Groups Harass and Defame AMCHA Co-founder

Mike L.

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, University of California Santa Cruz faculty member Tammi Rossman-Benjamin 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 that the 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:

1) 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.

2) 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)