UC regents consider ban on political statements as ethnic studies departments use university websites to bash Israel
Regents have tabled the vote on the proposal until their next meeting which takes place March 19-21.
The University of California Board of Regents is considering a policy that would prohibit faculty and staff from using university resources to publish political statements. The proposal comes shortly after at least two ethnic studies departments posted anti-Israel statements posted to their UC websites in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The homepage for the University of California Santa Cruz “Critical Race and Ethnic Studies” department currently displays a call from the department’s faculty to all academics to “act now to end Israel’s genocidal attack on Palestine,” and an additional section advertising Faculty for Justice in Palestine, and its work to “protect our students–and each other–as we work on and/or organize for Palestine.”
”Amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the efforts across campuses to silence speech about Palestine, we, the undersigned, have formed a Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) group at UCSC,” the feature reads. “We intend to protect our students–and each other–as we work on and/or organize for Palestine. FJP is inclusive of senate faculty, lecturers, staff, and graduate students and we look forward to organizing joint events and actions with other FJP groups across the Bay Area, California, and the country.”
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Jay Sures is one of the regents behind the proposal. He expressed concern such statements are a conflation of personal or group viewpoints with official institutional positions.
“When individual or group viewpoints or opinions on matters not directly related to the official business of the unit are posted on these administrative websites, it creates the potential that the statements and opinions will be mistaken as the position of the institution itself,” Sures said Wednesday.
Regents have tabled the vote on the proposal until their next meeting which takes place March 19-21.