SAIN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY U UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR ALLEGED ISLAMOPHOBIA
By ANDREW LAPIN / JTA, January 4, 2024 01: 57 am
San Diego State University Campus, San Diego, California, June 15, 2013.
In a statement, the campus's SJP branch stated that the school "has failed to acknowledge the emotions and well-being of its Palestinian and Muslim students."
Two days after October. The president of San Diego State University did what many other university leaders did after the Hamas attacks in Israel: he emailed the entire campus in support of his students.
The president gave advice on how students can get support and counseling, as well as a note of concern for all victims of the conflict, saying, "We are devastated by the scale of the loss of life—of innocent Israelis, Palestinians, and many others." In addition, we are aware of the fact that this event is part of a long history of civilian deaths in the region.
What are the issues addressed through the email?
According to a university spokesperson, federal civil rights agencies are looking into the emails in relation to claims that SDSU "promotes hatred and racism against Arabs and Muslims."
This contradicts the complaints behind 42 other civil rights investigations that the Department of Education has begun since October against universities and K–12 schools across the country. 7. The investigation into SDSU will determine whether the university should have done more to protect Jewish students, 48 hours after the Hamas attack, than to accuse Jewish groups that the school failed to protect Jewish students, as has been evident in at least a dozen open investigations. Muslim students.
The school students for Justice in Palestine denounced the email in question on its Instagram page days after it was sent, although it is unclear who sent the complaint that sparked the investigation.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency requested a statement from the Ministry of Education, which began an investigation on Tuesday. The Office of Civil Rights stated that initiating such investigations does not mean the department believes they are appropriate. Rather, it is simply because the complaint falls within the scope of the department. The focus of the study was whether administrators had responded appropriately to allegations of student discrimination. In most cases, the department does not disclose the reasons for its investigation publicly.
It is not the first such case by Islamophobia-related departments since October 7; it has previously been announced that at least two other schools have been investigated over allegations of discrimination against Muslim students, along with more confirmed allegations of anti-Jewish discrimination. Still, SDSU officials provide the clearest picture yet of renewed interest in discrimination based on same-sex ancestry on campus.
A university spokesman revealed the reasons for the investigation in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He also vehemently rejected allegations that the president's emails were a form of Islamophobia.
The school's statement states that the email, which you can read in full on the internet, does not promote hatred or racism. It discusses what the university has done to help Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students since the Israel-Hamas war ended, including building a task force to combat Islamophobia. The university also has a special class on antisemitism.
A statement from the school stated, "Members of the Campus Student Affairs and Diversity team have and continue to reach out to every student, advisor, and student organization affected by violence in Israel and Gaza."
In a statement issued on October 13, days after the university rector's email came out, the campus's SJP branch stated that the institution "has failed to acknowledge the emotions and well-being of its Palestinian and Muslim students."
More than a dozen groups, including SJP branches at other universities, have signed the statement. The group added that it was "demanding" that de la Torre "reassess the rhetoric of hate and division spread across campus.
One of the issues raised in the email was "the lack of recognition and condemnation of the settler colonial state of Israel that has led to apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. In addition, the group called on SDSU to abandon "companies involved in Israeli human rights violations."
On a national scale, a number of colleges, including Rutgers, Brandeis, Columbia, and the Florida State University System, have discontinued operating SJP branches on their campuses.
On Wednesday, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights announced four new investigations: one at the University of Virginia and three others in K–12 school districts in Georgia, Missouri, and California. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against institutions receiving federal funding.
The Decatur City School, located on the outskirts of Atlanta in the Georgia district, told the JTA that it "will cooperate fully" with the investigation but did not provide further information about its history. After an equity commissioner sent an unauthorized email to staff on October 25, calling Israel's actions in Gaza a "genocide" and asking teachers to "support Gaza" and "facilitate conversations about the issue," the district has recently come under fire. Progressive magazine Jewish Currents and the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace provided links to the articles in the email.
In Decatur's case, the district's internal investigation suggested that the employee was dismissed. However, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that he remained on the job as of last month, and his LinkedIn profile still shows him as a district employee.
The Anti-Defamation League's regional director and a parent of a child in the district, Eytan Davidson, wrote in a letter to a local blog that the emails were unacceptable because "the employee shared unverified, unauthorized, and misleading political resources under the guise of education that frightened and angered Jewish families reeling from the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust."
After being contacted for a response, both the ADL office and the local Jewish Federation declined to speak about the Title VI investigation.
A small percentage of cases of discrimination in other institutions have been reported openly. A spokesperson for the Lammersville, California Unified School District, told the JTA that the district was "surprised to learn of an investigation because no complaints about common ancestor concerns were filed with the district administration." As a result, the district was unable to comment on the source or existence of the concern.
Representatives from various agencies did not respond to JTA's request for comment; some of them are still on leave. Days after the school's own investigation began, the Jefferson Board, a conservative alumni group that supports "intellectual diversity" at the University of Virginia, expressed deep criticism of what it called a "hostile environment for Jews" on campus.
News Sources : https://www.jpost.com/international/article-780683
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