Letter to Governor Newsom Urging Him to Veto AB 715 which Still Conflates Antisemitism with Protected Speech Thus Censoring K-12 Education Critical of Israeli Government Policies and Actions by Conflating it with Antisemitism

September 13, 2025

Governor Gavin Newsom

gavin.newsom@gov.ca.gov

Dear Governor Newsom,

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,** an organization of over 200 scholars in higher education in California dedicated to the defense of academic freedom, we write to emphatically urge you to veto AB 715. The Senate Education Committee passed AB 715 on September 10, 2025 under the false pretense that a definition of antisemitism with grave constitutional concerns had been removed from the bill. Whether disingenuously or genuinely confused, Sen. Sasha Renée Perez, the chair of said committee, stated that the problematic definition of antisemitism previously included in the language had been removed from the final version. However, AB 715 still gives a greenlight to conflating antisemitism with protected speech critical of Israel, by citing the same highly contested IHRA definition that was incorporated into the 2023 Biden National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.

Among the many deeply problematic features of AB 715, we note that it

  • creates an “Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator” to be appointed by the Governor, whose professional training, competence and impartiality are in no way assured; 
  • asserts without a shred of credible evidence that “Jewish and Israeli American pupils across California are facing a widespread surge in antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and bullying. In many cases, such discrimination, harassment, and bullying have been so severe and pervasive that it has placed Jewish pupils at risk and limited, or completely impeded, their ability to learn or engage in school programs or activities;” 
  • declares that “discriminatory bias in instruction and school-sponsored activities does not require a showing of direct harm to members of a protected group,” which opens up almost any criticism of Israel to claims of discrimination; 
  • declares that “Discrimination, harassment, and bullying of Jewish pupils has included antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories; discriminatory slurs, symbols, and expressions; physical and verbal assaults; discrimination by proxy and through the use of coded language; collective blame and generalizations about Jewish people; vilification of Jews and Israelis; and distortions of Jewish religion, ancestry, history, and identity. This discrimination, harassment, and bullying, including the use of inappropriate instructional materials and instruction, has deeply impacted Jewish pupils across California and the nation resulting in the vilification and ostracization of Jewish pupils.” Most of these statements are so vague as to be open to misuse and abuse against faculty, teachers, students or others merely for expressing legally protected views and/or criticism of or opposition to Israeli policies;
  • threatens to censor critical education about Palestine by referring to the 2023 Biden National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, which embraces the controversial IHRA Definition of antisemitism, “as a basis to inform schools on how to identify, respond to, prevent, and counter antisemitism.” The IHRA Definition conflates protected speech critical of Israel with antisemitism, and has been opposed for the serious constitutional concerns it raises by hundreds of civil rights organizations internationally, including the ACLU and the original author of the definition, Kenneth Stern, who warns against its use as educational policy for purposes of censorship;
  • continues to exceptionalize antisemitism as a form of discrimination to be treated differently than all other forms. Rather than creating an Anti-Discrimination Coordinator to address all forms of discrimination complaints equally under the law, it creates a one-of-a-kind Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator with no other equivalent positions for other protected classes.

In sum, this proposed legislation would censor K-12 education critical of Israeli governmental policies and actions by conflating it with antisemitism. We are hardly alone in urging a rejection of this bill. Because of the serious constitutional and procedural concerns it raises, it continues to be opposed by all major statewide educational associations and labor unions, including the California Teachers Association, California Federation of Teachers, California Faculty Association, Association of California School Administrators and California County Superintendents, California School Boards Association, and Council of UC Faculty Associations; as well as over 110 racial justice organizations representing Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, Jewish Americans, Black Americans, Latinx, API and LGBTQI organizations.

As educators of current and future generations of California college students, we join our fellow Californians in warning you about the threat posed by AB 715. It would significantly undermine the citizenry’s opportunities to gain an unbiased, accurate understanding of issues of critical importance to the future of our world. Please join us in saying NO to this naked attempt to strangle academic freedom, stifle the diverse voices of our communities, and impose a foreign ideology on the youth of our state. 

Sang Hea Kil

[Currently job suspended for Palestine and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative]

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor, Justice Studies Department

San José State University

Stephen Roddy

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

University of San Francisco

Dennis Kortheuer,

Department of History, Emeritus,

California State University, Long Beach

Vida Samiian

Professor & Dean Emerita

CSU Fresno

Lisa Rofel

Professor Emerita and Research Professor, Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita, History

University of California, Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi

Director, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies

San Francisco State University

Richard Falk

Professor of International Law Emeritus,

Princeton University

Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Sondra Hale

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender Studies

University of California, Los Angeles

Mark LeVine

Professor of History

UC Irvine

Letter to University of California President Milliken and UC Berkeley Chancellor Lyons Condemning Their Decision to Report 160 Members of the UC Berkeley Faculty, Students and Staff to the Federal Government for Investigation on False Accusations of Antisemitism

September 15,2025

Dear President Milliken and Chancellor Lyons,

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,* an organization of over 200 scholars in higher education in California dedicated to the defense of academic freedom, we condemn your decision to report 160 members of the UC Berkeley faculty, students, and staff to the federal government for investigation on false accusations of antisemitism. In doing so, you have violated their first amendment right to free speech, and other constitutional rights to due process, and endangered their well-being and safety. This report exposes our colleagues to harassment, intimidation, and reputational damage that may follow them throughout their careers. It creates a chilling effect on campus, silencing political expression and endangering the very principles of academic freedom. Particularly vulnerable are international scholars and students, who face heightened risks in the current anti-immigrant climate, especially those from Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities already facing a climate of xenophobic discrimination, surveillance, and ideological deportation. You have endangered UC lecturers and contingent staff whose positions are already precarious in this anti-intellectual era. Your campus has collaborated in this witch hunt that targets speech in solidarity with Palestinians and turns it into a federal offense. 

The Biden and Trump administrations have baselessly accused UC Berkeley of antisemitism. In particular the targeting of your Jewish faculty, for example the esteemed professor Judith Butler, reveals the absurdity of these accusations. The federal government is exploiting the ill-intentioned, highly contested IHRA definition, which conflates and criminalizes anti-zionism and speech in support of Palestinian rights, with antisemitism. Placing pressure on the administration of the University of California to spy on, deem “illegal” and report faculty, students, and staff for their speech and advocacy amounts to ideological targeting, a reminder of McCarthyism. It is appalling that the University has condoned it.

Neither UC Berkeley nor the US government seems capable of acknowledging that criticism of the state of Israel–a genocidal military power–is not antisemitic. In this troubling context, scholars, students, and staff simply performing their work and degree obligations are risking their livelihood and safety for speaking up. Equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and targeting members of your campus community for their political expression is a way of silencing opposition against Israel’s ongoing, horrific starvation of Gaza and violence against the Palestinian people, and protecting the UC’s complicit investment in the world’s first livestreamed genocide, as millions of people suffer under siege and threat of mass displacement. 

The Free Speech movement, a source of pride for UC Berkeley now, began under similar circumstances of repression. It is our view that your campus administration is failing to honor UC-Berkeley’s historical struggle and legacy and instead has chosen to repress the campus resistance movement against these Israeli international crimes and human rights violations against Palestinians. 

We demand that you immediately 1) rescind your report to DOE, 2) disclose fully all files you have passed on to affected faculty, staff, and students with a full written apology, and 3) inform all additional individuals whose privacy you have violated in this way. Further, we demand you cease your shameful collaboration with these federal agencies, and instead stand up for UC by taking concrete actions to guarantee First Amendment rights and academic freedom in your community. In doing so, you should collaborate with UC communities to protect them from further harm, and deepen your understanding of academic freedom through structured conversation with UC students, faculty, and staff. 

Failure to comply with our recommendations will force us to advise students against choosing your institution for further study, as your campus does not seem to promote academic freedom and these potential students will face a campus climate where they cannot engage in intellectual debate and learning given your collaboration with the federal government.

Your office has very recently asked California educators to “stand up for UC” against illegal federal action; you have failed to do the same. We ask you to restore the UC as it has historically served the people of California. In closing, we remind you, as UC President Clark Kerr put it: “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy.”

Fiat Lux,

Sang Hea Kil

[Currently under job dismissal for Palestine and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative]

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor, Justice Studies Department

San José State University

Stephen Roddy

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

University of San Francisco

Dennis Kortheuer,

Department of History, Emeritus,

California State University, Long Beach

Vida Samiian

Professor & Dean Emerita

CSU Fresno

Lisa Rofel

Professor Emerita and Research Professor, Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita, History

University of California, Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi

Director, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies

San Francisco State University

Richard Falk

Professor of International Law Emeritus,

Princeton University

Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Sondra Hale

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender Studies

University of California, Los Angeles

David Klein

Emeritus Professor of Mathematics

California State University Northridge

Jamal Nassar

Dean Emeritus

California State University San Bernardino

Rouhollah Aghasaleh 

Associate Professor- School of Education 

California State Polytechnic University- Humboldt

Stephen Zunes
Professor of Politics and Program Director of Middle Eastern Studies
University of San Francisco

Catherine Liu

Professor

Film and Media Studies

UC Irvine

Jonathan Graubart

Professor of Political Science

San Diego State University

Brian Dolber

Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies

CSU San Marcos

Suad Joseph

Distinguished Research Professor

University of California, Davis

Ahlam Muhtaseb

Professor of Media

California State University, San Bernardino

Senior Data Justice Fellow, Princeton University

Carole H. Browner, 

Professor

Semel Institute, 

UCLA Geffen School of Medicine

Stacy D. Fahrenthold

Professor of History and Middle East/South Asia Studies

University of California, Davis

Walid A. Afifi

Professor, Dept of Communication

University of California, Santa Barbara

Ronald Loewe

Professor of Anthropology

California State University, Long Beach.

Robin D. G. Kelley

Distinguished Professor, Dept of History

University of California, Los Angeles

Dina Al-Kassim

University of California, Berkeley Alumna

Associate Professor

University of California, Irvine, Retired

Professor, English Department of Literature and Social Justice Institute

University of British Columbia

Flagg Miller

Professor
Department of Religion, Culture and Society and Middle East / South Asia Studies Program
University of California, Davis

Sherene Seikaly

Associate Professor of History

University of California, Santa Barbara

Piya Chatterjee 

Backstrand Chair in Gender and Women’s Studies

Professor, Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Scripps College 

The Claremont Consortium 

Patricia Morton

Associate Professor, Media and Cultural Studies Department

University of California, Riverside

Kevin B Anderson 

Sociology 

UC-Santa Barbara 

Donna Haraway

Distinguished Professor Emerita

History of Consciousness

UC Santa Cruz

Rupa Marya

Former Professor of Medicine

University of California, San Francisco

Fired May 2025 without Due Process for Palestine Advocacy

Ece Algan

Professor, Department of Communication & Media

California State University, San Bernardino

Nathan Whitworth

Lecturer, Rhetoric and Writing Studies, 

San Diego State University

David Pellow

Distinguished Professor, Environmental Studies

University of California Santa Barbara

Howard Winant, Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus,

University of California, Santa Barbara

David Lloyd, 

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English

University of California, Riverside

Bishnupriya Ghosh, 

Professor, English and Global Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara

Letter to Dr. Dominico Grasso, President, University of Michigan Expressing Our Deep Concern for Two University of Michigan Ann Arbor Postdoctoral Researchers Xunqing Jian and Chengxuan Han Who Have Been Arrested for Agroterrorism

July 27, 2025

Dr. Dominico Grasso, President

University of Michigan

Dear President Grasso, 

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,** an organization of over 200 scholars in higher education in California dedicated to the defense of academic freedom, we write to express our deep concern for two UM Ann Arbor postdoctoral researchers, Yunqing Jian and Chengxuan Han.

Yunqing Jian has been accused of bringing a fungus (Fusarium graminearum) into the US without prior authorization, for which she has been arrested on charges of “agroterrorism” that carry a prison term of up to 20 years. While she may have failed to adhere to regulatory requirements in handling the fungus, the accusation of conspiracy to commit agricultural terrorism is absurd on its face. Several experts on the fungus have disputed the claim that it can be used as a weapon, stating that it is widely prevalent in the U.S. and even originated in North America. Even if it were to be released into the wild, they agree, it would have no impact whatsoever. Ironically, Jian’s past and current research centers on finding ways to mitigate the damage to crops caused by this fungus. What motive would a promising young researcher have to inflict the very harms which she has devoted years of hard work to eliminate? 

A second researcher affiliated with the University of Michigan, Chengxuan Han, was arrested for sending roundworms through the mail, something many speculate she did not know she needed a permit for. Han’s case follows the same disturbing pattern: suspicion merely because she is Chinese, exaggerated charges, and devastating consequences for what appear to be honest mistakes by a young researcher making her way up the career ladder. We note that adjudication of similar cases has typically resulted at most in the levying of a fine, and certainly not criminal liability. In short, the claim that either Jian’s or Han’s actions represent a plot by the Chinese government to commit agroterrorism against the U.S. is unadulterated nonsense. 

We see no indication that the University of Michigan has done anything to support its Chinese scholars in the face of this heavy-handed persecution by federal authorities. Each passing day makes it more obvious that these women have been caught up in a broader campaign of surveillance and demonization of Chinese academics that dates back to the China Initiative of the first Trump administration. Amid increasingly hysterical accusations made by politicians such as Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Tim Walberg, and John Moolenaar, the number of Chinese academics subjected to such treatment is rising, once again, with considerable costs not only to individuals but to the institutions that host them. 

UM Ann Arbor must not enable this ongoing witch hunt through its inaction, but stand up for these and other students and scholars who contribute substantially to the intellectual life of the institution. If you don’t, your negligence risks degrading the quality of your own research programs, and sullying your reputation with a moral stain that will be difficult to fully erase. That would be a betrayal of the legacy of Michigan’s long and storied history of educating Chinese students like John C. H. Wu (1899-1986), who went on to make indelible contributions to the US, China, and the entire world.

Sincerely,

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University & Research Fellow, Orfalea Center, UC Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi, Director and Senior Scholar of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED Studies), San Francisco State University

Nancy Gallagher, Professor of History, Emerita, UC Santa Barbara

Stephen Roddy, Professor of Asian Studies, University of San Francisco

Vida Samiian, Professor and Dean Emerita, CSU Fresno

Dennis Kortheuer, Department of History, Emeritus, CSU Long Beach

Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita and Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz

Carole H. Browner, Distinguished Research Professor, Center for Culture and Health
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA

Letter to Cynthia Teniente-Matson, President of San José State University, Provost Del Casino and V.P. Durr in Objection to the Disparate Treatment Accorded to Professor Sang Hea Kil Who is to be Terminated from Her Position Vs the Reinstatement of Professor Jonathan Roth Who Physically Assaulted a Protester but Will Return to Teaching in Fall 2025

July 28, 2025

Cynthia Teniente-Matson

President

San José State University

sjsupres@sjsu.edu

Vincent Del Casino

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

San José State University

provost@sjsu.edu

Jeanne Durr

Interim Senior Associate Vice President, University Personnel

San José State University

jeanne.durr@sjsu.edu

President Teniente-Matson, Provost Del Casino, and Vice President Durr:

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,** an organization of over 200 scholars in higher education in California dedicated to the defense of academic freedom, we are writing to follow up on our previous letter of June 27 regarding the case of Dr. Sang Hea Kil.

It has come to our attention that Prof. Jonathan Roth of the Department of History has been relieved of the suspension he has been under since February 2024, and will return to teaching in Fall 2025.  Prof. Roth was reportedly barred from campus for his behavior during a protest against Jeffrey Blutinger’s lecture on February 20, 2024. Specifically, as this video documents, Prof. Roth physically assaulted one of the protesters. We understand this to be the direct cause of his being placed on paid leave. 

Prof. Kil was subsequently suspended in May 2024 for her actions at this same February 20 protest.  In her case, however, no charges of violence or assault were made against her. Instead, the provost has accused her of attempting to enter the classroom where the Blutinger lecture was to be held, and of ordering students to enter with her, in violation of established policy. This appears to be a deliberate distortion of the facts. She reportedly requested the Time, Place, and Manner (TPM) policy from campus authorities that morning, but it was not provided to her before the event began. Since she had received no guidance from the administration on what was or was not permitted, she informed protesting students that they should assume they could exercise their constitutional rights.  In spite of having been provided with zero administrative guidance about any restrictions on protests prior to this incident, she was later told she had violated TPM by allegedly orchestrating the entire protest. We note that this demonstration was neither organized nor sponsored by the SJP chapter, of which Prof. Kil served as faculty advisor. She joined as an observer and supporter of students, and played no role in their organizing efforts, whether of the counter demonstration in February, the sit-in in March, or at the encampment in May.

Now, Prof. Roth has been permitted to return to the classroom in spite of his documented record of physical aggression against students, while Prof. Kil has been placed under Article 19 in preparation for terminating her from the university. The disparate treatment accorded to Prof. Kil appears prima facie to be both egregious and deeply unjust. We look forward to your expeditious rectification of this wrong and the full restoration of her rights as a tenured member of the faculty.  

Sincerely,

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University & Research Fellow, Orfalea Center, UC Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi, Director and Senior Scholar of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED Studies), San Francisco State University

Nancy Gallagher, Professor of History, Emerita, UC Santa Barbara

Stephen Roddy, Professor of Asian Studies, University of San Francisco

Vida Samiian, Professor and Dean Emerita, CSU Fresno

Dennis Kortheuer, Department of History, Emeritus, CSU Long Beach

Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita and Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz

Rupa Marya, MD, former Professor of Medicine, UCSF (fired for Palestine Advocacy)

David Klein, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, CSU Northridge

Margaret Ferguson, Distinguished Professor Emerita, UC Davis

David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Stanford University

Carole H. Browner, Distinguished Research Professor, Center for Culture and Health
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA

Mark LeVine, Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories and Cultures, UC Irvine

Manzar Foroohar, Professor of History, Emerita, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Jamal R. Nassar, Dean Emeritus, CSU San Bernardino

Robin D. G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Endowed Professor of U.S. History, UCLA 

Christine Hong, Professor, UC Santa Cruz

Brian Dolber, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, 

CSU San Marcos 

Suad Joseph, Distinguished Research Professor, UC Davis

Shahla Razavi, Associate Professor of Mathematics (retired), Mt. San Jacinto College 

Stacy D. Fahrenthold, Professor of History and Middle East/South Asia Studies, UC Davis

Mohammad Subeh, MD, Ultrasound Director, Vituity

Edmund Burke, III, Research Professor and Emeritus Professor of History, UC Santa Cruz

Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair, UC Berkeley

Dorinne Kondo, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Professor of Anthropology, USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Sadia Saeed, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of San Francisco

Wendy Matsumura, Associate Professor, UC San Diego

Letter to President Teniente-Matson, Provost Del Casino and V.P. Durr, San José State University, Decrying Their Decision to Seek the Termination of Dr. Sang Hea Kil, a Tenured Full Professor of Justice Studies for Allegedly Violating the Time, Place and Manner Policies Adopted by CSU Campuses in Spring 2024

June 27, 2025

Cynthia Teniente-Matson

President

San José State University

sjsupres@sjsu.edu

Vincent Del Casino

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

San José State University

provost@sjsu.edu

Jeanne Durr

Interim Senior Associate Vice President, University Personnel

San José State University

jeanne.durr@sjsu.edu

President Teniente-Matson, Provost Del Casino, and Vice President Durr:

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,** an organization of over 200 scholars in higher education in California dedicated to the defense of academic freedom, we decry your decision to seek the termination of Dr. Sang Hea Kil, a tenured Full Professor of Justice Studies, for allegedly violating the Time, Place, and Manner policies adopted by CSU campuses in Spring 2024.

According to Article 17 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the California Faculty Association and the California State University system, “strong and compelling evidence” is required to justify the suspension let alone the termination of a faculty member. Such evidence has not been provided.  Instead, she has been subjected to dubious accusations of inciting violence, harassing fellow community members, violating the privacy of her colleagues, and exploiting students. Over the past several years, Professor Kil has served as a faculty advisor to SJSU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and acted as a liaison between the students and the university administration until she was suspended in May 2024. It was in this capacity that she attended the campus events of February, April, and May of 2024, that have served as the basis for the allegations against her.  She was fulfilling her professional obligations by attending these meetings; in stark contrast, your punitive responses appear to have sprung from political calculations antithetical to a public university’s duty to safeguard the civil rights of its students and faculty. By suspending and now initiating the process to terminate Dr. Kil, a vital source of support for students raising their voices against injustice, you are acting against your obligation to protect extramural speech against reprisal, suppressing free speech and advocacy on your campus, forcefully silencing an important source of humanitarian activism on campus, and depriving students, faculty, and the San Jose community of an outstanding and accomplished scholar and valued mentor. 

We remind you that the published policy of the Office of the President states: “Though we are proud to be one of the most diverse campus communities in the nation, action is needed more than ever to address systemic racism at San Jose State University. And action is what we are taking.” Racism, itself a manifestation and vector of systemic violence, can only be countered by a position that abhors equally all systemic forms of violence, including the apartheid regime imposed on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories.  Dr. Kil’s principled support for her students’ activism against the genocide surely adheres to the same antiracist principles your Office claims to uphold. How can you address systemic racism while actively repressing voices supportive of Palestine, which belong to SJSU’s diverse communities, including Jewish, Black and brown members? Your actions toward Dr. Kil reek of rank hypocrisy.

We note that this is to our knowledge the first case of a tenured faculty member at a public university to be threatened with termination over her support for student activism in the wake of October 7, 2023. Setting this sort of horrific precedent will give SJSU the dubious distinction of taking aim at tenured faculty for their political views, undermining the protections afforded by universities which administrations are obligated to uphold.  Such an action would shake the very foundations of both academic freedom and freedom of speech, sully the reputation of your administration and SJSU as a whole for generations to come, and weaken the crucial link between academic freedom in universities and truly democratic societies. The SJSU and larger Bay Area communities will rightly condemn this action, not only because of their shared revulsion for Israel’s genocide and US support for it, but because it violates fundamental principles by which we all seek to live and work.

We demand that our colleague Dr. Kil, who co-chairs CS4AF, be cleared of the charges against her, reinstated to her position, and allowed to resume her role as a cherished member of the SJSU community and other academic institutions across the United States and elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University & Research Fellow, Orfalea Center, UC Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi, Director and Senior Scholar of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED Studies), San Francisco State University

Nancy Gallagher, Professor of History, Emerita, UC Santa Barbara

Stephen Roddy, Professor of Asian Studies, University of San Francisco

Vida Samiian, Professor and Dean Emerita, CSU Fresno

Dennis Kortheuer, Department of History, Emeritus, CSU Long Beach

Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita and Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz

Rupa Marya, MD, former Professor of Medicine, UCSF (fired for Palestine Advocacy)

David Klein, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, CSU Northridge

Margaret Ferguson, Distinguished Professor Emerita, UC Davis

David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Stanford University

Carole H. Browner, Distinguished Research Professor, Center for Culture and Health
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA

Mark LeVine, Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories and Cultures, UC Irvine

Manzar Foroohar, Professor of History, Emerita, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Jamal R. Nassar, Dean Emeritus, CSU San Bernardino

Robin D. G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Endowed Professor of U.S. History, UCLA 

Christine Hong, Professor, UC Santa Cruz

Brian Dolber, Department Chair and Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, 

CSU San Marcos 

Suad Joseph, Distinguished Research Professor, UC Davis

Shahla Razavi, Associate Professor of Mathematics (retired), Mt. San Jacinto College 

Stacy D. Fahrenthold, Professor of History and Middle East/South Asia Studies, UC Davis

Mohammad Subeh, MD, Ultrasound Director, Vituity

Edmund Burke, III, Research Professor and Emeritus Professor of History, UC Santa Cruz

Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair, UC Berkeley

Dorinne Kondo, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Professor of Anthropology, USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Sadia Saeed, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of San Francisco

Wendy Matsumura, Associate Professor, UC San Diego

Letter to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Calling on it to Open an Investigation into how Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on University Campuses is Impacting Academic Freedom, Freedom of Speech and Our Collective Civil Rights Across the Academy

March 5, 2025

To the AAUP:

We are writing on behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom, a group of over two-hundred scholars from campuses across California, to call upon you to open an investigation into how IDF on US American university campuses is impacting academic freedom, freedom of speech and our collective civil rights across the Academy.

We are observing a concerning pattern of incidents in which students, faculty and staff exercising their freedom of speech have met with severe consequences, including suspension and even physical assault, at the hands of personnel and administrators who are former IDF or who are providing material support to the IDF. In addition to the widely publicized violent attacks on protestors by IDF veterans at UCLA and Columbia in Spring 2024, these include threats and harassment toward medical students engaged in clinical rotations. Last month, a UCSD student was yelled at and threatened with disciplinary actions by a former IDF soldier in the operating room to remove her scrub cap that offended him. One of our members, professor of medicine at UCSF Dr Rupa Marya, was suspended for mentioning IDF on campus, and questioning the ethics of admitting medical students from a region where an active genocide is underway without any formal process of ensuring safety. Emory medical student Umayamah Mohammad was suspended for publicly discussing the ethical conundrum of being forced to learn medicine from professor Dr Josh Winer, who took leave to go serve in a combat unit in Gaza, during the genocide. He bragged about his service in a published opinion piece. Umayamah simply asked questions about the impact of learning medicine from someone who was involved in directly supporting or committing war crimes.

Veterans returning from high conflict zones–especially genocide–have been implicated in mass murder events in the nation and the PTSD of combat veterans is associated with increased interpersonal violence. Thus this is an urgent matter of community safety. 

We would like for AAUP to open an investigation into the presence of IDF veterans and reservists in universities in the USA and how they may be impacting the disciplinary actions being used to silence people standing up for the rights of Palestinians. There are currently an estimated 23,000 US citizens serving in the IDF. 

To publicly speak up about such matters hardly warrants disciplinary action. To the contrary, citizens’ service in a foreign nation’s armed forces fighting against a country with whom the USA is not at war, let alone for a nation engaged in genocide, is expressly forbidden by US American law: 

“Any citizen of the United States who, within the jurisdiction thereof, accepts and exercises a commission to serve a foreign prince, state, colony, district, or people, in war, against any prince, state, colony, district, or people, with whom the United States is at peace, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.” (18 U.S. Code § 958)


Issues we would hope AAUP could address in an investigation are the following: 

  1. How many disciplinary proceedings against faculty, students and staff have been instigated by people with a history of service to the IDF or providing material support to the IDF? 
  2. How are universities managing former IDF who have participated in upholding apartheid or have been active in war crimes or genocide who have entered the university?
  3. Will the AAUP make a formal recommendation to not admit students/faculty from Israel who have participated in the IDF during the genocide? 

We urge you to address our concerns with an investigation into the matter. We thank you for your time and efforts in protecting and defending academic freedom.

Sincerely,

 Sang Hea Kil 

[Currently job suspended for Palestine and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative]

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Justice Studies Department

San José State University

Stephen Roddy

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

University of San Francisco

Dennis Kortheuer, 

Department of History, Emeritus, 

California State University, Long Beach

Lisa Rofel

Professor Emerita and Research Professor,

Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita, History, 

University of California, Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi 

Director, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies 

San Francisco State University

Vida Samiian

Professor & Dean Emerita

CSU Fresno

Richard Falk 

Professor of International Law Emeritus, 

Princeton University 

Chair of Global Law

Queen Mary University London

Sondra Hale

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender Studies,

University of California, Los Angeles 

Carole H. Browner

Distinguished Research Professor

Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior

University of California, Los Angeles

David Klein

Emeritus Professor of Mathematics

California State University Northridge

David Palumbo-Liu

Professor

Stanford University

Howard Winant

Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus

University of California, Santa Barbara

Dina Al-Kassim

Associate Professor

University of British Columbia

Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Committee Member, American Association of Comparative Literature 2020-2028

Letter to Katrina Armstrong, President Columbia University and Dean Daniel Abebe of the Columbia School of Law Calling Upon Them to Demand the Immediate Release from ICE Custody of Your Alumnus Mahmoud Khalil

March 11, 2025

Katrina Armstrong, President

Columbia University

Daniel Abebe, Dean

Columbia School of Law

Dear President Armstrong and Dean Abebe:

We are writing on behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom, a group of over two-hundred scholars from campuses across California, to call upon you to demand the immediate release from ICE custody of your alumnus Mahmoud Khalil.  It is obvious that the charges justifying his detention and deportation, and the cancellation of his US permanent residency card, are highly dubious. You have already neglected to act proactively to prevent this dire turn. According to news reports, recently Mr. Khalil wrote to your administration of “a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation.” Needless to say, this repeats the pattern observed last spring, when the Columbia administration failed to act as extreme violence was wielded against your students by IDF-affiliated and non-Columbia-affiliated demonstrators, which led to at least ten hospitalizations. 

As the ADC has noted, “[w]hat is happening to Mr. Khalil goes against the First Amendment rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. In a time that demands robust public discourse, any infringement on free speech—especially under the pretense of national security or immigration policy—undermines our democratic values.” With its justly renowned history of championing academic freedom under the leadership of faculty such as John Dewey, Columbia has a special responsibility to ensure the free and unhindered consideration of controversial subjects by your students and faculty, and to protect them from repressive measures depriving them of these constitutionally guaranteed rights.

For Columbia to turn its back on Mr. Khalil at this critical moment would be to betray its history. But even more than that, you would ignore that his arrest and immediate removal to a facility in Louisiana have plumbed depths of malice that appear to have been inspired by a foreign nation demonstrably less committed to the equal protection of all under the law.  By verbally threatening his wife and depriving her of his support just as she is preparing to give birth to their first child, the behavior of ICE evokes the modus operandi of the Israeli AI program known as “Where’s Daddy,” which has led to the slaughter and maiming of countless fathers and their extended families over the past 17 months across Gaza. Just as such heinous cruelty has brought about countless miscarriages and deaths of newborns, the shock of losing her partner is certain to place severe stress on this pregnancy.  Perhaps that was the point—just as the Israeli government apparently sees every newborn Palestinian as a future terrorist to be snuffed out, ICE and the forces colluding with it are engaging in a level of brutality toward Mr. Khalil and countless others that results in the physical destruction of innocent life.

Columbia must rise to the moment and repudiate the harm that your affiliates have brought down upon Mahmoud Khalil and his family. If you allow this injustice to go unanswered, you will be opening the door to a future of barbarous lawlessness that will have Columbia’s fingerprints all over it. Please call for his immediate release!

Sincerely,

Stephen Roddy

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

University of San Francisco

Sang Hea Kil 

[Currently job suspended for Palestine and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative]

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Justice Studies Department

San José State University

Dennis Kortheuer, 

Department of History, Emeritus, 

California State University, Long Beach

Lisa Rofel

Professor Emerita and Research Professor,

Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita, History, 

University of California, Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi 

Director, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies 

San Francisco State University

Vida Samiian

Professor & Dean Emerita

CSU Fresno

Richard Falk 

Professor of International Law Emeritus, 

Princeton University 

Chair of Global Law

Queen Mary University London

Sondra Hale

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender Studies,

University of California, Los Angeles

Dina Al-Kassim

Associate Professor

Department of English Literatures and Language

Associate, Institute for Social Justice

Associate, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Committee Member, American Comparative Literature Association 2020-28

David Klein

Emeritus Professor of Mathematics

California State University Northridge

Rupa Marya

Professor of Medicine 

University of California, San Francisco 

Letter calling on University of California, San Francisco Chancellor Hawgood to end the Job Suspension of Professor Rupa Marya Begun in September 2024

January 17, 2025

Dear University of California, San Francisco Chancellor Hawgood,

We are writing on behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom*, a group of over two-hundred scholars from campuses across California, to call upon you to end Professor Rupa Marya’s job suspension that began in September 2024. In addition to depriving your students, residents, and colleagues of the guidance of this renowned scholar and practitioner of internal medicine oriented to health justice, your action also threatens the health and lives of her patients. We believe that the hospital is a more dangerous environment for marginalized people without her clinical care. Moreover, the move to suspend her clinical privileges at UCSF put her medical license in jeopardy under what might be seen as a false guise of protecting patient safety, given that she has no record of patient safety concerns in her 22-year career at UCSF. The leaking of Dr. Marya’s suspension to the press just hours after she was informed could be in violation of California Labor law, and we feel this move was done to inflict damage to her reputation as a clinician who has served the most marginalized people in the Bay Area for decades. The potential consequences of these actions are dire for Dr. Marya, for UCSF, for Bay Area patients and for the profession as a whole. Indeed, they have already harmed all of the aforementioned constituents in the UCSF community, not least Dr. Marya herself. 

The basis of Dr. Marya’s job suspension appears to be her outspoken and justified criticism of the near total annihilation of the medical infrastructure in Gaza, Palestine, and the targeted killings, maimings, and abductions of hundreds of healthcare workers while caring for a population undergoing an ongoing and intensifying genocide.  She bravely denounced a call by certain Israeli doctors to bomb all Gazan hospitals, which the latter called “terrorist nests.” Her tweet about how her profession should handle a medical student on her campus who has likely served in the IDF was within the purview of academic freedom to post, and she should in no way be punished for speaking out. As a mentor to students who take the Hippocratic oath seriously enough to call into question whether UCSF should be training new doctors who have potentially participated in genocide in their prior armed service, she was duty-bound to bring their concerns to the broader public. This silencing of the critics of Israel’s genocide leads us to question whether UCSF can protect marginalized students, faculty and staff from racist harm on campus, or whether it is exercising due diligence to avoid complicity in genocide.

Dr. Marya’s intramural as well as extramural speech must be protected, particularly given that it has direct implications for her own area of academic research on health disparities and the treatment of underserved populations. She has every right to talk about these issues and their implications for the profession on your campus. 


We are concerned that your decision to suppress Dr. Marya’s academic freedom and speech rights might have more to do with pleasing major UCSF funders like the Diller Foundation, and politicians who have attacked her like Scott Weiner (who not coincidentally is closely aligned with local real estate interests like the Diller family). It is public knowledge that the Diller Foundation has funded slanderous websites like the Canary Mission, for which Dr. Marya now has a page, a situation which has led to repeated threats to her health and safety.  And we are aware that politicians like Scott Weiner have successfully pressed the UC system to implement harsher Time, Place, and Manner policies on campuses in order to repress further protest and speech. 

UCSF is a public institution and should serve all Californians, and not wholly or primarily wealthy investors whose interests do not coincide with those of the vast majority of the people of our state.  Philanthropy that comes with strings attached has the potential to seriously degrade the reputation and quality of your institution. We urge you to revoke Dr. Marya’s suspensions, redouble your efforts to protect academic inquiry from interference by special interests, and thereby restore faith in the moral integrity of UCSF.

Sincerely,

 Sang Hea Kil 

[Currently job suspended for Palestine and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative]

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Justice Studies Department

San José State University

Stephen Roddy

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

University of San Francisco

Dennis Kortheuer, 

Department of History, Emeritus, 

California State University, Long Beach

Vida Samiian

Professor & Dean Emerita

CSU Fresno

Lisa Rofel

Professor Emerita and Research Professor,

Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita, History, 

University of California, Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi 

Director, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies 

San Francisco State University

Richard Falk 

Professor of International Law Emeritus, 

Princeton University 

Chair of Global Law

Queen Mary University London

Sondra Hale

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Gender Studies,

University of California, Los Angeles

​​Howard Winant, 

Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus,

University of California Santa Barbara

To Chancellor Howard Gillman, University of California, Irvine, Expressing Our Deep Concerns Over Your Unseemly Persecution of Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard for her Support of UCI’s Students in their Protest Efforts to Stop the Genocide in Gaza and Urging Him to Call on Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer to Immediately Drop all Charges Against Dr. Willoughby-Herard and all Protesters

x

November 4, 2024 

Dear Chancellor Howard Gillman, University of California, Irvine:

We are writing on behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom, a group of over two hundred scholars from campuses across California to express our deep concerns over your unseemly persecution of Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, an esteemed Black feminist scholar at UC Irvine.  Dr. Willoughby-Herard is now facing three misdemeanor charges (“failure to disperse at the scene of a riot,” “resisting a peace officer with the threat of violence,” and “resisting arrest”), with two of these charges under threat of being upgraded to felonies, filed by your local prosecutor for her support of UCI’s students in their protest efforts to stop the genocide in Gaza.  

It is our understanding that on May 15, 2024, your administration called several hundred heavily armed police in full tactical gear representing twenty-two different police and sheriffs’ departments against the student protestors and the faculty, staff, and community that supported their protest against this heinous genocide.  The evidence available to us suggests that your administration, by declaring a peaceful protest “civil unrest” and unleashing a massive contingent of police against the broad campus community, bears full responsibility for the harm caused to the students, faculty, and community on your campus. Your decision resulted in the brutalization and physical injury of a queer Black faculty member.

The world watched Dr. Willoughby-Herard’s courageous remarks to the media as she was frogmarched by the police with her hands cuffed behind her back.  “We cannot have a genocidal foreign policy in a democracy. These young people are going to be the ones that have to pay the price,” she stated.  Dr. Willoughby-Herard identified herself in those remarks as a member of the Global and International Studies department, and her protest about the world-destroying impact of a U.S. foreign policy that arms Israel is fully in keeping with both the right to free speech and the norms of academic freedom.  Since her arrest, Dr. Willoughby-Herard has, predictably, suffered a ruthless doxxing campaign. This clear act of psychological warfare has yet to be addressed by your administration, nor have you taken any meaningful steps to curb its deep and harmful impact.

We urge you to call on Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer to immediately drop all charges against Dr. Willoughby-Herard and all protesters who were targeted on your campus by these repressive measures to defend academic freedom at UCI. If she has any letters of discipline in her personnel file, we demand that those be removed immediately and permanently.  We expect the UCI administration to protect her from further doxxing and targeted harassment at your campus.   

A renowned and celebrated faculty member like Dr. Willoughby-Herard should not be treated with such disrespect and disdain by your administration for doing what was the right thing that day in standing in solidarity with her students and community against the sea of complicit silence that feeds the genocidal war machine against Palestine by a settler colonial apartheid regime.

Sincerely,Sang Hea Kil 

[Currently job suspended for Palestine and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative]

Professor 

Justice Studies Department

San José State University

Dennis Kortheuer 

Emeritus, Department of History

And graduate of

California State University, Long Beach

Vida Samiian

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor & Dean Emerita

CSU Fresno

Steven Roddy

Co-Coordinator, Executive Board, CS4AF

Professor 

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

University of San Francisco

Lisa Rofel

Professor Emerita and Research Professor,

Department of Anthropology

University of California, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gallagher

Professor Emerita, History, 

University of California, Santa Barbara

Rabab Abdulhadi 

Director, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies 

San Francisco State University

Richard Falk 

Professor of International Law Emeritus, 

Princeton University 

Chair of Global Law

Queen Mary University London

Christine Hong

Professor

UC Santa Cruz

Mark LeVine

Professor and Chair

Program in Global Middle East Studies

UCI

Eileen Boris

Hull Professor and Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies

Professor of History, Black Studies, and Global Studies

Vice-President for Labor Relations, Santa Barbara Faculty Association

University of California, Santa Barbara

Paola Bacchetta

Professor and Vice-Chair for Research

Department of Gender and Women’s Studies

Director, Institute for Gender and Sexuality Research

University of California

Berkeley

David Palumbo-Liu

Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor

Department of Comparative Literature

Stanford University

Carole H. Browner

Distinguished Research Professor 

Department of Anthropology,

Department of Gender Studies,

Center for Culture and Health

Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior

University of California, Los Angeles

Leila J. Rupp

Interim Anne and Michael Towbes Graduate Dean

Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara

Huma Dar

Adjunct Professor

Program of Critical Studies 

California College of the Arts

Howard Winant, Distinguished Professor Emeritus

Department of Sociology

University of California

Santa Barbara

Piya Chatterjee

Professor

FGSS

Scripps College

Wendy Matsumura

Associate Professor

Department of History

UC San Diego

Sherene Seikaly 

Associate Professor, Department of History

Director, Center for Middle East Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara

Robin D. G. Kelley

Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair

UCLA

Gary Fields

Department of Communication

University of California, San Diego

Melina Abdullah

Department of Pan-African Studies

CSU, Los Angeles

Edmund Burke III

Emeritus Professor of History

UCSC

Esther Lezra

Associate Professor

Department of Global Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara

Amina Mama  

Professor, Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies

University of California, Davis

Katharine P. Burnett, Ph.D.

Professor, Art History 

Co-Chair, Department of Art and Art History 

Director, Graduate Program in Art History

Founder and Director, Global Tea Institute for the Study of Tea Culture and Science

Faculty Affiliate, East Asian Studies Program

Honorary Visiting Scholar, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, Fujian, China

University of California, Davis

Alice O’Connor

Professor of History

Director, UCSB Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy

https://www.blumcenter.ucsb.edu/

UC Santa Barbara

Shahla Razavi

Associate Professor, Retired

Mathematics Department

Mt. San Jacinto Community College

To President Wente and Provost Gillespie, Wakeforest University, Calling On Them to Reverse Their Decision to Cancel the October 7 Scheduled Lecture of Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi at Wakeforest University

October 4, 2024

Dear President Wente and Provost Gillespie:

We are writing on behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom, a group of over two-hundred scholars from campuses across California, to call upon you to reverse your decision to cancel the October 7th scheduled lecture of our esteemed colleague Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, “One Year Since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance,” at Wake Forest University. We concur with the five sponsoring academic departments, all of which stressed that the university’s decision to cancel the lecture “not only compromises academic freedom but also signals an alarming precedent where external pressure and baseless accusations dictate the boundaries of discourse” at Wake Forest University and at other academic institutions.

On October 13th [updated October 16th] 2023, the Office of the President issued a statement reaffirming Wake Forest University’s motto of “Pro Humanitate,” calling it a “compass for us, to determine not only when to speak and to act, but how, and why”. Without contextualizing Hamas’ attack as part of a long resistance movement against ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian peoples’ lands, bodies, economies, and futures, the statement calls it “the most horrific terrorist attack on Israeli soil in history, creating fear and uncertainty for Jewish people around the world as well as in our Wake Forest community.” However, this statement also highlights one of its “top priorities” to “Create opportunities for learning and dialogue”. And yet there is a censure of Palestinian voices like that of leading Palestinian feminist scholar, Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi. 

In addition, just since October 7, 2023, according to the most conservative estimate, over 41 thousand Palestinians have been brutally massacred, while a Lancet Study of July 10, 2024 estimates that “up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza,” roughly 7.9% of Gaza’s total population. On September 26th, WFU President’s statement regarding the first year commemoration of October 7th, notes that the only way of marking the day is to have “interfaith prayers for peace,” followed by a “community reflection event.” This, for us, is an alarming move. Neither October 7th nor the 75 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is about religion. It is about settler colonial occupation of land, resources and an active set of practices to eliminate Palestinians. Framing settler colonial violence as interfaith disharmony shores up the Zionist, racist, and Islamophobic argument that support for Palestine liberation is necessarily anti-Semitic and an attack of Jewish people. This baseless and inflammatory framing, as our allies in the form of Jewish Voices for Peace and one of the organizers of Dr. Abdulhadi’s lecture, the eminent scholar, Dr. Barry Trachtenberg, argues, stands against a grounded and critical understanding of Zionism and anti-semitism. Dr. Trachtenberg, the Rubin presidential chair of Jewish history at Wake Forest University, has noted that Israel’s attacks on Palestinians “clearly meets the threshold of genocide, because it is also combined with a broad range of statements by Israeli officials, saying that they’re going to do exactly the steps, that they hold all Palestinians responsible, that there are no innocent Palestinians.” In his invitation letter, Dr. Trachtenberg, Chair of Jewish studies at your university, alluded to the intellectual and academic value of Dr. Abdulhadi’s lecture that would be held “in conjunction with a two-year faculty seminar on the topic of Genocide and Memory Studies” and his own class on “the history of Zionism in Europe, Palestine and Israel” – topics that Dr. Abdulhadi has spoken, written and taught for decades. Dr. Abdulhadi and Dr. Trachtenberg have collaborated for many years including most recently in the founding collective of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. Education and creating space to hold critical lectures and discussions and not Interfaith prayers are what is urgently needed –something which you are refusing your students and the broader campus community. 

Moreover, while WFU chose to cancel Dr. Abdulhadi’s October 7th, 2024 lecture, the university hosted in the last few months a campus lecture by the Israeli-American politician and commentator David Makovsky a professed Zionist politician and policy maker and an advisor to the Koret foundation. The Koret Foundation is cited in the failed federal Lawfare lawsuit against SFSU and Dr. Abdulhadi. Moreover, the title of Makovsky’s lecture is almost identical to professor Abdulhadi. As well, the University did not suspend its study abroad program with Israeli universities, despite multiple calls for the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions for their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights that are stipulated in international law. Israeli universities offer scholarships to Israeli students for serving in the Israeli military, including for participating in the genocide in Gaza and do nothing to support or protect Palestinian students and faculty when they are threatened with racist and violent intimidation. 

The cancellation of Dr. Abdulhadi’s lecture at WFU reflects an alarming national pattern in which university administrations have departed from proclaimed neutrality but have instead overtly sided with a Zionist, anti-Palestine, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic agenda while often turning campuses to militarized police zones and violently suppressed and punished students, faculty and staff who exercised the freedom of speech and academic freedom by speaking up for Palestinian rights and lives. University administrations have misused campus resources, including DEI objectives and units and diverted them for the benefit of Zionist organizations such as Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to promote racist Zionist anti-Palestine, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic incitement while applying the ill-reputed IHRA definition of “antisemitism” against Palestinian decolonizing scholarship and teaching and critics of Israeli settler colonialism and the Israeli state.

Dr. Abdulhadi is the director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program at SFSU. She has been consistently recognized by her academic colleagues, including the 2020 Georgina M. Smith Award by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) for her “courage, persistence, political foresight, and concern for human rights, including union organizing, gender and sexual justice, in her scholarship, teaching, public advocacy, and collaboration with a diverse group of academic, labor, and community organizations.” Both Dr. Abdulhadi and AAUP were attacked as a result by various Zionist groups that demanded that the AAUP rescind the award. In 2022, Dr. Abdulhadi was awarded the Jere L. Bacharach Service Award which “recognizes the contributions of individuals through their outstanding service to Middle East Studies Association (MESA) or the profession.” Again, Orientalist and pro-Israel groups and scholars targeted her and the Middle East Studies Association. However, the community and the academy continue to recognize her value and service, awarding her the American Studies Association’s Angela Davis Award for Public Scholarship in 2023 and the Dr. Clifford I. Uyeda Humanitarian of the Year award in 2024. Despite her distinguished scholarship and contributions, or perhaps because of her internationally influential and definitive work to resist the erasure of Palestine and Palestinian freedom, along with refusal to surrender in the face of egregious smear and defamation attacks;  Zionist organizations, along with colluding academic neoliberal academic institutions, have subjected her to a relentless abuse, harassment, intimidation, smear campaigns, frivolous but time-consuming lawsuit meant to derail her career and undermine her academic program while threatening her safety, falsely accusing her of “anti-semitism” and “terrorism,” and censoring her intellectual labor-intensive work to bring luminary guest speakers to her classes and educate her students at the height of the pandemic while accusing her of “material support for terrorism.”

The cancellation of Dr. Abdulhadi’s lecture at WFU is the latest attack in a 17-year-old Zionist orchestrated campaign by well-funded pro-Israel groups, such as Lawfare Project, AMCHA Initiative, Canary Mission, Stand With Us, the Horowitz Freedom Center, Campus Watch, the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel, Jewish Community Relations Council, San Francisco Jewish Federation, StandWithUs, Academic Engagement Network, Students Supporting Israel, Christians United for Israel, the Israeli Consulate. These groups are well-organized, well-funded, and well connected to the Israeli government. Their role is to silence and punish any criticism of Israel and are fundamentally anti-intellectual in their aims. It is worth noting that two of the main proponents, David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes, who have consistently targeted Dr. Abdulhadi, falsely accusing her of building “the most Jew-hating campus” at SFSU, were named as leading Islamophobes by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The same set of Zionist organizations, including Hillel and AMCHA (or Canary Mission), have been cited in an inaccurate and defamatory propaganda piece designed to incite hatred against Dr. Abdulhadi, construct her as a monster, and enlist opposition to her lecture at WFU.

These outrageous, insulting, and wildly racist and Islamophobic accusations call for a clear, strong and immediate denunciation to vindicate the academic reputation of the renowned scholar. 

In its attempt to destroy Palestinian Indigenous knowledge, history, and culture, Israel has destroyed all the Palestinian universities in Gaza, murdered a large number of intellectuals, educators, cultural workers, journalists and students, and prevented 40,000 high school students from taking the matriculation exam to qualify for college. This is a wanton and deliberate program of epistemicide and scholasticide. The Zionists targeting of Dr. Abdulhadi and all producers of knowledge can only be interpreted as part of a settler colonial annihilation of Palestinian narratives and Indigenous knowledge. We have witnessed how the Western imperial establishment has weaponized the erasure and denial of the history of Palestinian anti-colonial resistance against Israeli settler colonialism and to legitimize the Israeli/US genocide against Palestinians. By canceling Dr. Abdulhadi’s lecture and silencing this distinguished Palestinian scholar’s voice, WFU administration is directly contributing to shadow banning the ongoing genocide and its continuing escalation.

We urge you to rethink your ill-conceived decision that violates academic freedom, stunts critical thinking, and invites and legitimizes repression. It is not too late to retreat from the pressure of donors and trustees.  Your students deserve an opportunity to learn from Palestinian scholars. Do not deny them that. 

Sincerely,

California Scholars for Academic Freedom (CS4AF)

Signatories:

Tomomi Kinukawa, Ph.D., Lecturer, Women and Gender Studies, San Francisco State University (co-drafter)

Shaista Aziz Patel, Assistant Professor of Critical Muslim Studies, UC San Diego

Wendy Matsumura, Associate Professor, UC San Diego

Huma Dar, Adjunct Professor, Critical Studies Program, CCA, San Francisco

Robin D.G. Kelly, Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U. S. History, UCLA

Terry Burke, Research Professor of History, UCSC

Brooke Lober, Ph.D., Lecturer, UC Berkeley Gender and Women’s Studies 

Piya Chatterjee, Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Dorothy Cruickshank Backstrand Chair of Gender and Women’s Studies, Scripps College

Sherene Seikaly, Associate Professor, Department of History, Director, Center for Middle East Studies, UCSB

Nubar Hovsepian, Associate Professor Emeritus, Chapman University

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center, UCSB

Jennifer L. Kelly, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Feminist Studies Department & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department, UCSC 

Blanca Missé, Associate Professor of French, San Francisco State University

Mark Levine, Professor of History, UC Irvine

Bishnupriya Ghosh, Professor of English and Global Studies, UCSB

Setsu Shigematsu, Interim Chair and Professor of the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside

Dwight F. Reynolds, Distinguished Professor of Arabic Language & Literature, Department of Religious Studies, UCSB

Sang Hea Kil, [Currently job suspended and signing as an individual and not as a SJSU representative], Professor, Justice Studies Department, San José State University

Dennis Kortheuer, Dept. of History, Emeritus, California State University, Long Beach


Vida Samiian, Co-Coodinator, Executive Board, CS4AF, Professor & Dean Emerita, CSU Fresno

Steven Roddy, Co-Coodinator, Executive Board, CS4AF, Professor, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of San Francisco

Lisa Rofel, Professor Emerita and Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Daniel Segal, Jean M. Pitzer Professor of Anthropology and Professor of History, Pitzer College

Nancy Gallagher, Professor Emerita of History, University of California, Santa Barbara

Jamal Nassar, Dean Emeritus, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, California State University, San Bernardin