A big swath of UCLA’s Jewish college — a few of whom are fervently divided over Israel’s warfare in Gaza — united to signal a letter denouncing the Trump administration’s “misguided and punitive” demand for a $1-billion tremendous to settle claims over alleged campus antisemitism.
The letter, crafted by a handful of professors and signed by greater than 360 folks, was anticipated to be despatched by organizers as early as Monday afternoon to the College of California’s Board of Regents. It additionally decries the federal government’s freezing of $584 million in analysis grant funding.
“Reducing off a whole bunch of tens of millions of analysis funds will do nothing to make UCLA safer for Jews nor diminish antisemitism on the planet,” the letter stated. “It won’t profit Jewish Bruins nor Jews past campus who make in depth use of its first-rate medical amenities, ground-breaking scientific improvements, and cutting-edge cultural establishments.”
The letter has had a particular resonance, bonding folks with a range of views on the warfare within the Gaza Strip, the character of antisemitism and its prevalence at UCLA, which was roiled by violent protests in spring 2024. The signatories — who ranged from a self-described “anti-Zionist Jew” to ardent supporters of Israel — described their rising anger over what they noticed because the weaponization of antisemitism since Hamas’ assault on Israel two years in the past.
The signatories embody distinguished professors with experience on Israel, the Jewish folks and Nazism. Titled “Jews in Protection of UC,” the letter doesn’t point out the neighborhood’s political variations, as a substitute emphasizing its shared aim.
“We urge the Trump administration to stop its makes an attempt to deprive establishments comparable to ours of important analysis funds meant to save lots of and enhance lives,” the letter stated. “And we ask that it stop its misplaced efforts to withhold funds within the identify of combating antisemitism.”
In interviews, six of the signatories — whose views on Israel span the political spectrum — described their emotions in additional pressing phrases. They referred to as the federal government’s actions exploitative and manipulative, arguing that the Trump administration had cynically used the scourge of antisemitism as a cudgel to aim a remaking of upper training that adheres to the president’s political stances.
UCLA regulation faculty professor Ariela Gross, one of many organizers of the letter, stated that it goals to emphasize to the Board of Regents — who will in the end resolve the UC response to the Trump calls for — that Jewish voices on the college “actually need to combat.”
“We don’t need to again down,” she stated. “And we don’t assume which you can negotiate with an extortionist. It appears significantly necessary for Jewish neighborhood members to [express this], on condition that that is being so cynically completed in our identify — antisemitism is getting used because the fig leaf excuse for all of those actions.”
The U.S. Division of Justice, which is looking for the tremendous, declined to remark.
Ariela Gross, a professor on the UCLA Faculty of Regulation.
(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Instances)
Along with the $1-billion penalty, the Justice Division is also looking for a further $172 million for a claims fund for these affected by alleged civil rights violations and UCLA’s submission to an outdoor monitor over the settlement. Negotiations between the Trump administration and College of California attorneys, President James B. Milliken and regents are persevering with.
Nonetheless, UC officers have referred to as the present proposal “unacceptable,” however say they’re prepared to barter. Gov. Gavin Newsom has stated — with out providing particulars — that he needs to sue and that UC shouldn’t “bend the knee” to Trump.
UCLA professor David N. Myers, one other letter organizer, stated the prospect of each UC and Harvard College reducing offers with Trump might set a “harmful” precedent.
“It’s arduous to not see some technique within the insanity to attempt to carry down these two establishments,” stated Myers, a professor of Jewish historical past. “If they comply with a settlement, then in all probability each subsequent establishment will do the identical. What I discover harmful isn’t just the bankrupting of those extraordinary establishments … but additionally the try and impose supervision and restraints on scholarship and mental discourse.”
How the letter received completed
The letter got here collectively shortly over the Aug. 8 weekend — through separate conversations that Myers had with Gross and Maia Ferdman, the deputy director of UCLA’s Bedari Kindness Institute.
Myers stated that in Shabbat — the Jewish Sabbath, a time he doesn’t use electronics — he had been pondering the difficulty. He questioned, “How can we mount a voice of protest to this proposed shakedown of the college within the identify of defending Jews?”
After Shabbat ended at sunset Saturday, Myers turned on his cellphone, the place he discovered messages from Ferdman and Gross. They’d been considering the identical factor.
“I stated that it could be nice if Jews from a bunch of various political backgrounds from totally different corners of the college ecosystem got here collectively and stated one thing about this proposed tremendous,” stated Ferdman, whose institute goals to raise the analysis and follow of kindness.
Myers, who’s director of the Kindness Institute, instructed his colleagues he would write a draft — and after Ferdman and Gross provided suggestions, the letter started circulating for signatures on Aug. 11. Days later, the organizers determined to develop its scope in order that Jewish voices from throughout the UC system might add their names.
Zev Yaroslavsky, a former member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, in his then-office in 2014.
(Los Angeles Instances)
Zev Yaroslavsky, a former L.A. County supervisor, was an early signatory. He stated that the federal actions are “not going to handle the difficulty of antisemitism on campus,” however that they’ll “blow a gap by” the college’s funds.
“It’s the existence of the establishment — that’s what’s at stake right here,” stated Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative on the UCLA Luskin Faculty of Public Affairs.
A range of views
The discord at UCLA climaxed at a big encampment arrange on Royce Quad in April 2024: Professional-Israel activists instigated a melee, and regulation enforcement’s lack of ability to cease it sparked intense criticism. The violence drew international headlines as campus protests raged all through the nation.
Among the many encampment’s demonstrators had been Jews who protested towards the actions of the Israeli authorities, which launched a punishing warfare in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault. However the voices of Jews upset over what they’ve described as UCLA’s permissive strategy to campus antisemitism additionally rose in protest.
A number of individuals who signed the letter bristled as they mentioned how the difficulty of antisemitism was being utilized by the Trump administration.
Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel research, stated that whereas antisemitism on campus is a matter, it has been “grossly overstated and exaggerated to serve different political functions and ideological agendas.”
“Not solely is that sort of exploitation manipulative, however it might additionally foster a cynicism in regards to the concern of campus antisemitism,” he stated. “As a result of folks will say, ‘Nicely, that is simply principally a cudgel, there’s not a difficulty in any respect, and it’s simply being exploited.’”
Beth Ribet, a lecturer at UCLA who teaches about Nazism and white nationalism within the U.S., approaches these points from a special perspective than most of the different signatories.
Ribet, who referred to as herself an “anti-Zionist Jew,” stated there may be antisemitism at UCLA — probably the most violent of which she stated was the spring 2024 assault on pro-Palestinian protesters who had been Jewish.
“The discussions that the Trump administration and the UCLA administration have propounded about antisemitism symbolize a profound distortion of its precise that means,” she stated. “The issue of antisemitism that they’re describing doesn’t match what we’re experiencing.”
As for the letter, Ribet stated it captures the “naked bones that many of the Jews at UCLA would agree with.”
David Bocarsly, a former scholar physique president at UCLA and Jewish advocate.
(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Instances)
Not all of the signatories are present or former UCLA college, together with David Bocarsly. He served as scholar physique president throughout the 2012-13 tutorial yr.
Bocarsly, who’s government director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, which advocates for the Jewish neighborhood with state lawmakers, stated the withholding of analysis funds might make it much less secure for Jews on campus.
“Now you’re pitting the Jewish neighborhood towards different susceptible communities,” he stated. “Immigrant, first-generation, low-income school college students shall be instantly harmed by this … individuals who want important medical care from the college system, individuals who profit from the analysis that the college places out.”
Those that declined
Although the letter has been endorsed by a whole bunch of teachers with various views on Israel’s warfare in Gaza, there have been nonetheless some notable holdouts. Some members of the Jewish College Resilience Group and the lately disbanded UCLA Taskforce on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias didn’t signal. It’s a mirrored image, partly, of how fraught the difficulty has been on campus.
UCLA professor Judea Pearl on the Southern California Journalism Awards on the Biltmore Los Angeles lodge in 2024.
(Amanda Edwards/Getty Pictures)
Additionally among the many distinguished UCLA Jews who determined to not signal: Judea Pearl, a pc science professor.
An outspoken supporter of Israel who has decried a “demonization of Zionism” on the college, Pearl was the co-recipient of a $1.2-million Nationwide Science Basis grant suspended in late July. On Aug. 12, below a federal choose’s court docket order, the NSF reinstated the grant, which research how genetics information in mass medical information can be utilized to determine potential threat components for illness.
Pearl stated he was approached to signal the “Jews in Protection of UC” letter however declined.
“Signing it could undercut the complaints the Jewish neighborhood has raised as a result of this specific letter doesn’t suggest any constructive step towards addressing antisemitism and the anti-Zionist tradition nourished at UCLA in some departments,” Pearl stated.
Myers disagreed. He stated that he doesn’t “consider that the [Trump] administration’s monetary threats have something to do with combating antisemitism. That isn’t the turf on which this battle needs to be waged.”
