Thursday, May 16, 2024
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I also understand the UCB Divest Coalition’s demands include academic boycott. I do not support academic boycotts. However, as we are unified in our desire to ensure that our academic partnerships remain in alignment with the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy, including anti-Palestinian discrimination, the University will review all complaints about existing global exchange and internship programs and review new and future programs to ensure their compliance with the Anti-Discrimination Policy. As discussed, the UCB Divest Coalition will formally report any anti-Palestinian discrimination in institutions with which we have existing global exchange and internship programs. UC Berkeley will address (including termination if remedy is unavailable) its programs that violate this policy and will cease its student participation in programs administered by the University of California or other institutions that also violate this policy, if other appropriate remedy is unavailable.
She doesn't support academic boycotts. But, wink-wink, she can find a way to allow them to happen, all without directly violating UC policy.
The UC Anti-Discrimination policy is a campus policy - it does not seem to apply to other colleges it partners with. It cannot demand that partner institutions adopt UC policies, only that the people it deals with directly in the other programs follow its rules.
The chancellor knows this so she uses ambiguous language: "to ensure that our academic partnerships remain in alignment with the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy," which is a very subjective measure. That ill-defined term is where the Israel haters will push their agenda, claiming, for example, that if Hebrew University is involved with in a project with the IDF, that creates a stressful environment for potential Palestinian students at UC.
To ensure we continue to meet our obligation under the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy, the University will establish a transparent process by December 2024 for the ongoing review of such complaints. The development of this process will include relevant stakeholder groups, including the UCB Divest Coalition and, upon its agreement, the Senate Academic Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Campus Climate. As we begin our discussions about this process, I understand that the UCB Divest Coalition would like for the review to be co-led by the UC Berkeley Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination and the Division of Equity and Inclusion and to consider, as evidence of discrimination, reports from current and former students and faculty as well as reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Since the explicitly anti-Israel group UCB Divest is the only student organization involved in this process, the net effect is that they will continuously accuse any and every Israeli university of not "aligning" with UC's discrimination policies, whether they affect UC students or not. They will abuse the system and wear down the committee members in charge of investments, who will eventually just give in to stop being harassed with paperwork and researching whether their charges are true or not.
UCB Divest is stacking the deck. Israeli universities, and no other, will be under constant attack and scrutiny. The only evidence allowed will be from NGOs with a track record of anti-Israel behavior. There is no procedure mentioned where Israeli universities or anyone else can even respond to whatever UCB Divest accuses them of.
Moreover, Zionist students are not welcome to be involved in the process to call out these tactics in real time.
Furthermore, Palestinian universities that celebrate terror, that silence dissent and that would never allow a single Jewish student will never be under review. Neither would any other universities in the Arab world that tolerate or encourage antisemitism.
The net effect is UC embracing discrimination against all Israeli universities.
It also results in a hostile environment - of Jewish students at Berkeley who know that an anti-Israel group si making decisions that can affect their own university experience.
All in the name of "equality."
