Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect

Over 150 faculty of the California State University (CSU) System, which serves over 450,000 students, have signed an open letter calling on chancellor Mildred García and the board of trustees to address antisemitic behavior that anti-Zionist faculty have defended as free speech and academic freedom.

“Since the massacre of October 7th, we have watched in horror and bewilderment as individual faculty and even whole departments have fomented a hostile and threatening climate for Jewish and Israeli members of the CSU community,” said the letter, which was organized by the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), an education nonprofit. “In recent weeks, this has been further exacerbated by new anti-Israel rallies and illegal encampments on several campuses, which are fueling antisemitism.”

The letter explained that anti-Zionist faculty who engage in antisemitic conduct often “conflate” academic freedom with free speech, believing that the former grants them the right to promote racial hatred and discrimination on their campuses. At the same time, the letter continued, they advocate policies  — such as an academic boycott of Israel — which would strip Jews and Israelis who support Israel of their right to free speech and academic freedom.

“As defined by the American Association of University Professors, academic freedom ‘is a professional right extended to members of the profession and is subject to certain limitations. Academic freedom means that faculty are free to engage in the professionally competent forms of inquiry and teaching that are necessary for the purposes of the university. It does not mean that individual faculty members are free to teach or publish whatever they want without repercussions,'” the letter continued. “Under the guise of academic freedom, some faculty have pushed a partisan, antisemitic, and anti-Israel political agenda in and out of the classroom and have encouraged their students to do the same.”

A slew of incidents, which have been undertaken at the urging of anti-Zionist faculty, prompted the letter. Throughout the CSU system, it said, students have posted pictures of Hamas terrorists, called for a genocide of Jews in Israel, and paid antisemitic speakers to lecture about anti-Zionism. The letter added that Jewish and Israeli faculty have faced gross violations of their civil rights, including being denied approval to teach subjects in which they are experts, threatened with termination, and physically blocked from showing up to work by mobs of anti-Zionist students.

The formation of several Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapters at CSU campuses is the most recent source of the problem, the letter said, explaining: “These chapters’ chief aim is to bring about the academic boycott of Israel — a key component of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — and establish it on their campuses, in their classrooms, and in other educational spaces. FJP works with Students for Justice in Palestine and other radical antisemitic and anti-Israel groups to push any faculty, staff, or students who disagree with them off campus.”

The document concluded that CSU should immediately act to prevent and protect antisemitic discrimination in accordance with Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act.

The faculty letter came two weeks after Mike Lee — the president of Sonoma State University, which is part of the CSU system — was placed on leave by García for issuing a statement which announced his agreement to adopt the BDS movement in exchange for students ending a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” they had erected on campus. Lee was reportedly not authorized to make such a concession.

An email shared by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter shows that Lee agreed to subject “all” the university’s financial endeavors to SJP’s scrutiny, implement a full academic boycott of Israel — including shutting down study abroad programs in the Jewish state — create a “Palestinian” curriculum within the department of ethnic studies, and issue a statement calling for a “permanent cease-fire in Gaza.”

In a letter which described Lee’s actions as “insubordinate,” CSU announced the next day that Lee would be stepping away from his duties temporarily.

“That message was sent without the appropriate approvals,” García said of Lee’s campus-wide email concerning the agreement with anti-Israel protesters. “The board’s leadership and I are actively reviewing the matter and will provide additional details in the near future. For now, because of this insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave.”

García added, “I want to acknowledge how deeply concerned I am about the impact the statement has had on the Sonoma State community and how challenging and painful it will be for many of our students and community members to see and read.”

The power of faculty — an overwhelming majority of whom identify as leftist — to govern the university and set the tone of its culture has been a key source of radicalism and anti-American ideas that have wielded significant influence in the academy, according to campus antisemitism expert Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who founded the AMCHA Initiative watchdog group.

“Faculty run the university, and they are out of control. They have tenure, and university presidents do not. So, it’s not that administrators are capitulating to students. They are capitulating to the faculty, because they know that if they run afoul of the faculty, they are history,” she told The Algemeiner earlier this month during an interview.

“This situation is not sustainable, and we have to focus specifically on the faculty,” Rossman-Benjamin continued. “Take away their shared governance. Take away their tenure. You have to get rid of tenure because it has protected faculty whose goal is to upend and undermine the university itself. It’s not just about social justice — their aim for decades has been to destroy the university as we know it and to use the university as a tool for revolutionizing society. If you can’t recognize how illegitimate that is, then the universities are lost. We will lose if we do not have the will to take them on.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.