if you are jewish , and are thinking about attending uc davis…beware of a very openly hostile environment.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/02/03/pro-palestinian-students-heckle-cal-davis-opponents-with-cries-allahu-akbar/
it appears the school because of political correctness is afraid to address the problem.
The activists do not represent the entire student body of UC Davis. You shouldn’t discourage people from attending UC Davis just because of the activists.
I second @sopranokitty’s statement. A few bad apples in the bunch does not represent the whole. As a Aggie parent, I feel confident that the university is properly addressing this issue.
“activists” that they are not! the fact that attacks on jews on a college campus by a large group like that is tolerated is beyond words. I see that video and it is horrific.
As a parent I actually concerned with recent antisemitic movements on UC campuses. I did not know about UCD, but knew about UCB.
I feel the same way. The original poster is pointing out something that is currently going on at UC Davis, which is useful information for parents of current HS seniors.
My S14 is a freshman elsewhere, but his Jewish friends at UC Davis say that it is a truly hostile environment for anyone who supports Israel. The fact that Jewish kids leaving a meeting like that can be taunted, and can have shouts of “Allah Akbar” tossed at them AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY is simply beyond belief.
We eliminated certain schools because we knew they were hostile to kids who openly identified as Jewish, and for prospective freshman UCD needs to go on that list.
honestly, i would first look at the source you are looking at. Fox is known to give biased opinions on such issues. Furthermore, in reference to the shouting, “allah akbar,” it simply means God is great. It isn’t a swear word like many people are making it out to be. And be sure that in a few months, in fact, in a few weeks, this will all die down. Don’t let the media try to scare you out of attending a great school.
I appreciate the alert. To those of you who dismiss this as “a few bad apples,” how would you feel if it was your child (or you) having swastikas spray painted on your dorm and people openly taunting you? People are free to believe what they wish. They are free to advocate what they wish. They are not free to harm other members of their school community. What has the university done to address this?
@curious201415
First of all news outlets such as fox, msnbc, and even CNN all talk about issues taking a certain angle. However what happened at UCD is not an instance of media bias. What happened there was blatant anti semitism. First student leadership decided to divest from Israel (a blatantly racist act in itself). If you want to divest from israel then divest from all the middle eastern countries, Russia, China, Pakistan, and basically all the countries in Africa. I’m sorry but in what world is it okay to protest and boycott the only democracy in the Middle East and the i tl place that won’t publicly execute or at least throw you in prison if you’re gay. I don’t want to turn this political, but if you want to boycott israel because of the actions of israeli settlers then so be it. But if you do that, then boycott all the other countries in the world that violate human rights and “occupy” other territories. The BDS movement is racist for that reason, because a jewish state is being targeted. So not only did that pass and jewish students taunted by Allah akbar, but the next day a Jewish fraternity woke up to spray painted swastikas. And yes screaming allah akbar is offensive, because now you are making a “political” issue into a religious one. Moreover the leader of Palestinian student group posted a picture of the success on facebook calling for Sharia law in UC Davis. For more examples of anti-semitism on UC campuses watch this:
How berkeley students react to ISIS vs ISRAELI flag
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kCBINSWCiAE
leader of the MSA in Ucsd calling for all jews to be slaughtered when guest speaker David Horowitz came to talk about issues in the Middle East.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8fSvyv0urTE
Sure this is not indicative of the whole student population, but why don’t you try to imagine what would happen if this was say… Black people being targeted. What would happen if the leader of one of the most popular groups on campus called for the death of all Black people. Or if a black person hanging off a tree was spray painted on a black fraternitys building. That would never be okay. Maybe eighty years ago, maybe in the Deep South, but not in one of the better and more liberal colleges in America.
This is scary. Any UCs with better climate for Jewish students?
Honestly, it seems like the more liberal the school, the more hostile the environment is for Jewish people, especially those who are for israel. And I’m not talking about hardcore zionists, I mean the ones who want a two state solution or what not. Schools like berkeley and Santa Cruz, that seem to be very liberal are usually the ones that foster these kind of atmospheres. In the words of bill maher, berkeley liberals have become so tolerant, that they tolerate intolerance.
But to answer your question, UCSB and UCLA have a better climate as far as UCs are concerned.
“i would first look at the source you are looking at. Fox is known to give biased opinions on such issues” are you saying it is somehow fake, that because fox reported it the story should be ignored?? you got to be joking. maybe you should be more concerned that the other networks ignored the story. you simply want to ignore the story so you attack the source. and what they are shouting is very clearly used as a source of intimidation and religious taunting . you are trying to spin reality into something else. this school has a serious problem with antisemitism on campus and those muslim students taunted those students with that chant… in the same way before you burn someone alive in a cage, shot up a magazine in paris, behead people or burn down a hindu temple full of people you shout those words again and again… this behavior occurring on a college campus is beyond words.
We are not Jewish but I would not want my kid at a campus where this kind of behavior was tolerated. Thanks for the heads up.
I am surprised that the original poster states that UC is not doing anything about this. I found out about the incidence through an email by the UC Davis chancellor the day the spray painting was discovered (which was a Saturday). She informed us - the parents of UC Davis students - that this happened, that this is not tolerated at UC Davis and that this has been given to police to investigate so that those responsible can be found and be dealt with.
While I was horrified to learn about what had happened I was glad that immediate action was taken by UC Davis and to learn about this from the chancellor and not Fox News or another news outlet.
Of course Davis notified the parents and are giving a $2500 reward to anyone who knows who did it. What are they supposed to do? This was reported on by every major news outlet and circulated rampantly through social media. The problem isn’t the way Davis handled the situation in terms of alerting parents. What were they supposed to do, this story was reported on by almost every news outlet (except MSNBC of course) and circulated rampantly on social media. The problem is that this incident happened in the first place. It’s one thing if a swastika was painted on the building as a random and isolated hate crime. The swastika was just a culmination of the anti semitism on UC campuses. When you foster an environment where jewish students feel unsafe expressing their beliefs because they feel they will be targeted…THAT IS A PROBLEM. Call it “free speech” but I guarantee you that if there was a resolution to divest from all companies with African American ownership, this type of free speech would not be tolerated. If I were Davis I would suspend all the people chanting Allah Akbar. I would openly stand behind all israeli students. At UCLA when BDS legislation was passed, the president and major donors to the school stood up to say THIS IS NOT OKAY. When will peoe understand that you can’t distinguish hatred against Israel from hatred of jews. If the BDS movement is really strictly political, why were students chanting Allah Akbar. Why was a seastika painted on a Jewish house. Why do people wearing keepahs find it scary to walk around campuses. I’m sorry but what UC Davis did is not even close to being enough.
The fact that we as a society are becoming so PC that we would label this hazing as “free speech” is truly appalling.
Obviously spraying a swastika on a campus is a hate crime. But that happened last year at Yale. Would you consider Yale to be a hotbed of anti-Semitism? Obviously not. I don’t know if they ever found the culprit(s) but the response of the Yale community was truly heartening. Everyone of all religions and ethnic backgrounds came together and wrote messages of love, tolerance, empathy on the sidewalk where the swastika had been.
In my mind, that’s a critical difference and that’s why I asked what UC Davis was doing about the incidents. If the students on campus and the campus leadership loudly and heartily rejected the animus and took action against students who are openly posting threatening messages, I’d feel differently.
@uesmomof2
That’s exactly what I’m saying. There are colleges (emory for example) where there have been isolated crimes of anti semitism as well as all other types of racism homophobia and sexism. But at schools like berkeley and now Davis, this is different. The swastika came after essentially anti Semetic legislation was passed by the Davis student government. Then, the Muslim student body and Palestinian clubs basically taunted and chased the jewish students out of the building and the leader of this supposedly “political but not religious movement” called for Sharia law in Davis.