UCLA Chancellor Gene Block will testify earlier than a Republican-led Home committee Thursday, the place he’s anticipated to face aggressive questioning about antisemitism on his campus and the way a pro-Palestinian encampment led to violence.
His look comes as UCLA, among the many nation’s most prestigious public universities, has been roiled by months of tense protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict, together with a violent mob assault three weeks in the past on a pro-Palestinian encampment.
The testimony — which can happen simply over two months earlier than Block steps down as chancellor — would be the first time the top of a California college addresses the Home Committee on Training and the Workforce. The group has grilled college presidents and Okay-12 college leaders on a nationwide stage for the reason that fall, contributing to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and the College of Pennsylvania.
Setting the tone for questioning, chair Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) mentioned in a Monday assertion that the “committee has a transparent message for mealy-mouthed, spineless faculty leaders: Congress is not going to tolerate your dereliction of your obligation to your Jewish college students. No stone should go unturned whereas buildings are being defaced, campus greens are being captured, or graduations are being ruined.”
In a campus-wide letter distributed Monday, Block mentioned he would “communicate actually, and personally, in regards to the challenges UCLA faces and the influence of this pernicious type of hate” through the testimony. “I’ll proceed to insist that antisemitism — in addition to Islamophobia, anti-Arab hate and any type of bigotry, hostility or discrimination — is antithetical to our values, corrosive to our group and to not be tolerated.”
Thursday’s testimony will symbolize a key second in Block’s 17-year profession at UCLA and comes per week after he survived a “no confidence” vote by the college’s Tutorial Senate however noticed half of voting college representatives endorse censuring him for his response to pro-Palestinian protesters.
The Home committee is investigating how UCLA dealt with the encampment that was dismantled Might 2 by police who arrested greater than 200 individuals, along with allegations of antisemitism which have grown on the Westwood campus for the reason that Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and the nation launched its retaliatory conflict in Gaza.
The committee, made up of 44 representatives — 24 of them Republicans — has three Californians, Republican Rep. Michelle Metal and Democratic Reps. Mark Takano and Mark DeSaulnier. The panel describes itself on its web site as “selling entry to high-quality schooling for college kids” and opposing “one-size-fits-all government-run faculties.”
Throughout an explosive Dec. 5 committee listening to on antisemitism, the presidents of Harvard, the College of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise confronted strain after giving evasive responses as to if “calling for the genocide of Jews” was a violation of scholar conduct guidelines, together with saying of their solutions that it trusted “context.” Presidents and college directors going through elected officers since then have fared higher on comparable questions.
Block will likely be joined by the leaders of Northwestern and Rutgers universities, the place presidents just lately signed off on agreements with protesters to finish encampments however didn’t comply with their major calls for: to divest from weapons firms and ties to Israel and to boycott tutorial partnerships with Israeli universities. Block has not made any agreements with pro-Palestinian activists.
The presidents of Yale and Michigan, who had been beforehand slated to testify alongside Block on the listening to, titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic School Chaos,” will likely be known as to look for transcribed interviews. The top of the Berkeley public college district testified earlier this month in throughout the same listening to aimed toward Okay-12 faculties.
Foxx has admonished UCLA and the opposite universities for making what she sees as “surprising concessions to the illegal antisemitic encampments on their campuses” and criticized UCLA management for failing to have police ready to intervene April 30 when the mob attacked the pro-Palestinian camp.
UC launched a press release Tuesday describing UCLA’s free speech and anti-discrimination insurance policies.
“Whereas free speech is protected on UCLA’s campus — and in any respect different public universities — that proper just isn’t absolute. We even have authorized obligations underneath the federal legislation to guard college students from discrimination and harassment,” mentioned Charles F. Robinson, common counsel and senior vice chairman. “Our insurance policies don’t enable for anybody to intimidate, harass or cease somebody from transferring freely about our campus. UCLA follows the College of California’s Anti-Discrimination Coverage, which prohibits harassment and discrimination primarily based on a person’s precise or perceived protected class. The protected classes embrace faith and nationwide origin [shared Jewish ancestry].”
Critics say the hearings are an try by Home Republicans to make use of campus unrest for political acquire throughout an election 12 months. Additionally they level out that whereas reviews of campus antisemitic incidents have grown considerably since Oct. 7, there have been no comparable hearings on the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hatred that has additionally shot up.
A spokesman for the committee didn’t reply to a request to interview Foxx. A UCLA spokesman additionally didn’t reply to a request to interview Block.
Foxx beforehand directed Block, UC President Michael V. Drake and Wealthy Leib, chair of the UC Board of Regents, to provide all paperwork, communications and safety movies associated to alleged antisemitic incidents at UCLA since Oct. 7. She gave them till Tuesday afternoon to share these paperwork, in addition to texts and different communications from workers, police and the regents.
In a letter final week demanding the paperwork, Foxx described what she noticed as an antisemitic trope: a picture of Block, who’s Jewish, displayed on the encampment that “featured him with horns and pink eyes.”
Earlier than the protests started, Block was broadly praised for increasing enrollment, variety, philanthropy and analysis funding to get the college by means of a monetary disaster and the worldwide pandemic. The final controversy Block confronted was in 2019 when The Occasions revealed that years earlier, UCLA had been conscious of allegations of fogeys pledging donations to its athletic applications in trade for his or her youngsters being admitted to the college.
However after the encampment assault in a single day on April 30 and a hours-long delay within the police response to quell the melee, he has confronted condemnation from some elected officers, college, college students and workers. Whereas his greatest critics at UCLA have been from the left, he’s extra prone to face opposition on the listening to from the suitable, following a sample in earlier hearings.
Professional-Palestinian UCLA college have expressed frustration that their chancellor has flown to Washington, D.C., whereas the campus stays unsettled.
“UCLA is the middle of the fireplace throughout American universities, but he’s specializing in the listening to,” mentioned Yogita Goyal, a professor of English and African American research and a voting member of the Tutorial Senate who mentioned she opposes Block’s management. “Congress shouldn’t dictate what occurs on our campus.”
Graeme Blair, an affiliate professor of political science who’s a part of UCLA School for Justice in Palestine, mentioned he hoped Block would use the listening to to “push again in opposition to the narrative of the committee, which is targeted on antisemitism to the exclusion of anti-Palestinian hate … the dominant drive on our campus resulting in violent hurt to our college students.”
“UCLA’s response to the encampment on campus failed to guard college students in opposition to anti-Palestinian violence, nevertheless it has an opportunity now to return clear and begin to make modifications,” Blair mentioned.
Inna Faliks, a professor of piano who’s Jewish, mentioned she “hoped the listening to would assist” however that it was “laborious to inform” if earlier ones had made a dent.
Faliks, a voting member of the Tutorial Senate who opposed the latest ballots in opposition to Block, charged the UCLA encampment with being “pro-Hamas” due to its slogans and checkpoints that may not let Zionists by means of, saying they “made Jewish college and workers really feel horrible.”
Judea Pearl, an Israeli American professor of pc science, mentioned that he, too, felt the sting of antisemitism on campus however thought the problem was too usually brushed apart by activists who described themselves as anti-Zionist however not antisemitic.
“There’s a zionophobia on campus. However Zionism just isn’t a nasty factor,” mentioned Pearl. “It’s good to associate with Israeli universities, for instance. We’d like their analysis as a result of it’s good analysis.”
Pearl disapproved of Block’s dealing with of the encampment, he mentioned, as a result of it was not cleared extra rapidly after going up April 25. He additionally mentioned {that a} tense pro-Israel counter-protest earlier than the assault has been overshadowed by the night time of violence.
“Sadly, this listening to is being finished by Republicans. I want it was finished by Democrats who really care about greater schooling,” Pearl mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s higher than doing nothing.”
Along with the listening to, UCLA is making ready for a potential strike by graduate scholar staff. The union representing such staff throughout the College of California’s 10 campuses voted final week to authorize a strike in response to the arrests and use of drive in dismantling the pro-Palestinian encampments at UCLA and elsewhere. The strike started Monday at UC Santa Cruz.
Gene McAdoo, a doctoral scholar within the UCLA Faculty of Training and Info Research who’s a part of the union and joined the pro-Palestinian encampment, mentioned he thought Block would “get it actually dangerous.”
“I don’t suppose he’ll come out of that in a single piece,” McAdoo mentioned. “He’s been getting strain from the left to resign, however after this it may be coming from all sides.”
