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Complaint filed against UC Santa Barbara over targeting of Jewish student

May 17, 2024

 

Tessa Veksler

By CCN STAFF

A Jewish legal advocacy organization on Thursday filed a federal civil rights complaint against the University of California Santa Barbara on behalf of the student government president, whom pro-Palestinian protesters have targeted amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

Tessa Veksler, self-described as “unapologetically Jewish,” has faced “severe and persistent antisemitic bullying and harassment on campus by her peers, based on her Jewish shared ancestry and ethnicity,” according to the complaint. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

The complaint alleges UC Santa Barbara violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin at educational institutions that receive federal funding.

In February, protesters placed signs inside and outside of UC Santa Barbara’s Multicultural Center accusing Veksler of being a racist zionist student body president who supports genocide. Messages on the signs included “Tessa Veksler supports genocide” and “you can run but you can’t hide Tessa Veksler.”

In April, a vandal or vandals allegedly targeted a student government poster featuring Veksler. The Brandeis Center also alleges Veksler was doxxed.

Veksler feared for her safety, suffered from panic attacks and took her final exams for the fall semester online in order to stay off campus and avoid harassment, the complaint states.

The Brandeis Center seeks a series of remedies including a full investigation of discriminatory and harassing conduct directed at Veksler, outreach to the Jewish community at UC Santa Barbara and updating the university’s policies and training. Likewise, the center requested that the university issue a statement condemning antisemitic harassment.

“The university is committed to supporting our students and to investigating and addressing all reports made to it,” UC Santa Barbara wrote in a response to the complaint. “We look forward to working with the Department of Education.”

 


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So, let me get this right. It’s ok for the Republican presidential nominee to say there were “good people” among a group of Nazis in Charlottesville who chanted “Jews will not replace us” and then host white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who denies the Holocaust, at Mar-a-Lago, but it’s not ok for protesters to express their opinions on college campuses about the civilian casualties in the IDF’s war on Hamas. Somehow they are the real anti-semites.


The Christian Right has always been confused on this issue. On one hand they vehemently dislike the Jews for sending Jesus to his death and for charging interest on money they lent the world’s governments. And, on the other hand, Israel has to be a viable nation when the apocalypse comes and Jesus returns.


-38

The people at Charlottesville were chanting . ” You will not replace us . ” Referring to White Replacement Theory .


2

You are purposely misquoting President Trump and its obvious to everyone… Video is available so you can watch his full presentation and news presser….


8

Oh, sorry, he said “very fine people on both sides.” Exact quote. The two sides in question were Nazi protesters, who wanted Robert E. Lee left up and who chanted “Jews will not replace us.” And on the other side were antifa counter-protestors. One of the “protestors” killed a person. So, I’m pretty sure none of them, including the counter protestors, were “fine people.”


-3

Just ….stop. Repeating easily debunked facts again and again isn’t the way to go.


https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/21/trump_didnt_call_neo-nazis_fine_people_heres_proof_139815.html#!


2

I have several Jewish friends and none are conservative. Perhaps this betrayal will change minds.


32

As a UCSB alum, it is beyond disappointing to see the corrupt liberal UC leadership embrace Hamas family values, and our Jewish students certainly deserve to be free from harassment by radical paid protestors trying to shove their radical agenda down the throats of our young students.


After the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, standing with Israel is an easy choice.


66

Snowflake; bet she voices herself loudly on her platform. People need to keep religion to themselves vs clogging courts. If your religion benefits war, maybe not be religious at all. And some people should stick to being libertarian swim coaches vs a public spectacle……….i think i can… ill try…to not be a snowflake victim and not sue a school that endorses the DOD and rich kids attend. Poor baby. IF people just kept politics and religion to themselves, as it is intended, this crap would not happen. Lord. Girls get raped on college campuses, and nothing is done. Id fear that over telling everyone I am a Zionist and a minority radical cult sect of a religion. lordy indeeeed. whats next, calling myself a Christian Nationalist vs, a fking Human on Earth?


-84

Agreed that religion and politics makes people stupid. It seems anti religion does too.


7

Where did this come from?… are our schools this screwed up or what?… is it social media?… these pro Palestinian protestors may as well put on pointy white hats to go along with their masks…. Please help me understand how long this has festered and how it began….


54

If University employees (ie.. professors) were involved in the harassment of this study she will be getting a free UC Education and then some.


50

This is a subject that serves no purpose for comment, unless you want to be labeled and put in a file for later. Don’t get me wrong, Palestinians like Americans, are generally peace-loving people.


0

May 10th, 2024

 

Thank you for your excellent news outlet.

Recently, the Democratic Club of Atascadero held a meeting at the Atascadero Library. Someone told me that the meeting was a lecture about Christian Nationalism and lecture would start at 6:00 P.M. I showed up at approximately 6:00 P.M. A man there approached me and said that this is a private meeting and I was not welcome. I told the man this is government building partially paid for by my taxes.

He insisted that I leave. So, I did.

In my opinion private meetings should be in private facilities.

The next day I happened to attend a meeting at a private facility where one of the attendees stated that the open lecture on Christian Nationalism started at 7:00 P.M. One of the attendees recorded the lecture. I watched the video. Many of the people on the video were yelling, interrupting, and telling others to leave.

I have tried for years to raise the level of discourse in public meetings by instilling critical thinking. One way to do this is by pointing out and describing false reasoning. One type of false reasoning I observed on the video logicians call “argumentum ad hominem,” which means arguing to the person, not the issue, which is “argumentum ad rem.” The very title of the lecture, “Christian Nationalism,” is an ad hominem attack on people who are patriots and Christian. Other personal attacks I heard were, “MAGA,” and climate deniers. These comments lower the level of discourse and coarsen the culture. 

Another type of false reasoning is, “argumentum ad verecundiam,” which means appeal to authority. The lecturer mentioned many books that supposedly bolster his arguments.

The lecturer also used a type of false reasoning  described as,  “hasty generalization.” This is when someone attributes to a whole group some characteristics based on too few examples. Another name for this is: inductive reasoning with insufficient evidence. One example I heard was, “all Christian Nationalists worship Trump.”

Speakers at public meetings should eschew false reasoning of any type. 

Gary L. Kirkland

gary.l.kirkland@gmail.com


44

It’s the SLO COUNTY library, ENTIRELY paid for by taxes.


22