Homeland Security <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/morning-brief-trumps-liberation-day-doge-pr-battle-self-deportation-push" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recently arrested</a> a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, for engaging in “activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
While the Trump administration&#8217;s arrest of Ozturk is a move in the right direction, she is just one of countless students across the country who share a radical ideology.
Days after the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre which left 1,200 civilians dead, including 40 Americans, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/nyregion/columbia-pro-palestinian-group-hamas.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> a chilling headline: &#8220;Pro-Palestinian Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ by Hamas.&#8221;
The article claims a pro-Hamas student group at Columbia University marked the anniversary by distributing a <a href="https://newyorkwarcrimes.com/print-issue-vol-iii-no-13" target="_blank" rel="noopener">newspaper</a> titled “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory.” The headline was placed over an image of Hamas fighters breaching Israel&#8217;s security fence. Additionally, the student group published an essay describing the attack as a “moral, military, and political victory” and citing Ismail Haniyeh, the former political leader of Hamas hiding in Qatar who would later be assassinated. 
In 2024, encampments held by these same student groups multiplied on campuses across the country, from New York University to Harvard, Yale, UCLA, and many others.
How have American institutions come to the place where the mass slaughter of Westerners is celebrated on campus? 
A cursory glance at recent history reveals two driving factors: Mass Islamic migration to the West and mass funding from Islamic countries.
First, some clarification and some definitions. Radical Islam, or Islamism, is not the same as Islam. Rather, it is a radical offshoot that seeks, through political and often violent means, to establish a global caliphate where all citizens, Muslim or not, would be governed by a radical interpretation of Sharia law. While not all Muslims are Islamists, many who migrate are.
<h3>The Crusades</h3>
To truly understand the mindset of Islamists today, it is important to look back at the history of the Islamic empire. Since its rapid and bloody expansion in the 7th Century, the empire has clashed with the Western world a great many times in its pursuit for global dominance. The most famous example being the Crusades (1095-1300AD).
As Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAPeToyagqA">described</a> on a recent Piers Morgan panel, “The Crusades started because the Eastern Emperor requested help from the Western Pope. The Seljuk Turks were slaughtering Christians in the Holy Land, which had been Christian territory before the Muslim invasion in the 7th century.”
While the Holy Land may have remained in Muslim control at the conclusion of the Crusades, a greater victory was secured by the West that continues to define our world to this day: Islamic expansion was stopped from conquering all of Europe.
Fast forward nearly 1,300 years, and Islamists have yet to give up on the ambitions of their ancestors. Take Lebanon, for example. Once dominated by Maronite Christians, the mass migration and high birthrates of Muslim Arabs in Lebanese society over the 20th century eventually changed that. Today, Maronite Christians are a minority, and the nation is predominantly controlled by Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim terrorist organization.
They have now taken a new, alternative strategy when it comes to Europe and the West: mass migration.
<h3>Mass Migration</h3>
Over the past few decades, mass migration has overwhelmed many European countries.
In 2014, England’s Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2755654/The-changing-face-Britain-A-child-Birmingham-likely-Muslim-Christian.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> a chilling headline; “The changing face of Britain: A child in Birmingham is now more likely to be a Muslim than Christian”. According to the 2011 census, the second largest city in England with a rich Christian history, had 97,099 Muslim Children growing up there, compared to 93,828 Christian children. 
Radical progressive and generous immigration policies, including England&#8217;s, are to blame for this trend. During a recent Q&amp;A session, Parliament Member and leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage did not <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/HidQi4mq71U?si=jVaqhsDBuZqMvqgY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hold back</a> when addressing the state of immigration in the UK:
<blockquote>From after the war up until the millennium, net immigration ran at 30,000 to 40,000 a year. And yes, it worked. In fact, we had the most successful immigration policies of any country in the whole of Europe—no question. Now, it is totally out of control. Just think about this: two and a half million people have come in the last two years … The numbers are now literally unimaginable and are diminishing the quality of life for everyone in this country.</blockquote>
Farage is correct. These policies have significantly worsened life for everyone living in England. A 2018 YouGov poll <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/uk-no-go-zones-muslim-sharia-law-third-poll-hope-not-hate-far-right-economic-inequality-a8588226.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that a third of England’s population believed there were areas in the UK they could not enter if they were not Muslim. Now, reports of predominantly Muslim grooming gangs allegedly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uk-new-inquiries-child-sexual-grooming-pressure-elon-musk-tweet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">terrorizing</a> young girls across the country for over a decade have made headlines, while the government turned a blind eye. Meanwhile, Islamic terror attacks remain a grim reality, with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ngx3341ldo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">last</a> major incident occurring as recently as 2023.
England is not the only European country dealing with an immigration influx. A recent <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/08/19/muslim-migrants-around-the-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pew Research study</a> shows the top two European destinations for migrating Muslims are Germany and France. In both <a href="https://miwi-institut.de/archives/2461?_sm_nck=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Germany</a> and <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20171201/how-frances-muslim-population-will-grow-in-the-future" target="_blank" rel="noopener">France</a>, some estimates hold that by 2050 nearly one fifth of their respective populations will be Muslim if record high immigration patterns persist. 
North America is also grappling with mass Muslim migration. According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2011 study</a> by Pew Research:
<blockquote>The number of Muslims in Canada is expected to nearly triple in the next 20 years, from about 940,000 in 2010 to nearly 2.7 million in 2030. Muslims are expected to make up 6.6% of Canada’s total population in 2030, up from 2.8%.</blockquote>
When an Islamist migrant was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuL5pgW9f7g" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asked</a> by a Rebel Media reporter if he would like to see Sharia law implemented in Canada, he replied:
<blockquote>At some point it will! You know because we are having families, we are making babies. You’re not. Your population is going down the slum, right? And by 2060 according to Pew Research institute, your research, by 2060, Muslims will be the biggest religious group.</blockquote>
<h3>Mass Funding</h3>
A key player in subverting their minds is funding. While some universities receive funding from the U.S. government, large dollar amounts are funneled in from foreign governments like Qatar, a major <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/12/19/10-things-to-know-about-hamas-and-qatar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funder</a> of Hamas.
According to a 2022 study <a href="https://www.nas.org/reports/outsourced-to-qatar/full-report#_ftn1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> by the National Association of Scholars, from 2001-2022 Qatar donated $4.7 billion into universities across the United States. As a direct result of Qatar’s funding, according to <a href="https://www.thelawfareproject.org/campus-discrimination/2020/5/15/qatari-influencing-american-education-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> from the Lawfare Project, students across America are “learning about the Middle East in a biased way that emphasizes only the positive aspects of Islam while omitting a balanced discussion of other religions or belief systems, most notably Judaism.”
Imam Hasan al-Banna, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hassan-al-Banna" target="_blank" rel="noopener">founder</a> of the Muslim brotherhood, an influential Islamist organization from Egypt, once shared his commitment to the next generation, “The youth are our hope and the backbone of our movement; train them in the principles of Islam, and they will carry the banner of reform into the future.”
If universities remain under the influence of foreign entities like Qatar, the next generation of college educated Westerners will not only fail to stop the spread of radical Islamists, they will inadvertently support their efforts.
Whether it be through mass migration, funding, or ideological subversion, Islamism is a force the West cannot afford to ignore. World leaders would do well to follow the actions of the Trump administration who have been cracking down on the threat since day one. The West deserves to stay Western, and only through political action can current pushes for a global caliphate be subdued.
* * *
Jacob Falach is an associate producer at The Daily Wire. You can find him on Instagram at: @jacobfalach.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-EDUCATION-PROTEST

Money And Migration: How Radical Islam Gained A Foothold On Western Campuses

Columbia University

Harvard

migration

Muslim Immigration

Opinion

Qatar

Radical Islam

Students

UCLA

Yale

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice <a href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.wmJVV7EIOKgMqWuqPA8IcXakfZGbJqyH6YrxY7zl6VQtxSgY2CGvil4c4yQrFSv-2B2C185iB3Y-2F5QpgrbYA61oh3jxHb-2FtkEi8IfdJfixNzg-3DCWgM_03HZEuPE3hkcx2fMUSyQ63zYk0dEzg0x5dq45YpE12w9VZ7X5-2BCSHojkEG5GhTxSEBpdsKU-2F3K1QrAcJyEWsgtRkDwcU40iQUik8SMvQV9G6UPoh3vgWW7vvd0gOy-2FqxxEg55K6GjyaJMwCFIB1PTF-2BmSgf3aK-2BYwd9t5CBYPYSVEBuoCLwD8l1looT4XBMAZfTVXjHxwznBv5Y8yrid4Jd2NuMW83KoOLOCm1Xm4DkIxzZZKoDVLTyJIAbMDLN7VrSZf9jDpQ0bJYqxCh-2BwdS2Er5h2wutDtiSFOdG7sJIoWJmCytsuFaB-2FoWX-2FSmYrmKjNrc3CpiAcfphB5beFy4iCm8z6NLoD9ddyF5WHL4RT6J5C9munGjaxbqYWBXgd" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn%3Du001.wmJVV7EIOKgMqWuqPA8IcXakfZGbJqyH6YrxY7zl6VQtxSgY2CGvil4c4yQrFSv-2B2C185iB3Y-2F5QpgrbYA61oh3jxHb-2FtkEi8IfdJfixNzg-3DCWgM_03HZEuPE3hkcx2fMUSyQ63zYk0dEzg0x5dq45YpE12w9VZ7X5-2BCSHojkEG5GhTxSEBpdsKU-2F3K1QrAcJyEWsgtRkDwcU40iQUik8SMvQV9G6UPoh3vgWW7vvd0gOy-2FqxxEg55K6GjyaJMwCFIB1PTF-2BmSgf3aK-2BYwd9t5CBYPYSVEBuoCLwD8l1looT4XBMAZfTVXjHxwznBv5Y8yrid4Jd2NuMW83KoOLOCm1Xm4DkIxzZZKoDVLTyJIAbMDLN7VrSZf9jDpQ0bJYqxCh-2BwdS2Er5h2wutDtiSFOdG7sJIoWJmCytsuFaB-2FoWX-2FSmYrmKjNrc3CpiAcfphB5beFy4iCm8z6NLoD9ddyF5WHL4RT6J5C9munGjaxbqYWBXgd&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1742396223728000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1jcU1d9_V5j1M_-nVE4NEq">filed</a> a brief supporting Jewish students and a professor in their lawsuit against UCLA for helping anti-Semitic activist agitators block Jews from the campus.
“In <a href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.wmJVV7EIOKgMqWuqPA8IcUmvkedBiJLqOK2A3uOlENB6xKgBHeVB-2Bi9A-2BrP0CFn7TAisU-2FJ30qxdPDqvSLhIUB9IH9j20zy9lL8YxdjIeqt2I3t0YoS-2BrPUnGo-2BdUS-2F7uMEt_03HZEuPE3hkcx2fMUSyQ63zYk0dEzg0x5dq45YpE12w9VZ7X5-2BCSHojkEG5GhTxSEBpdsKU-2F3K1QrAcJyEWsgtRkDwcU40iQUik8SMvQV9G6UPoh3vgWW7vvd0gOy-2FqxxEg55K6GjyaJMwCFIB1PTF-2BmSgf3aK-2BYwd9t5CBYPYSVEBuoCLwD8l1looT4XBMAZfTVXjHxwznBv5Y8yrid4Cy-2FPnyURB0K03D8qZmb3NPXZ9Ls1IlF5POfIkKESnbHLie615V2hmN5TdGD40EQyCJjas-2F7nN2PdcbTdbsW8GD6P5BzFjQu3xEzj-2BqndjBTOvkSuyUFA160h8TOAzqtLZju4aHQXripEvkXtzOCtqTbuuf8ak0iJgc88bZVwqhc" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn%3Du001.wmJVV7EIOKgMqWuqPA8IcUmvkedBiJLqOK2A3uOlENB6xKgBHeVB-2Bi9A-2BrP0CFn7TAisU-2FJ30qxdPDqvSLhIUB9IH9j20zy9lL8YxdjIeqt2I3t0YoS-2BrPUnGo-2BdUS-2F7uMEt_03HZEuPE3hkcx2fMUSyQ63zYk0dEzg0x5dq45YpE12w9VZ7X5-2BCSHojkEG5GhTxSEBpdsKU-2F3K1QrAcJyEWsgtRkDwcU40iQUik8SMvQV9G6UPoh3vgWW7vvd0gOy-2FqxxEg55K6GjyaJMwCFIB1PTF-2BmSgf3aK-2BYwd9t5CBYPYSVEBuoCLwD8l1looT4XBMAZfTVXjHxwznBv5Y8yrid4Cy-2FPnyURB0K03D8qZmb3NPXZ9Ls1IlF5POfIkKESnbHLie615V2hmN5TdGD40EQyCJjas-2F7nN2PdcbTdbsW8GD6P5BzFjQu3xEzj-2BqndjBTOvkSuyUFA160h8TOAzqtLZju4aHQXripEvkXtzOCtqTbuuf8ak0iJgc88bZVwqhc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1742396223728000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0wJziPLmnl0BO_tB4Soe6i">Frankel v. Regents of the University of California</a>, a federal judge ordered UCLA last year to stop assisting the agitators, calling the exclusion of Jews from campus ‘abhorrent’ and ‘unimaginable,’” The Becket Fund <a href="https://becketfund.org/media/breaking-justice-department-condemns-ucla-for-jew-exclusion-in-groundbreaking-court-filing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. “The students and professor recently asked the court to make its ruling permanent so that Jews will never again face antisemitic exclusion.”
The DOJ brief states, “Even though UCLA may not dispute that the antisemitic campus environment at UCLA last year was ‘unimaginable’ and ‘abhorrent,’ the Individual Defendants moved to dismiss this action to evade liability for what happened on the campus that they are supposed to lead and protect. The United States has a significant interest in the proper application of federal laws that ensure equal access to educational opportunities and facilities.”
“The United States, therefore, has a strong interest in ensuring the proper application of Title VI, particularly when the Court has already found that in 2024 on UCLA’s campus ‘Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,’” the brief continues. “Additionally, as described in the White House’s Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, it is the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute.”
“UCLA helped the agitators by providing metal barriers, stationing security to shoo Jews away, and catering to the wishes of the agitators instead of ensuring safe passage for Jewish students, faculty, and staff,” Becket noted. “These actions were documented in a <a href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.wmJVV7EIOKgMqWuqPA8IcXgIOUgk5dAHBtrCiP6Bq6PY5FpeSynPKQXka4awOsdMLtOF_03HZEuPE3hkcx2fMUSyQ63zYk0dEzg0x5dq45YpE12w9VZ7X5-2BCSHojkEG5GhTxSEBpdsKU-2F3K1QrAcJyEWsgtRkDwcU40iQUik8SMvQV9G6UPoh3vgWW7vvd0gOy-2FqxxEg55K6GjyaJMwCFIB1PTF-2BmSgf3aK-2BYwd9t5CBYPYSVEBuoCLwD8l1looT4XBMAZfTVXjHxwznBv5Y8yrid4MW6LsfxpK1BkctV40wd3KtttA1RVRzs8HGUXu8nKDMm5PBHKLRGQzULSwqXRI2w5D-2FwwFjUhPH6ToNzQCZQACxDdxYgW9yCHFhdQcjEwkepNUl9rPjEtniGVMLx1FHnuLzkrm9700pSOXJtxF8b2S02LeeSyHb5x9dNfbK6OP19" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn%3Du001.wmJVV7EIOKgMqWuqPA8IcXgIOUgk5dAHBtrCiP6Bq6PY5FpeSynPKQXka4awOsdMLtOF_03HZEuPE3hkcx2fMUSyQ63zYk0dEzg0x5dq45YpE12w9VZ7X5-2BCSHojkEG5GhTxSEBpdsKU-2F3K1QrAcJyEWsgtRkDwcU40iQUik8SMvQV9G6UPoh3vgWW7vvd0gOy-2FqxxEg55K6GjyaJMwCFIB1PTF-2BmSgf3aK-2BYwd9t5CBYPYSVEBuoCLwD8l1looT4XBMAZfTVXjHxwznBv5Y8yrid4MW6LsfxpK1BkctV40wd3KtttA1RVRzs8HGUXu8nKDMm5PBHKLRGQzULSwqXRI2w5D-2FwwFjUhPH6ToNzQCZQACxDdxYgW9yCHFhdQcjEwkepNUl9rPjEtniGVMLx1FHnuLzkrm9700pSOXJtxF8b2S02LeeSyHb5x9dNfbK6OP19&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1742396223729000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2P_D9cFNiCvDS6mu3qy5mn">report</a> filed by UCLA’s own Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Bias, which admitted the University had fostered an antisemitic environment.”
“Jews should never have to fear for their safety when they step foot on a college campus,” said Yitzchok Frankel, the father of four and third-year law student at UCLA who filed the initial lawsuit. “I’m grateful that the federal government has condemned UCLA for kowtowing to antisemites, and I hope this sends a clear message to other universities that think they can do the same.”
“DOJ has thrown down the gauntlet: if university administrators aid and abet mistreatment of Jews, they will pay the price,” Mark Rienzi, president of Becket, stated. “This is a wake-up call for every university that allows antisemitic hatred to fester unchecked. No Jewish student or professor should ever again face this kind of terror on their own campus.”

US-ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-CONFLICT-GAZA-PROTEST

DOJ Joins Lawsuit Targeting UCLA For Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

California

Courts

Department of Justice

Los Angeles

U.S.

On Monday, after having seen the Trump administration cancel $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University over its failure to address anti-Semitism on its campus, UCLA announced an initiative to combat hostility against Jewish people.
On Friday, the Department of Education <a href="//3DD52ADE-3C84-4587-AB7B-E2FB9BDB038E/v" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>, “Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Education (ED), and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced the immediate cancelation of approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students. These cancelations represent the first round of action and additional cancelations are expected to follow.”
On Monday, Chancellor Julio Frenk wrote to the UCLA community and announced the initiative, <a href="https://chancellor.ucla.edu/messages/initiative-to-combat-antisemitism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a>, “UCLA is at an inflection point. Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself. This is an opportunity for UCLA to rise to the challenge of being an exemplary university.”
Last August, a federal district court issued an injunction against UCLA to stop the university from permitting and aiding anti-Semitic agitators blocking Jews from the campus. The injunction was the first in the nation against a university for permitting an anti-Semitic encampment.
Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum, and Eden Shemuelian sued the regents of the University of California after the university helped anti-Israel activists erect encampments where they blocked Jewish students from going to class, the library, or other areas on campus.
“With the knowledge and acquiescence of UCLA officials, the activists enforced what was effectively a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone,’ segregating Jewish students and preventing them from accessing the heart of campus, including classroom buildings and the main undergraduate library,” UCLA Professor Eugene Volokh <a href="https://reason.com/volokh/2024/06/06/lawsuit-filed-by-jewish-students-against-ucla/#:~:text=With%20the%20knowledge%20and%20acquiescence,and%20the%20main%20undergraduate%20library." target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in Reason. “In many cases, the activists set up barriers and locked arms together, preventing those who refused to disavow Israel from passing through. To enter the Jew Exclusion Zone, a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ views and have someone within the encampment ‘vouch’ for the individual’s fidelity to the activists’ cause.”
“UCLA reinforced these zones—both by providing metal barriers and by sending away Jewish students—while taking no effective action to ensure safe passage for Jewish students,” Becket, which represented the Jewish students, <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/media/breaking-federal-court-orders-ucla-to-stop-helping-antisemitic-activists-target-jews/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>.

UCLA Football Pro Day

UCLA Sees Trump Canceling $400M To Columbia, Suddenly Announces Anti-Semitism Initiative

Education

Trump Administration

There are “overwhelming facts, evidence, and testimony&#8221; proving that the University of California allowed a hostile environment on its campuses and failed to protect their employees from anti-Semitic tropes and attacks, senior Justice Department officials told The Daily Wire.
The Justice Department launched an investigation into the University of California system on Wednesday, following extensive reports about pervasive anti-Semitism on its campuses following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which spurred protests and conflict on campuses around the country.
“This Department of Justice will always defend Jewish Americans, protect civil rights, and leverage our resources to eradicate institutional Antisemitism in our nation’s universities,” Attorney General Pam Bondi <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-justice-department-launches-investigation-university-california-under-title-vii-civil" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said in a statement</a> announcing the investigation.
Leo Terrell, the senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, who is leading the Justice Department Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, told The Daily Wire that he expects the investigation to compile extensive evidence and testimony that will present “a viable winning case.”
Terrell said that the investigation is part of executing President Donald Trump’s executive order to rid America’s campuses of anti-Semitism.
“Trump and Bondi have made this a number one priority, and I&#8217;m proud and privileged to lead the task force to make sure that we root out anti-Semitism in every aspect of student life,” Terrell told The Daily Wire.
The investigation relies upon both submitted complaints and reporting, including The Daily Wire’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-student-government-office-refused-to-hire-jews-report-alleges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> about the student government at the University of California, Los Angeles, allegedly discriminating against Jews and Zionists in hiring practices.
“This is going to lead to a lot more digging into the university to go behind the scenes, lift up the curtain to figure out what else is going on, including potentially emails among university administration where they&#8217;re flagging this issue and nothing&#8217;s going out,” Justice Department Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle, who is helping lead the investigation, told The Daily Wire.
“We don&#8217;t know what we&#8217;re going to find, but we&#8217;re going to look at everything.”
The investigation seeks to determine if the University of California system violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Under Title VII, the Justice Department has the authority to investigate employers where it has reason to believe that a “pattern to practice” of employment discrimination exists.
“This is alleging that the staff, employees, faculty, professors, and people on the payroll are being subjected to a pattern and practice of harassment, unsafe work conditions, hostile work environment, because the university has refused to take action against blatant anti-Semitic behavior,&#8221; Mizelle said.
The University of California system may be guilty of discriminating against Jews and Israelis based on their race, religion, and national origin, according to Mizelle.
“This is one of these instances where you have actually three separate bases of discrimination that it appears that the university has not taken appropriate action to combat,” Mizelle said.
Mizelle and Terrell said they hope to complete the investigation within 30 days, depending on how complicated their findings are. The duo plans to lead a team that will conduct deep dives into troves of emails and documents as well as interview witnesses, including students.
Once the investigation is complete, Bondi will determine if there is enough evidence to pursue a lawsuit to seek injunctive relief, which would include a court requiring the university to cease discriminatory behavior.
While the University of California system has 10 campuses that will be investigated, the Justice Department plans to pay close attention to UCLA and University of California, Berkeley, where many of the troubling reports about anti-Semitism have stemmed.
In December, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-student-government-office-refused-to-hire-jews-report-alleges">reported</a> on a complaint filed regarding the Cultural Affairs Commissioner of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council, directing her staff to discriminate against Zionists when reviewing job applications.
A screenshot of a group message from the commissioner shows her alerting her staff when Zionists applied for a job, directing them to “please do your research when you look at applicants.”
A document from the group cited in the complaint categorizes Zionism alongside hateful ideologies, stating that any staff member can be removed from their position if they’re found to exhibit “antiBlackness, colorism, racism, white supremacy, zionism, xenophobia, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, ableism, or any/all other hateful bigoted ideologies.”
Terrell, who graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1990, said the DOJ has received numerous reports and complaints accusing the University of California system of creating a “severe and pervasive form of hostility and work environment.”
“That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to follow up on,” he said. “That&#8217;s the whole purpose of the notice to investigate.”
“I think there was such a delay in the response of the officials at UCLA as an example of the failure to take corrective action or immediate action or even to protect the students and the workforce at these universities and institutions,” Terrell added.
UCLA has been one of the most prominent schools thrown in the spotlight since the anti-Israel campus protests erupted, with a federal judge in August <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/court-issues-injunction-barring-ucla-from-helping-anti-semitic-agitators-target-jews" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issuing an injunction</a> to stop the school from permitting and aiding anti-Semitic agitators who blocked Jews from the campus.
Regarding UC Berkeley, Mizelle and Terrell pointed to numerous reports of anti-Semitism, including Jewish students being <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-uc-berkeley-jewish-students-forced-to-evacuate-after-mob-storms-event-with-idf-soldier" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forced to evacuate</a> an event featuring Israeli Defense Forces special forces soldier Ran Bar-Yoshafat after a mob of protesters stormed the building.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-to-sign-executive-order-to-deport-anti-semitic-foreign-students-and-protesters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump established</a> the task force in January. The order marshals all federal resources to combat anti-Semitism and demands the deportation of foreign anti-Semitic demonstrators who violate American laws, including students on visas.
“There&#8217;s a new sheriff in town with Attorney General Pam Bondi and there&#8217;s a new sheriff in town with President Donald J. Trump,” Mizelle said. “They have made it very clear from the moment that Donald Trump was sworn in from the moment that she was sworn in as attorney general, they will not tolerate this.”
He added that the administration is dedicating “extensive resources” towards the effort to combat anti-Semitism.
“It is because of their leadership in this area that we do believe we&#8217;re going to be successful in rooting out anti-Semitic behavior from our colleges,” Mizelle said.
On Tuesday, Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114104167452161158">announced</a> on Truth Social that all federal funding for schools and universities would be stopped if they allowed “illegal protest.”
“Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came,” Trump said. “American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!”
Terrell and Mizelle said any person who feels as if they were discriminated against should <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-justice-department-launches-investigation-university-california-under-title-vii-civil" target="_blank" rel="noopener">file a complaint</a> with the Justice Department&#8217;s Civil Rights Division.

UC Berkeley

EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Has ‘Overwhelming Evidence’ Of Anti-Semitism In University Of California System

Pam Bondi

University of California

The Department of Health and Human Services is spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer funds to research the alleged role of “structural racism’s” effects on substance use and HIV outcomes.
The University of California Los Angeles will receive <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01DA061345_7529">just under $440,000</a> from the National Institute on Drug Abuse as it works to blame differences in HIV and substance abuse treatment outcomes on an overarching system of oppression.
“It is well established that racial disparities in HIV care outcomes and use of substances among sexual minority men (SMM) of color persist because of structural racism in Los Angeles County,” the abstract’s opening line <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/tOdEyhgo1UaPJS0JbgaWsQ/project-details/10986884">claims</a>.
The UCLA study seeks to “interrogate” how “historical racist practices influence unequal spatial patterns and how such unequal structural factors are associated with distinct patterns of movement across social and geographic space” among black and Latino “sexual minority men.”
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The description for the grant program, which began in September 2024 and extends until July 2029, explains that the academics will use “Critical Race Praxis” and “intersectional anti-racism frameworks.”
It goes on to explain the alleged necessity of the study, arguing that “understanding how structural racism influences how BLSMM navigate the geography of LAC to receive SU and HIV care and how peer case managers, with racial and SU congruence, may enhance access to care will provide novel insights into the relationship between racism and HIV and SU treatment.”
UCLA will collaborate with researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara and the Los Angeles LGBT Center, which The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-government-to-drop-over-1-5-million-funding-lgbt-youth-mentorship-and-campus-activism">recently reported</a> is set to receive $1.5 million from the Department of Health and Human Services to fund its youth mentorship and campus activism programs.
The UCLA study is one of many ideologically-tinged projects set to receive government funding. The Department of Health and Human Services has also agreed to fund the University of Houston study on “systemic inflammation” caused by “fear of deportation,” The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/government-to-fund-study-on-fear-of-deportation-leading-to-systemic-inflammation">reported</a>.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has also been used as a vehicle to advance far-left ideology, with a Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27-of-national-science-foundation-grants-went-to-dei-projects-study-finds">investigation</a> revealing that 27% of all grants from the NSF went to support diversity, equity, and inclusion projects. Among the leftwing pet-projects raking in taxpayer funding through the NSF was a project at Columbia University to “decolonize geoscience” and another complaining that the academic peer review process is racist.
A representative for the UCLA study did not respond to a request for comment.

Prescription medication

Federal Government Set To Drop $440k Studying ‘Structural Racism’ In HIV Treatment

Critical Race Theory

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

LGBT

As we prepare to enter the new year, we’re taking you back to some of The Daily Wire’s best reporting from 2024. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/universities-made-oppression-scholars-their-presidents-now-students-feel-oppressed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This article</a> was originally published on May 3. 
Universities that selected presidents with academic track records that consist largely of political screeds about oppression are now melting down because of students who say they’re oppressed, a review of academic papers shows.
At UCLA, Provost Darnell Hunt donned a mask and sat on the ground with protesters, who told him that police are on the side of “Zionists,” and that police are going to commit “brutality” against them. After he said he had “to go,” they screamed “shame” at him.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
MUST WATCH FOOTAGE: This is UCLA&#8217;s Provost, Darnell Hunt, trying to negotiate with the UCLA Encampment Activists.
They effectively lecture him and when he tries to briefly clarify something, they get mad at him, so he decides to leave. The Encampment Occupiers laugh at this… <a href="https://t.co/fKJRcXHykQ">pic.twitter.com/fKJRcXHykQ</a>
— Stu (@thestustustudio) <a href="https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/1785926212029739449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2024</a></blockquote>
Hunt made his career opining on police brutality and racism in the aftermath of riots triggered by purported brutality against Rodney King, writing a book called “Screening the Los Angeles ‘Riots’: Race, Seeing, and Resistance.” The titles of his academic papers, below, give an idea of his area of expertise:
<ul>
<li>Reclaiming UCLA (lamenting that “a county that is 9.8% African American — now has a lower percentage of black freshman than either crosstown rival USC or UC Berkeley”)</li>
<li>Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America</li>
<li>Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case</li>
</ul>
And at Sacramento State, President Luke Wood went back on a threat to remove an anti-Israel encampment, instead allowing them to remain <a href="https://statehornet.com/2024/04/president-luke-wood-extends-encampment-approval-on-second-day-of-pro-palestine-protests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“indefinitely</a>.” Wood has made his career writing about student activism and the oppression of blacks, authoring the book “The Sources of American Student Activism” and papers such as:
<ul>
<li>Political Consciousness and Student Activism</li>
<li>Racelighting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Education</li>
<li>Treat Them Like Human Beings: Black Children’s Experiences With Racial Microaggressions in Early Childhood Education During COVID-19</li>
<li>I Love My Hair: The Weaponizing of Black Girls Hair by Educators in Early Childhood Education</li>
<li>Black Men in Higher Education</li>
</ul>
The review suggests that the unrest on college campuses is not the result of a small subversive faction, but rather one in line with the ideology of those at the highest ranks of the institutions. The papers, focused heavily on social sciences, also raise questions about the real-world utility of the work of those at even the highest levels of academia.
At Rutgers University, an anti-Semitic protester told a Jewish student that “Hitler would have loved you.” Rutgers leadership went on to give in to many of the protesters’ demands, such as <a href="https://twitter.com/sfmcguire79/status/1786417078058004840/photo/3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreeing</a> “to develop a plan for the creation of an Arab Cultural Center with designated physical space and a hiring plan for administrators and staff,” and to “develop training sessions on anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim racism for all RU administrators and staff.”
Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway — a former professor of African American Studies at Yale — has contributed to the academic world through papers such as:
<ul>
<li>Race, slavery, and Ideology in Colonial North America</li>
<li>Resistance and African American identity before the Civil War</li>
<li>The Black Body As Archive of Memory (which “considers the film Shaft and how it was, from beginning to end, one extended middle finger to white America”)</li>
<li>How to Read The Souls of Black Folk in a Post-Racial Age</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rutgers – Watch as a campus protestor tells a Jewish student “Free Palestine, Hitler would have loved you.”
Just another example of what this is all about – Jew hatred.
Plain and simple Jewish hatred. <a href="https://t.co/syUOz7tY4z">pic.twitter.com/syUOz7tY4z</a>
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) <a href="https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1786165109624074729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2024</a></blockquote>
At Portland State University, occupiers seized the campus’ main library, fighting with janitors and police, destroying rare books and smashing a historic sculpture based on the Torah.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Today: Portland news station KGW captured the moment the Antifa &#8220;guards&#8221; for the <a href="https://twitter.com/Portland_State?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Portland_State</a> library occupation pushed someone down the stairs. Far-left extremists have seized the entire Millar Library &#8220;for Gaza&#8221; and are destroying it inside. <a href="https://t.co/PoeeNyhYJJ">pic.twitter.com/PoeeNyhYJJ</a>
— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1785828338294194363?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2024</a></blockquote>
The university’s president, Ann Cudd, made her career off of lamenting oppression, publishing papers such as one simply titled “Oppression,” which cites Karl Marx, and another titled “Sporting Metaphors: Competition and the Ethos of Capitalism,” which explains that “whole subcultures live among us that avoid sports or capitalism, such as academics.” Her other papers include:
<ul>
<li>Analyzing Oppression</li>
<li>How to Explain Oppression</li>
<li>Oppression: The Fundamental Injustice of Social Institutions</li>
<li>Psychological Harms of Oppression</li>
<li>Psychological Mechanisms of Oppression</li>
<li>“Merit” In University Admissions</li>
<li>Feminist Philosophy’s Dependence on the Facts</li>
<li>Strikes, Housework, and the Moral Obligation to ResistanceAgainst Capitalism As Theory And As Reality</li>
<li>Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics</li>
<li>Missionary Positions</li>
<li>Harassment, Bias, and the Evolving Politics of Free Speech on Campus</li>
</ul>
At Northwestern University, the President’s Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate disbanded after members quit over President Michael Schill giving in to anti-Israel protesters’ demands without consulting them.
The concessions included full-ride scholarships to “<a href="https://twitter.com/America1stLegal/status/1786114841599410431" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five Palestinian undergraduates</a> to attend Northwestern” and that the school would “provide and renovate a house for MENA/Muslim students.”
President Schill is the author of papers like:
<ul>
<li>Black, Brown, Poor &amp; Poisoned: Minority Grassroots Environmentalism and the Quest for Eco-Justice</li>
<li>Race, the Underclass, and Public Policy</li>
<li>The Special Bias of Federal Housing Law and Policy: Concentrated Poverty in Urban America</li>
<li>Polarization, Public Housing and Racial Minorities in US Cities</li>
</ul>
At Columbia, radicals took over a campus building and covered it in communist symbols, with a female PhD student demanding the delivery of food as “humanitarian aid.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Reporter grills Columbia student after she demands the university help feed protestors occupying Hamilton Hall:
&#8220;It seems like you&#8217;re saying, &#8216;we want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building, now would you please bring us some food&#8217;.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/vNczSAM4T1">pic.twitter.com/vNczSAM4T1</a>
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) <a href="https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1785386376755900611?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 30, 2024</a></blockquote>
At Barnard College, Columbia’s women’s college, president Laura Rosenbury is the author of papers like:
<ul>
<li>Marital Status and Privilege</li>
<li>Friends with Benefits</li>
<li>Postmodern Feminist Legal Theory: A Contingent, Contextual Accountability</li>
</ul>

UCLA Provost Darnell Hunt, Portland State president Ann Kudd, Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway (UCLA/PSU/Rutgers)

Universities Made Oppression ‘Scholars’ Their Presidents. Now Students Feel Oppressed.

College

Rutgers University

Student government leaders at the University of California, Los Angeles have been accused of discriminating against Jews and Zionists in hiring practices, according to a complaint filed this week.
A petition of consideration filed to UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) Judicial Board last week alleges that USAC Cultural Affairs Commissioner (CAC) Alicia Verdugo directed her staff to discriminate against Zionists when reviewing job applications.
A screenshot of a group message from Verdugo included in the petition shows her alerting her staff that Zionists were applying, and asking them to vet applicants.
“PSA lots of zionists are applying — please do your research when you look at applicants and I will also share a doc of no hire list during [the] retreat,” Verdugo wrote in a group chat. 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-836981" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2283-700x576.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2283-700x576.jpg 700w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2283-300x247.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2283-768x632.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2283.jpg 851w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /></div>
The complaint, filed by Bella Brannon, Editor-In-Chief of Ha’Am, UCLA’s student-run Jewish magazine, focused on the hiring process for approximately 25<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C7Mr226RoGj/?img_index=2"> paid positions</a>, which include staff to help support their events.
A CAC document also cited in the complaint categorizes Zionism alongside hateful ideologies, stating that any staff member can be removed from their position if they’re found to exhibit “antiBlackness, colorism, racism, white supremacy, zionism, xenophobia, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, ableism, or any/all other hateful bigoted ideologies.”
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-836983" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2284-1024x197.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="197" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2284-1024x197.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2284-300x58.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2284-768x148.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/IMG_2284.jpg 1064w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
UCLA has been a hotbed of anti-Semitism following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israeli civilians, including rowdy anti-Israel protests and encampments. In August, a federal court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/court-issues-injunction-barring-ucla-from-helping-anti-semitic-agitators-target-jews">issued an injunction</a> against the university to cease permitting or supporting activities by anti-Semitic agitators who have obstructed Jewish students from accessing portions of the campus.
The petition alleges that any student who identified themselves as Jewish were rejected in the hiring process, even if their applications did not mention Zionism, Israel, or the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
“Verdugo’s direct instruction to exclude Zionist applicants and the implied directive to be on the lookout for Jewish applicants, resulted in systemic discrimination against candidates who expressed any attachment to Judaism,” the petition states.
According to <a href="https://haam.org/evidence-suggests-jewish-students-denied-from-cultural-affairs-judicial-board-petition-claims/">Ha’Am</a>, the application asked students: “What is an issue (social, political, etc.) that is relevant to you, and how would you like to address that through CAC?” Two rejected applicants reportedly responded to this question mentioning that they were Jewish, the first stating they care about the right to express identity and the other stating that they observe Jewish Sabbath laws.
None of the students hired by the CAC discussed Judaism in their applications, according to the petition, which accuses the CAC of violating state and federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on religion or ethnicity.
“By rejecting Jewish applicants and citing Zionism as a disqualifying factor, despite the applicants never explicitly referencing Zionism or their relationship to the State of Israel in their applications, Alicia Verdugo demonstrates their conflation of Judaism with Zionism,” the petition states. “In doing so, they have intentionally created a correlation between Jewish and Zionist identities to systematically discriminate against Jews, a correlation they imposed, even though many Jewish individuals naturally consider Zionism an intrinsic part of their identity.”
Brannon told The Daily Wire that Verdugo and the CAC have had several troubling controversies since the October 7 terrorist attack. 
&#8220;Verdugo is an unapologetic anti-Semite who has exploited her student fee-funded position to promote hatred against Jews long before her discriminatory hiring practices went viral,” Brannon said. “I am personally aware of dozens of complaints filed against CACs conduct with the university by students, parents, and even faculty.”
The CAC <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CyMSRCuSlAR/?img_index=2">released a statement</a>, signed by Verdugo, two days after the October 7 attack, stating that they “honor the Palestinians on the frontlines taking their land and sovereignty back!” 
In June, the CAC posted to their <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C8DYa5bSsRr/?img_index=1">Instagram account</a>, encouraging students to join their anti-Israel encampment, adding that they will “HONOR OUR MARTYRS FOREVER.”
In another post, the CAC shared a statement about how they were “honored to” be part of the encampment. 
 
“We fully support ALL forms of protest and condemn the media for continuing to criminalize students, politicize a genocide, protect Zionists and police, and platform the bullshit that this university pushes out,” <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C66oU8uR3FI/?img_index=3">it read.</a>
According to Ha’Am, the CAC is accused of denying Jewish students access to an “open mic night” titled, “F*** your bans” to complain about UCLA restricting anti-Israel encampments. The CAC also reportedly blocked a Jewish student from its UCLA-affiliated X account. Ha’Am <a href="https://haam.org/opinion-unmasking-antisemitism-expressed-by-usacs-cultural-affairs-commissioner/">also reported</a> that Verdugo, in 2023, told Jewish a student: “you simply don’t have the will or empathy to look inside yourself and understand that your parents are liars. They are white, and benefit from white supremacy regardless of religious affiliation.”
Brannon said UCLA’s administration has failed to take action despite being alerted to the statements and actions of CAC and Verdugo. 
“UCLA’s useless DEI bureaucracies and an administration supposedly tasked with protecting us have consistently failed to take meaningful action, given that her anti-Israel posts on university-affiliated channels haven’t stopped for a second since the deadliest day for Jews since the Shoah (Holocaust),” Brannon said. “By failing to hold Verdugo accountable, the university effectively emboldened her, culminating in her blatant violations of the university code and federal law through discriminatory employment practices.&#8221;
Hillel at UCLA director Dan Gold said he was &#8220;appalled that the UCLA leaders would once again openly discriminate against Jewish students.” 
Gold added that Hillel has been sounding the alarm for months and reported the text messages to the administration.
“[T]hese text messages, if validated as real, illustrate just how brazenly anti-Jewish hate is expressed unchecked at UCLA,” Gold said. “This must end &#8211; students and faculty must be held accountable for their hateful and discriminatory actions against Jewish Bruins.”
CAC and UCLA did not respond to a request for comment.

Police Arrest UCLA Protesters And Clear Encampment

UCLA Student Government Office Refused To Hire Jews, Report Alleges

Israel

October 7

An employee at the University of California Los Angeles was filmed ripping down posters — put up to advertise Ben Shapiro&#8217;s speech on Monday — just hours before the Daily Wire editor emeritus was scheduled to take the stage at his alma mater.
Young America&#8217;s Foundation, which is hosting Shapiro for an event on Monday at 6:30 p.m. PT, posted a video on X showing a university employee tearing down the Shapiro speech posters, saying that his boss told him &#8220;to take flyers down.&#8221; The man refused to give the name of his supervisor, saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m doing my job, what they told me to do, so you have a good day.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Why don’t UCLA administrators want students to know YAF is bringing <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> to campus tonight? <a href="https://t.co/XXbEuPM5zw">pic.twitter.com/XXbEuPM5zw</a>
&mdash; YAF (@yaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/yaf/status/1848427954281582642?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It&#8217;s not the first time UCLA&#8217;s administration has attempted to get in the way of Shapiro&#8217;s YAF event. Last week, university bureaucrats forced YAF to shut down its Eventbrite page, where people could acquire tickets for Shapiro&#8217;s speech, and forced YAF to redirect attendees to UCLA&#8217;s main ticketing office, RedState <a href="https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2024/10/17/exclusive-uclas-attempts-to-shut-down-planned-ben-shapiro-speech-at-yaf-chapter-n2180679" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
According to RedState, UCLA taking over the ticketing means YAF cannot know in advance &#8220;if people who are known agitators or security threats are registering, or what efforts are being made to ensure that a bunch of lefties don&#8217;t gobble up the 1,200 available tickets then no-show the free event.&#8221;
UCLA has also rejected YAF&#8217;s request for a standby line, which would help the group ensure that those who want to attend the event can get in while preventing leftist students from filling the event space and then staging a massive walkout.
YAF&#8217;s lawyers wrote a letter to UCLA, stating, &#8220;When pressed, UCLA has not stated any reason whatsoever for this unreasonable stance, other than to cite to its own policy number 862, which simply states that for &#8216;major events,&#8217; (i.e., events presenting disfavored points of view that may result in counter-protests), &#8216;[n]o standby line will be allowed unless advance approval [is] provided by UCLA Fire Department and with limited standby Tickets offered,&#8217; without providing any justification for this limitation or explanation as to why approval has not been given in this particular case.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1729077615157000&amp;usg=AOvVaw17Kprl74oE9DYOLREdiBPU">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28</a>
&#8220;Given UCLA’s past conduct discriminating against the expression of conservative and pro-Israel points of view &#8230; it is clear that the refusal to approve the use of the standby line procedure exacerbates the unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination that UCLA engages in,&#8221; the letter continues. &#8220;Moreover, UCLA owes a constitutional duty to impose only reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on speech. There is nothing reasonable about UCLA’s refusal to approve a procedure that has been used by all of its peers in the university community to great effect, and without any appreciable harm to any university’s interests.&#8221;
Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-shapiro-slams-ucla-as-a-woke-trash-heap-ahead-of-campus-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blasted</a> UCLA in a thread posted to X on Monday, writing that it &#8220;has forgotten what it’s supposed to be&#8221; and is plagued by “scandals of plagiarism, DEI, riots, furries, BDSM, womxn, and ‘monsterf***ers.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Tonight, I’ll take the stage at UCLA. Before I do, let’s review how my once-elite undergraduate alma mater became a woke trash heap drowning in scandals of plagiarism, DEI, riots, furries, BDSM, womxn, and “monsterf*ckers.” 🧵
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1848422204440027217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

WATCH: UCLA Rips Down Ben Shapiro Posters Hours Before His Speech

Ben Shapiro

Young America's Foundation

Before taking the stage to speak on campus at the University of California Los Angeles, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro blasted his alma mater on Monday, writing that it &#8220;has forgotten what it&#8217;s supposed to be.&#8221;
Shapiro will speak at a <a href="https://yaf.org/events/ben-shapiro-at-ucla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Young America&#8217;s Foundation</a> event at UCLA on Monday night, a speech that has already generated controversy on campus and among the UCLA administration. In a thread posted to X on Monday, Shapiro slammed UCLA and its &#8220;scandals of plagiarism, DEI, riots, furries, BDSM, womxn, and &#8216;monsterf***ers.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Tonight, I’ll take the stage at UCLA. Before I do, let’s review how my once-elite undergraduate alma mater became a woke trash heap drowning in scandals of plagiarism, DEI, riots, furries, BDSM, womxn, and “monsterf*ckers.” 🧵
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1848422204440027217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Back in March, I exposed the state of the formerly prestigious UCLA medical school, which now mandates your future surgeons learn about &#8216;Indigenous resistance,&#8217; &#8216;white supremacy,&#8217; &#8216;two-spirits,&#8217; and whatever &#8216;womxn&#8217; are,&#8221; Shapiro wrote. He added that shortly after he exposed the university&#8217;s focus on woke concepts for medical students, Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-official-at-ucla-school-of-medicine-massively-plagiarized-her-dissertation-on-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> that UCLA Medical School&#8217;s head of diversity, equity, and inclusion &#8220;only published a single paper — her Ph.D. dissertation on how colleges should create larger DEI programs — and it was plagiarized.&#8221;
&#8220;You might think this is why nearly 50% of UCLA medical students are failing basic competency tests, but it’s not. Sources blame Jennifer Lucero, the dean of admissions, and her racist, anti-white and anti-Asian affirmative action policies,&#8221; Shapiro continued. &#8220;Not only did UCLA seemingly allow the dean of admissions to discriminate, an accounting professor named Gordon Klein was suspended because he wouldn’t. Klein rejected demands by students to show &#8216;leniency with black students&#8217; in grading and had to subsequently sue the school.&#8221;
The Daily Wire host wrote that &#8220;walking across campus&#8221; at UCLA as a Jew was &#8220;impossible&#8221; just months ago as anti-Israel student protesters were allowed to block Jewish students from walking to their classes.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1729077615157000&amp;usg=AOvVaw17Kprl74oE9DYOLREdiBPU">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28</a>
&#8220;These anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Jewish Hamas apologists were allowed to occupy main centers of campus, vandalize, and attack their peers and police for weeks while normal students saw their education go up in smoke as tuition prices skyrocket,&#8221; Shapiro added.
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7/ Just 5 months ago, walking across campus to Ackerman — where I&#39;m speaking tonight — would have been impossible as a Jew after UCLA allowed historically &amp; morally illiterate Hamas sympathizers to occupy access points &amp; block Jews from passing through.<a href="https://t.co/sGXbFEviv4">pic.twitter.com/sGXbFEviv4</a>
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1848422217744597377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
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9/ These anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Jewish Hamas apologists were allowed to occupy main centers of campus, vandalize, and attack their peers and police for weeks while normal students saw their education go up in smoke as tuition prices skyrocket.<a href="https://t.co/zvzVIGMZan">pic.twitter.com/zvzVIGMZan</a>
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1848422222668410964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Meanwhile, a UCLA student magazine is upset &#8220;about the lack of acceptance towards the &#8216;furry&#8217; community&#8221; and obsessed with &#8220;kink.&#8221;
&#8220;If you’re willing to pay $42,000 to $76,000 a year for you or your child to attend UCLA, they, too, can dose up on &#8216;freak fuel,&#8217; become a &#8216;monsterf***er,&#8217; and change their pronouns to &#8216;xey/xem&#8217; while they &#8216;transmutate&#8217; themselves. Money well spent,&#8221; Shapiro wrote.
&#8220;In the days leading up to my @YAF speech tonight, the Administration paid to properly educate these &#8216;freaks&#8217; has instead spent their time trying to derail my speech. They shut down ticketing, disrupted security plans, and left attendance open to agitator sabotage,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Sad as it is to see what UCLA has become, I’m looking forward to seeing the men and women of LA tonight at my speech. In accordance with our Q&amp;A policy, those who disagree with me may cut to the front of the Q&amp;A line. So, perhaps we’ll see some womxn and furries, too.&#8221;

Ben Shapiro Slams UCLA As ‘A Woke Trash Heap’ Ahead Of Campus Speech

Ben Shapiro Slams UCLA As 'A Woke Trash Heap' Ahead Of Campus Speech

Wokeness

On October 7, 2023, Hamas slaughtered <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/hamass-october-7-attack-visualizing-data" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1,200 Israelis</a> in cold blood: <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/remains-found-of-12-year-old-girl-burned-alive-by-hamas-pwuvp95s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">burning families alive</a>, raping women until their bodies became unrecognizable, and taking eight Americans hostage. Before American Jews knew whether their loved ones were dead or alive, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters across the country had already begun <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/students-justice-palestine-sjp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">glorifying</a> Hamas, harassing <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/nyc-colleges-jewish-students-seen-locked-inside-library-anti-israel-protest-moves-building" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Jews</a> and demanding that Israel acquiesce to the terrorists’ demands.
In the months since, SJP chapters have seized every opportunity to embrace <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/shocking-antisemitism-at-ucla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">anti-Semitic tropes</a> and <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/students-justice-palestine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rewrite history</a> along ideological lines in their call for the elimination of the State of Israel. It is no surprise, then, that on the first anniversary of Hamas’ rape, murder, and abduction of Israeli civilians, SJP’s national headquarters has called for a &#8220;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C__KP_pSvp9/?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA%3D%3D&amp;img_index=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Week of Rage</a>.&#8221; Not rage against Hamas. Not rage against Yahya Sinwar or any other actor who could be reasonably blamed for the massive suffering following October 7. No: SJP is raging against any Israeli claim to legitimate self-defense.
Let’s be clear, October 7 marks the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Israel’s stated aims in the ongoing conflict are to return its hostages and to eliminate Hamas’ military capacities. SJP views Israel’s sole aim as the genocide of the population of Gaza.
However, the Israel-Gaza war has amassed one of the lowest ratios of civilian-to-militant casualty ratios in modern history. As the <a href="https://www.ajc.org/news/what-you-need-to-know-about-israels-humanitarian-aid-to-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IDF supplies</a> Gazan civilians with humanitarian aid, opts for <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2024/07/18/idf-carries-out-precision-strikes-on-hamas-on-two-fronts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">precision strikes</a> to minimize civilian casualties, and even warns civilians in areas they intend to bomb to allow them time to evacuate — the term “genocide” simply doesn’t apply.
For almost 12 months, SJP has protested Israel’s actions as though Hamas does not exist, merely a thin justification for genocide. A &#8220;Week of Rage” on the anniversary of the massacre is SJP finally saying the quiet part out loud: they believe that October 7 was justified, and Hamas’ failure to eliminate the Israeli state is worthy of rage.
Violent and unlawful acts are nothing new for SJP. UCLA’s SJP chapter once re-posted an Instagram story claiming credit for a firebombing at UC Berkeley, reading “NOT SURE WHAT BUILDING IT EVEN WAS. HONESTLY DONT REALLY CARE. EVERY SINGLE BUILDING ON THE UC BERKELEY CAMPUS DESERVES TO BE INCINERATED.” 
<div id="attachment_801989" style="width: 282px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-801989" class="size-large wp-image-801989" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/unnamed-272x576.png" alt="Credit: Instagram" width="272" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/unnamed-272x576.png 272w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/unnamed-142x300.png 142w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/unnamed.png 666w" sizes="(max-width: 272px) 100vw, 272px" />Credit: Instagram</div>
During on-campus protests at UCLA, SJP affiliated agitators chanted &#8216;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/ucla-professor-schools-gutless-response-antisemitism-campus-complicit-hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Itbah El Yahud</a>&#8216; (&#8216;slaughter the Jews&#8217; in Arabic) and beat a piñata effigy of Israel’s Prime Minister, accompanied by <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/11/10/news/ucla-students-batter-bibi-pinata-to-chants-of-beat-that-f-g-jew/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shouts of</a> &#8216;beat that f***ing Jew.'&#8221; SJP is also responsible for the illegal encampments that spread across university campuses last year, along with the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/police-move-in-on-anti-israel-encampment-at-ucla-make-dozens-of-arrests" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vandalism</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&amp;v=ZmBk3T935CI" target="_blank" rel="noopener">destruction</a> they caused.
In addition to broad-brush antisemitism and lawlessness, individuals affiliated with campus SJP chapters have taken it upon themselves to harass individual Jewish students. A Jewish student was <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/jewish-yale-student-stabbed-eye-palestinian-flag-rowdy-protest-mob-behavior" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stabbed in the eye</a> by an SJP-affiliated individual at Yale. At Princeton, a student at an SJP protest <a href="https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/student-journalist-reports-being-pushed-while-filming-princeton-protest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">assaulted a student reporter</a>. Even when punished, these incidents contribute to a culture that causes Jewish students to think twice about openly expressing their identity. Indeed, a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/cmjs/noteworthy/ssri/hotspots-antisemitism.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brandeis study</a> found the presence of an active SJP chapter to be one of the strongest predictors of campus anti-Semitism.
Despite SJP’s clear calls for violence, university responses have been largely tepid or nonexistent, focusing on condemning individual incidents that garner media attention rather than addressing the quacking duck in front of them. While swift action is warranted, most campuses have stood by, either out of fear of backlash or a reluctance to confront the increasingly hostile climate for Jewish students.
Their call for a &#8220;Week of Rage&#8221; alone is obvious incitement to violence against Jewish students, proud Americans, and all those mourning the victims of October 7. Coupled with their violent record, SJP’s call for a Week of Rage becomes all the more terrifying. As students grieve the loss of their family members, the last thing they should have to worry about is being attacked by their own peers.
A few schools have disavowed SJP as a student organization, representing the appropriate response to a student organization endorsing an international terrorist organization. In October of 2023, Florida Governor <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/desantis-directs-florida-state-universities-to-deactivate-students-for-justice-in-palestine-group/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ron DeSantis</a> ordered Florida universities to “deactivate” their SJP chapters, citing their “material support” for a “designated foreign terrorist group.” In November, Brandeis University banned SJP, with University President Ron Liebowitz <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/president/letters/2023-11-08-free-speech-not-hate-speech.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a> that the academy is “a space for free speech, not hate speech.” Unfortunately, such clarity is the exception, not the norm.
Reacting to instances of textbook anti-Semitism and mounting public pressure, <a href="https://news.columbia.edu/news/statement-gerald-rosberg-chair-special-committee-campus-safety" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Columbia</a> and <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2024/08/gwu-suspends-anti-israel-campus-groups-through-fall-semester/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GWU</a> banned SJP on their respective campuses. However, SJP continued to <a href="https://mediarelations.gwu.edu/update-demonstration-gws-foggy-bottom-campus-630am" target="_blank" rel="noopener">operate encampments</a> and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-ny-jewish-columbia-student-alleges-harassment-by-violent-anti-israel-protesters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">violently attack</a> Jewish students on both campuses long past their sanction. Without the appropriate follow-through, their condemnations amounted to little more than milquetoast suggestions.
Overwhelmingly, university responses to the violent hatred wrought by SJP have amounted to little more than <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-colleges-and-universities-are-failing-fight-antisemitism-campus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">generic condemnations</a> of “all forms of hatred,” <a href="https://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/news/statement-about-support-and-resources-students-crises-unfold-worldwide" target="_blank" rel="noopener">failing to name SJP</a> or affiliated organizations directly. Such cowardice is clearly exemplified by the University of Maryland’s delineations for October 7, 2024, when the USM restricted campus activity to only <a href="https://dbknews.com/2024/09/02/usm-limits-oct-7-campus-demonstrations-university-sponsored-events-backlash/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">university-sponsored events</a>.
While their blanket ban ostensibly targets SJP, it also effectively bans student-led vigils mourning the horrors of the Hamas attack. To pretend that October 7 is a both-sides issue by painting grieving Jewish students as similar to those calling for a globalized intifada is to equivocate the victims of terrorism with its supporters.
In their own words, SJP openly supports internationally-recognized terrorist groups and calls for the destruction of the United States. It is long past time for universities to take these students at their word and hold them accountable as adults. Campuses that continue to tolerate groups that endorse the most dangerous terrorist organizations of our time risk fostering further radicalization and unintentionally abetting their destructive goals.
* * *
Bella Brannon is a student at UCLA studying Public Affairs and Digital Humanities. She is the Editor-In-Chief of Ha’Am, researched bias in artificial intelligence with the School of Technology Law and Policy, and spent the summer as an intern with the Religious Freedom Institute.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

This Student Group Is Calling For A ‘Week of Rage’ Beginning October 7 

This Student Group Is Calling For A 'Week of Rage' Beginning October 7 

American Universities

Hamas

Jews

Students for Justice in Palestine

Terrorism

On Tuesday, a federal district court issued an injunction against <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ucla" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UCLA</a> to stop the university from permitting and aiding anti-Semitic agitators blocking Jews from the campus. The injunction is the first in the nation against a university for permitting an anti-Semitic encampment.
Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum, and Eden Shemuelian sued the regents of the University of California after the university helped anti-Israel activists erect encampments where they blocked Jewish students from going to class, the library, or other areas on campus.
“With the knowledge and acquiescence of UCLA officials, the activists enforced what was effectively a ‘Jew Exclusion Zone,’ segregating Jewish students and preventing them from accessing the heart of campus, including classroom buildings and the main undergraduate library,” UCLA Professor Eugene Volokh <a href="https://reason.com/volokh/2024/06/06/lawsuit-filed-by-jewish-students-against-ucla/#:~:text=With%20the%20knowledge%20and%20acquiescence,and%20the%20main%20undergraduate%20library." target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in Reason. “In many cases, the activists set up barriers and locked arms together, preventing those who refused to disavow Israel from passing through. To enter the Jew Exclusion Zone, a person had to make a statement pledging their allegiance to the activists’ views and have someone within the encampment ‘vouch’ for the individual’s fidelity to the activists’ cause.”
“UCLA reinforced these zones—both by providing metal barriers and by sending away Jewish students—while taking no effective action to ensure safe passage for Jewish students,” Becket Law, which represented the Jewish students, <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/media/breaking-federal-court-orders-ucla-to-stop-helping-antisemitic-activists-target-jews/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>.
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722714742764000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1XzmEsRwzti1RFNuISwYgd">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20240813183534/injunction.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>, “In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion.”
“The injuries result when Plaintiffs are excluded from certain of UCLA’s ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas and UCLA still provides those programs, activities, and campus areas to other students knowing that Plaintiffs and students like them are excluded based on their religious exercise,” Scarsi added.
The ruling will be implemented on August 15. UCLA is expected to appeal the ruling.

Students set up Gaza solidarity encampment in California

Court Issues Injunction Barring UCLA From Helping Anti-Semitic Agitators Target Jews

UCLA has made headlines in the past few months for all the wrong reasons: from the school’s <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/media/jewish-students-take-ucla-to-court-over-antisemitic-encampment/#:~:text=UCLA%20allowed%20activists%20to%20set,disavow%20Israel%27s%20right%20to%20exist." target="_blank" rel="noopener">failure</a> to protect Jewish students from a pro-Hamas mob, a university-funded <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/furries-bdsm-and-void-punk-official-queer-magazine-of-ucla-embraces-the-fringe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">magazine endorsing</a> furries as a sexual kink, and a student government leader imploring students to <a href="https://x.com/camhigby/status/1805271596673945706" target="_blank" rel="noopener">take up arms</a> against the LAPD when law enforcement arrested those who led an assault on a synagogue.
These instances are not isolated flukes, or simply the misconduct of a few bad apples ignored by the university. Rather, this behavior, and the totalizing mindset that encourages violent, unthinking action, is learned and abetted by UCLA’s academy. Instead of empowering students to critically engage with ideas, learn from great texts, or become citizens invested in the public good, my university now serves as a finishing school for unreflective activism. This fervor isn’t unique to UCLA, but is a reflection of larger trends of <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4279381-activism-over-academics-the-decline-of-us-higher-education/#:~:text=Advocacy%20has%20increasingly%20displaced%20academics,the%20concentration%20of%20many%20students." target="_blank" rel="noopener">activism replacing rigor</a> within American higher education.
In my 3-year tenure at UCLA, less than a fourth of my classes have assigned complete books. Instead, professors tend to focus on assigning op-eds, TED talks, and essays that are meant to squeeze conversations into a particular moral framework. Professors routinely assign essays on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfkrm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decolonization</a> that call for the destruction of the United States, TED Talks that promote the intersection of historically disadvantaged identities as the lens through which to analyze all social conflicts, and <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/fascism-debate-trump-democrats-gaza-campus-protest#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20bitter%20irony,definitions%20of%20fascism%20far%20more" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-eds</a> claiming that anti-Semitism is not a threat facing Jewish people, but rather a weaponized accusation meant to protect Israeli interests. The professors who uncritically structure their classes do a disservice not only to their disciplines and students, but to their own viewpoints that they fail to put to the test of rigorous inquiry.
Instead of learning from the texts that have shaped our civilization, we are assigned short pieces interacting with the ideas of thinkers like Hobbes and Locke, that detest the idea of a straight, white author. Students are graded based on their ability to unquestioningly endorse their professors’ agenda as a reflection of their understanding of class material, instead of being encouraged to develop and articulate their own ideas.
Within this framework, the struggles of all oppressed groups—racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia — are portrayed as interconnected, attributed to a boogeyman of the &#8216;elite&#8217;: those who embrace traditional values or have historically wielded power. This framework justifies violence and malice, if it is done on behalf of those deemed as the “oppressed.” Terrorist groups like Hamas are positioned as heroes, while America is positioned as the purveyor of an insidious status quo.
For example, in one class, I was taught to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6420721/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">applaud people</a> with mental illness as heroic, such as schizophrenics who refused to take their medicine. In the same class, the professor lauded their own conditions as self-diagnosed and that formal medical diagnoses were inherently racist, ableist, and classist. Writing as an individual with diagnosed autoimmune disorders, I lost points on an assignment for using “gendered language” in “academic writing,” when referring to an author who was born and identifies as a male.
This totalizing mindset is the culprit for the pro-Hamas encampments within universities, where students <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/18/us-news/columbia-student-kicked-and-told-to-kill-himself-for-carrying-us-flag/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">burn American flags</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6352037685112" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prevent Jewish students </a>from accessing campus. One experience, characteristic of this, occurred when a student used <a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zionism/2016/03/whore-you-calling-a-zio/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an anti-Jewish slur</a> — &#8220;Zio&#8221; — in class. When I pointed out that this word was indeed a slur popularized by David Duke, the student retorted that she was not interested in “playing respectability politics with these people.” Instead of telling the student that slurs were not acceptable, the professor responded by asking me to expand on who David Duke was.
Although this student and professor would cite the righting of historical wrongs as their goal, their reductionism actually hurts disadvantaged groups. In their struggle to address every problem through one lens, these professors run roughshod over the particular causes that they intend to promote. In 2023, one professor announced that it was the worst year in American history to be black. Surely, even the most pessimistic academic would agree that slavery and Jim Crow presented more problems for African Americans.
This indictment does not apply to every professor at UCLA. Many sincerely care about their students, the integrity of their work, and the future of their discipline. I have been extremely lucky to have been shaped, challenged, and inspired by such professors. However, as an institution, UCLA rewards those who cater to intersectionality ideology over academic rigor.
The struggle for women&#8217;s suffrage in America, for example, was not tantamount to South Africa’s liberation from apartheid. 2023 was not the worst year in American history for African Americans. To demand every situation be analyzed through the same binary of oppressed versus oppressor is downright dangerous and serves to justify hatred and violence against anyone with whom one ideologically disagrees. Maximalist rhetoric dilutes the real struggles that minorities face, and allows students to see the world as a black-and-white struggle between absolute good and pure evil.
George Orwell <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39403-the-word-fascism-has-now-no-meaning-except-in-so">wrote</a>: “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies &#8216;something not desirable&#8217;&#8230;” Characteristically, his wisdom is ever-relevant in our modern moment. In a class, a professor painted the advocacy of any restrictions on abortion or membership in the Republican Party as fascistic. As lectures, seminars, and syllabi deem American values as evil, students are compelled to proudly associate with some of the world’s most backward groups in the name of justice. It is no surprise that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-qaeda-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-student-protesters-iran-israel-hamas-c7be2e07" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Al-Qaeda</a>, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-806611" target="_blank" rel="noopener">David Duke</a>, and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/hamas-slams-us-crackdown-pro-palestinian-college-protests-1893962" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hamas</a> have found “useful idiots” among the likes of the student activists at UCLA.
Most egregious is how students assert that world conflicts must be understood through their personal experience of either privilege or oppression. As students try to understand situations like the present Israel-Hamas war in the framework of American race relations or gender politics, they project their narrow subjectivity onto a complex reality. Though my peers decry colonialism in their activism, the <a href="https://nommomagazine.com/?p=7748" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hubris</a> of demanding that every struggle must be understood through your own experience is a crude colonialism of the classroom.
If a student disagrees with one part of this radical agenda by supporting a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict or by questioning whether children should undergo medical gender transition at the age of 12, they face academic and social repercussions. This zero-sum mentality asphyxiates the exchange of ideas traditionally associated with the liberal arts and liberalism, and demonizes all who dare to even question its fervor.
With the substitution of cheap slogans for real scholarship, my peers have traded nuance for self-righteousness — an abdication of our responsibility as students.
While the violent incidents at UCLA are eye-catching, they are not anomalies; they reflect a deep-seated ideological shift that prioritizes radical activism over genuine academic inquiry. Until UCLA prioritizes the hiring of faculty who will guide students towards constructive conversations, empty statements or performative commissions will only distract from the symptoms of the crisis UCLA has created.
* * *
Bella Brannon is a student at UCLA studying Public Affairs and Digital Humanities. She is the Editor-In-Chief of Ha’Am, researched bias in artificial intelligence with the School of Technology Law and Policy, and spent the summer interning with the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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