COALITION OF ORGS TO UC REGENTS: CONFRONT FACULTY ANTISEMITISM AND MISUSE OF ACADEMIC AUTHORITY

 

Contact:
amcha@berlinrosen.com

Santa Cruz, CA, March 9, 2026 – Today, a coalition of 124 education, religious and civil rights organizations issued a formal letter to the University of California (UC) Board of Regents urging immediate action to prevent faculty from using classrooms, curricula and pedagogy to advance organized political advocacy and to safeguard Jewish students’ safety and equal access to education.

The letter comes in response to the newly released AMCHA Initiative report, When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California and the coalition is calling on the Regents to prioritize the report and its recommendations for substantive discussion at their March meeting. The coalition is calling on the Regents to prioritize the report and its recommendations for substantive discussion at their March meeting.

Since October 7, 2023, antisemitism on UC campuses has surged, with Jewish students and students perceived as “Zionist” or “pro-Israel” facing unprecedented harassment, intimidation and exclusion. The coalition argues that this crisis is being fueled not only by episodic student misconduct, but by the institutionalization of political activism within UC’s academic infrastructure. 

The new AMCHA report documents hundreds of examples of faculty embedding anti-Israel activism into curricula, classrooms, departments and official programming, and links this conduct to a dramatic surge in antisemitic incidents across three campuses following October 7, 2023. Comparing July 2021–June 2023 with July 2023–June 2025, incidents targeting Jewish campus members for harassment, intimidation, threats, exclusion, vandalism and assault rose 3,150% at UCLA, 531% at UC Berkeley and 1,150% at UC Santa Cruz. The coalition argues that these sharp increases underscore the urgency of addressing the misuse of institutional academic authority.

According to the report, faculty and academic units at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz have used UC authority – including classrooms, departmental platforms and official UC-branded channels – to advance organized political advocacy as institutional practice. Documented incidents show how institutionalized, UC-branded activism, not merely student protest, has contributed significantly to the rise in antisemitism across the UC system.

The organizations emphasize that the issue is not about policing beliefs or restricting private speech. Faculty retain full rights to express political views in their personal capacities. Rather, the letter calls for enforceable boundaries to ensure that UC’s instructional authority, official academic-unit communications and UC-branded platforms are not used to carry organized political advocacy into the University’s core academic functions or conveyed in ways that reasonably appear to carry institutional endorsement.

“When university authority is used to promote political agendas, the line between individual expression and institutional endorsement disappears,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director and co-founder of AMCHA Initiative. “The result is a breakdown of academic standards and an environment where Jewish students face intimidation and exclusion.”

According to the coalition letter, this issue is a Regents-level governance matter. Regents Policy 2301 obligates UC to provide a quality education, maintain public confidence and remain “aloof from politics” rather than functioning “as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest.” The signatories argue that the report’s findings raise urgent concerns that UC is failing to meet its own governance obligations.

The letter further notes that, despite UC’s December 2024 systemwide resolution agreement with federal authorities addressing discrimination and harassment of Jewish students, patterns of faculty-driven conduct that fuel antisemitism have continued. The coalition argues that student discipline alone is insufficient and that Regents-level governance reforms are necessary to address the institutional drivers identified in the report.

The signatories urge the Regents to:

• Enforce existing UC policies preventing misuse of instructional authority, resources and UC-branded platforms for organized political advocacy;
• Strengthen policies where necessary to close gaps that allow institutional politicization;
• Safeguard equal access to UC educational programs for all students; and
• Engage in substantive discussion of the report’s findings and recommendations at the upcoming Regents meeting.

“Restoring enforceable institutional limits is essential to protecting UC’s academic mission and rebuilding public trust. UC’s academic units must operate as scholarly institutions rather than political actors,” the letter states.

The letter is signed by a coalition of national and California-based organizations committed to equal access, nondiscrimination and the integrity of public education.

 

AMCHA Initiative is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism at colleges and universities in the United States. The organization monitors more than 750 campuses for antisemitic activity, as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the U.S. government. AMCHA is not a pro-Israel advocacy organization, nor does it take a position on current or past Israeli government policies; criticism of Israel that does not meet the IHRA and U.S. government criteria is not considered antisemitic by the organization. AMCHA has recorded more than 11,000 antisemitic incidents on college campuses since 2015, which can be accessed through its Antisemitism Tracker