Students will investigate ‘decolonial alternatives’
Less than three hours after it was warned that a âstudent-taught, credit-bearing courseâ was promoting the elimination of Israel, the University of California-Berkeley suspended the course.
âPalestine: A Settler Colonial Analysisâ is a one-unit, once-a-week course offered through DeCal, or Democratic Education at Cal, a program in which students teach courses to their peers. The course started a week ago Tuesday.
By teaching students the âpossibilities of a decolonized Palestine,â the course was advocating that Israel be wiped out, according to a coalition of Jewish and pro-Jewish groups that contacted the office of outgoing Chancellor Nicholas Dirks Tuesday morning.
As part of their message to Dirks, the groups also contacted state legislative leaders with authority over education and the University of California regent who chairs its education policy committee.
Dirksâ office included those same leaders in its response message late Tuesday morning, which said the Palestine course had not gone through the appropriate review process.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks announces he will step down https://t.co/SUPFg5mVUe pic.twitter.com/wz3iDm85uQ
— Calđ (@Cal) August 16, 2016
Faculty sponsor is a well-known BDS leader
In an email provided to The College Fix by the AMCHA Initiative, a group that fights campus anti-Semitism and led this effort, 43 groups told Dirks that the course violated a UC regentsâ policy on âcourse content.â
That policy prohibits the use of the classroom âas an instrument for the advance of partisan interestâ or for âpolitical indoctrination.â Yet it does not appear to be enforced against DeCal courses, as evidenced by DeCalâs own list of policies that student instructors must follow, the groups told Dirks – a situation that ârequires rectification.â
MORE: âAnti-semitic forms of anti-Zionismâ not welcome at UC, regents say
The syllabus says students will learn about âhistorical developments that have taken place in Palestine ⌠through the lens of settler colonialism,â as well as its connection with Zionism.
They will âexplore the possibilities of a decolonized Palestine, one in which justice is realized for all its peoples and equality is not only espoused, but practiced.â
University of California-Berkeley syllabus for “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis” by The College Fix on Scribd
What is masked by this jargon is that students are taught to âunquestioninglyâ view Israel as an âillegitimate settler colonial state,â the groups told Dirks, and to present âdecolonial alternatives to the current situationâ – code for Israelâs elimination.
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All class reading material appears to have a âblatantly anti-Israel biasâ and use language recognized by the U.S. State Department as anti-Semitic. (This spring the UC regents adopted a set of âprinciples against intoleranceâ that denounce âanti-semitic forms of anti-Zionismâ – less stringent than the State Departmentâs definition of anti-Semitism.)
The letter said the two guest speakers listed in the syllabus, including the courseâs faculty sponsor, Hatem Bazian, have proposed an academic ban of Israel, and Bazian is a âwell-known leaderâ of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Bazian is also known as the co-founder of Americaâs first accredited Muslim college, Californiaâs Zaytuna, and before that for requiring his UC-Berkeley students to tweet against Islamophobia.
As of Tuesday night, the course page was still live online.
Courses that ‘offer a forum for political organizing’ not allowed
In an email response provided by the AMCHA Initiative, Dirksâ office agreed to suspend the course for further review, as well as to review all future course material for compliance with the UC regentsâ policy.
The Palestine course facilitator âdid not complyâ with the ânormal academic review and approvalâ process even within the DeCal program, the response said.
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âAs a result, the proposed course did not receive a sufficient degree of scrutinyâ to ensure it met the schoolâs academic standards before enrollment.
While Dirksâ office did not say the course as currently structured does not meet UC-Berkeley academic standards, it said that Carla Hesse, executive dean of the College of Letters and Science, is âvery concernedâ about any course that âappears to offer a forum for political organizing.â
A conversation with Carla Hesse | The Daily Californian https://t.co/wlpPGiIj4f
— Carla Hesse (@CarlaHesse1) August 27, 2016
The school reaffirmed its commitment to âfostering and sustaining a campus climate where every individual feels safe, welcome and respected,â claiming that in a recent survey 75 percent of Jewish students reported feeling âsafeâ on campus.
Dirksâ office also touted the schoolâs recent creation of the Chancellorâs Advisory Committee on Jewish Student Life and Campus Climate, as well as other amenities for Jewish students.
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âWe applaud UC Berkeleyâs Chancellor Dirks and his staff for their swift and appropriate response regarding this course,â AMCHA Initiative Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who wrote and coordinated the letter to Dirks, said in a statement.
“Our classrooms should never be used to spew hate or push political propaganda aimed at indoctrinating students,â she said, but âthere is still work to be doneâ so that all courses are reviewed to prohibit such indoctrination.
Neither the administration nor Palestine course facilitator Paul Hadweh responded to Fix requests for comment on Tuesday.
MORE: UC regents slam proposed âprinciples against intoleranceâ
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