SANTA CRUZ, California (Press Release) – AMCHA Initiative on Monday expressed support for the motion filed by seven Jewish UCLA faculty members seeking to intervene in the pending federal civil rights case against the University of California.
The filling alleges that Jewish faculty at UCLA were subjected to harassment, exclusion, professional harm, and idealogical discriminiation. According to AMCHA, those allegations reflect the real-world consequences of academic boycott politics on campus and reinforce the central finding of its recent report, When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California.
“The experiences detailed in this motion are deeply troubling, but they are not surprising,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founder and director of AMCHA Initiative. “They reflect the real-world consequences of a campaign that has, for years, sought to inject political litmus tests into the heart of academic life. The academic boycott of Israel does not simply target institutions. On campus, it targets people – pressuring faculty to sever scholarly ties, exclude colleagues, deny opportunities, and stigmatize or punish Jewish and Zionist scholars because of who they are or what they believe.”
AMCHA’s report found that UC faculty and academic departments – using university authority, resources, and platforms – have been a primary institutional driver of the surge in antisemitism across the UC system since Hamas’ October 7 massacre. 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. Incidents involving rhetoric glorifying violence or calling for Israel’s elimination increased 1,175% at UCLA, 2,125% at UC Berkeley, and 7,000% at UC Santa Cruz.
“These patterns are not abstract,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “They manifest in the kinds of harms described in this motion: interference with teaching and research, damage to professional standing, denial of opportunities, retaliation for speaking out, and the policing of ideas. What this case makes unmistakably clear is that academic boycott does not remain confined to resolutions about distant institutions. On campus, it becomes ideological gatekeeping. That is academic boycott in practice.”
AMCHA said the UCLA filing also highlights a deeper governance failure – one in which discriminatory conduct by students and faculty is enabled or normalized, while administrators fail to enforce policy, protect faculty equally, and maintain the conditions of fair and open academic life.
“Academic BDS fundamentally subverts the mission of the university,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “It replaces open inquiry with political orthodoxy, declares certain perspectives beyond the pale, and creates environments in which exclusion becomes normalized. When universities allow academic boycott and anti-normalization to operate through official channels, what begins as viewpoint coercion against faculty quickly becomes a broader breakdown of equal treatment, academic freedom, and institutional integrity.”
AMCHA called on the University of California to restore clear institutional boundaries and act decisively by prohibiting institutional academic boycott and anti-normalization practices, prohibiting faculty use of instructional authority for political and anti-Israel mobilization, barring academic units from issuing official political positions through university platforms, preventing faculty advocacy groups from leveraging UC branding or resources, establishing transparent Regents-level oversight with meaningful consequences, and requiring the Academic Senate to address misuse of faculty and academic unit authority.
“We stand with these faculty members for speaking out and seeking accountability,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “Anything less than decisive action by the University of California is a betrayal of the core principles of higher education.
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Preceding provided by AMCHA Initiative