Climate Of Anti-Semitism Alleged At SFSU

A 76-page lawsuit filed in federal district court against the San Francisco State University Board of Trustees, SFSU and a number of SFSU officials reveals a shocking climate of what plaintiffs allege is a climate of anti-Semitism.

Plaintiffs Jacob Mandel, Charles Volk, Liam Kern, Masha Merkulova, Aaron Parker and Stephanie Rosekind are seeking legal remedies to their multiple complaints, which include:

· “The anti-Jewish animus pervading SFSU’s campus is as ubiquitous as it is hostile. Jews are at best ignored, but more often ostracized in every corner of the university community.

· “While other groups are able to host events, obtain permits and participate in ‘tabling’ at student fairs, Jewish groups are customarily forced to fight for these basic rights as tuition-paying students, no matter how hard they work to follow processes correctly and avoid controversy.

· “For no discernible reason other than their Jewishness, Jewish groups were not permitted to participate in the ‘Know Your Rights’ fair or in the August 2016 student group recruitment fair. The permits they seek, which are required for them to have tables at other on-campus and recruiting events, are routinely denied without explanation.

· “Jewish students who publicly display their Jewish identities or support the existence of a Jewish national homeland are made to feel unwelcome in a host of classes offered under the umbrella of COES {College of Ethnic Studies}.”

· “While murals exist representing a wide and diverse array of various university minority constituencies (including Pacific Islander students, Hispanic students, Palestinian students, and Native American students), and despite repeated requests by Jewish students for their own representative mural, permission was never granted, even after an official ‘Jewish Mural Project’ team, led by Plaintiff Charles Volk, worked with the university community to try and install one.

· “Jewish events — including those that have no Israel-related purpose or messaging — are systematically shut down by raucous mobs, with the imprimatur of the university.

· “Jewish community members are faced with verbal assaults including genocidal chants and expletives, and are forced to watch as the very state actors under whose protection they remain, embolden the attacks in a number of ways, while ignoring the civil rights and the right to safety of the Jewish members of the SFSU community.

· “In a deliberate attempt to exclude Jews from the SFSU community, one of the most significant events Jewish students organized, featuring Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, was consigned to the outskirts of campus while the Jewish students were forced to pay for an expensive room to host him, and the SFSU Code of Student Conduct was ignored when Jewish students most depended on it.

· “Jews are often afraid to wear Stars of David or yarmulkes on campus, and regularly text their friends to describe potential safety issues and suggest alternate, often circuitous, routes to campus destinations. Jewish students are not treated or accepted as equals, and their rights are not protected, in the hostile environment for them that is SFSU.”

A college should facilitate discussion and debate. It should be a place where the rights of all, especially minority students, are protected. Sadly, San Francisco State University is not that college, nor has it been for several decades.