Condemn UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla for knowingly enabling an unsafe campus environment
Condemn UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla for knowingly enabling an unsafe campus environment
Why this petition matters
The Jewish community of UCSD is incredibly worried that the University of California, San Diego Chancellor Khosla is allowing Taher Herzallah to speak on May 9th and even sponsoring him through the division of Arts and Humanities. Mr. Herzallah has already spoken once on campus on May 4th and the students have experienced great hostility towards them the following day. This goes directly against the UC Community Safety Plan (https://www.ucop.edu/community-safety-plan/ and Chancellor Khosla should be held responsible for his clear negligence, ignoring his Jewish students' safety when they went above and beyond to bring it to his awareness. The jewish students of UCSD have already held a silent protest in front of Chancellor Kholsa’s office and were hardly able to get any response for their safety concerns. The Chancellor not only disregarded the concern of the Jewish students but discredited the concern of the students by “claiming that this was free speech” and not hate speech. The day of the first speech of Mr. Herzallah (May 4th) a swastika was found in the library bathroom of the campus. The following day, 3 arts and display pieces showing jewish pride were vandalized.
Chancellor Khosla should have prevented this from happening from the start. Mr. Herzallah has been arrested on college campuses twice already, once in 2010 and in 2017. This clearly shows that this individual presence on college campuses is problematic, yet Chancellor Khosla chose to turn a blind eye. Mr. Herzallah has repeatedly called for violence and has said "Israelis have to be bombed." His provocations are blatantly discriminatory and antisemitic. Mr. Herzallah defended the statement, “Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the yahood [Jews]… Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them." This is clearly a threat of violence and mass-murder towards Jews.
UCSD students should not have to tolerate a chancellor that disregards their safety and well-being. Join us in this public condemnation of Chancellor Kholsa in the hopes that future students won’t have to face such antisemitism and experience such a hostile campus environment.
Please check out our second petition as well!