Palestine Legal calls on UCLA to address escalating intimidation against Students for Justice in Palestine

In its intensifying harassment campaign, the David Horowitz Freedom Center distributed posters on at least four university campuses in California targeting individual students and professors by name. The posters are the latest desperate attempt by off-campus Israel advocacy groups to scare students and scholars into silence.

Today, Palestine Legal wrote to UCLA Vice Chancellor Kang, acknowledging his clear condemnation of the posters, and urging UCLA to commit fully to preventing and responding to harassment against Arab, Muslim and SJP students, as it is legally obligated to do.

The letter also explains how UCLA’s own actions have ripened the environment for harassment against Arab, Muslim and other students who express for Palestinian rights:

"Repeated university actions that violate academic freedom and First Amendment rights, and statements that malign and mischaracterize SJP’s activities, have left campus members who advocate for Palestinian rights, in particular Arab, Muslim and other students of color, in an extremely vulnerable position for the David Horowitz Freedom Center to exploit.

The letter lists examples of UCLA’s inadequate responses to previous instances of harassment, and actions vilifying activism for Palestinian rights, including prior Horowitz posters.

The most recent posters claim the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a “Hamas-inspired genocidal campaign to destroy Israel,” and that the named individuals have “allied themselves with Palestinian terrorists to perpetrate BDS and Jew Hatred on this campus.” Posters appeared on campus at San Diego State University, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Berkeley, naming individuals at each school. Horowitz has indicated he plans to continue the poster campaign on other campuses.

The posters’ accusations are unequivocally false. As Palestine Legal has documented extensively, baseless accusations of antisemitism and terrorism are a cornerstone of efforts to suppress campus debate about Israel.

See Palestine Legal’s letter to UCLA here.