Denounce Muslim Group, UC Irvine Chancellor Urged
ZOA in the news
May 12, 2009

 

 


 

 

 

Denounce Muslim group, UC Irvine chancellor urged


 


May 12, 2009


NEW YORK (JTA) — Nearly 2,700 people have signed an online petition encouraging a California university chancellor to publicly condemn an annual Muslim student event.


The document urges University of California, Irvine’s Michael Drake to denounce the Muslim Student Union’s “Israel: The Politics of Genocide” event, which began May 5 and runs through May 21.


“As an American, you have the right to speak out and explicitly denounce anti-Semitism, especially when it occurs on your campus,” the petition reads. “As an educational leader, you have the moral obligation to speak out.”


The petition also calls on Drake to condemn the Muslim group as a whole, alleging that it consistently violates a campus pledge to create “a learning climate free from expressions of bigotry.”


The Irvine campus has been a hotbed of pro-Palestinian activism, and Drake himself has drawn fire in the past from some Jewish groups who have urged him to publicly denounce activity that is said to cross the line into anti-Semitism. Drake thus far has declined to denounce specific activities, speaking out only against hate speech in general.


The two-week program features lectures from noted Palestinian activists such as British Parliament member George Galloway and former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, among other events, according to the Orange County Weekly.


 

The ZOA organized this petition.

 

Center for Law & Justice
We work to educate the American public and Congress about legal issues in order to advance the interests of Israel and the Jewish people.
We assist American victims of terrorism in vindicating their rights under the law, and seek to hold terrorists and sponsors of terrorism accountable for their actions.
We fight anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses.
We strive to enforce existing law and also to create new law in order to safeguard the rights of the Jewish people in the United States and Israel.