UCI's shame

For eight years, the administration has refused to name, identify, or condemn anti-Semitism at UCI.  Even at the regents meeting to address bigotry, Chancellor Drake disregarded the evidence that the MSU, a student group on his own campus, was the perpetrator of the disorder against Ambassador Oren.  Instead, he spoke vaguely of some students and "external organizations or nonaffiliated individuals" as the cause of the intolerance.  Even when he broke his usual silence to condemn an endorsement of terrorism made by Imam Malik Ali during a speech sponsored by the MSU May 15, 2010, Chancellor Drake ignored Malik Ali's statement that "[y]ou Jews ... are the new Nazis" and ignored the MSU posters with clear anti-Semitic imagery.  In a bizarre identification of anti-Semitic speech and imagery as a benign interchange of beliefs, Chancellor Drake praised the MSU event as "the hallmark of an educational institution committed to an exchange of ideas."

So bigotry against Jews is a tolerant "exchange of ideas" according to the UC administration, whereas bigotry against other groups is forcibly condemned.  When UC President Yudof states that his administration has "a responsibility to speak out against activities that promote intolerance or undermine civil dialogue," he chooses to ignore the fact that accusing Jewish students of being Nazis is a promotion of intolerance.  Neither he nor any chancellor spoke out.  An egregious double-standard does exist at the University of California.