UCLA Chancellor Gene Block will testify before a Republican-led House committee on Thursday, where he is expected to face aggressive questioning about anti-Semitism on his campus and how a pro-Palestinian camp descended into violence.
His appearance comes as UCLA, one of the country's most prestigious public universities, has been rocked by months of tense protests over the war between Israel and Hamas, including a violent mob attack three weeks ago on a pro-Palestinian camp.
The testimony, which will take place a little more than two months before Block steps down as chancellor, will be the first time the head of a California university has addressed the House Education and Workforce Committee. The group has grilled college presidents and K-12 school leaders on a national stage since the fall, contributing to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.
Setting the tone for the questioning, the chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R.N.C.), said in a statement Monday that “the committee has a clear message to cowardly and cowardly university leaders: Congress will not tolerate failure to uphold its duty to his Jewish students. “No stone should be left unturned as buildings are defaced, campus green spaces captured, or graduations ruined.”
In a letter distributed campus-wide Monday, Block said he would “speak honestly and personally about the challenges UCLA faces and the impact of this pernicious form of hate” during testimony. “I will continue to insist that anti-Semitism – as well as Islamophobia, anti-Arab hatred and any form of intolerance, hostility or discrimination – is antithetical to our values, corrosive to our community and must not be tolerated.”
Thursday's testimony will represent a key moment in Block's 17-year career at UCLA and comes a week after he survived a “no confidence” vote by the university's Academic Senate but saw half of the Voting faculty representatives endorsed his censure over his response to pro-Palestinian criticism. protesters.
The House committee is investigating how UCLA handled the encampment that was broken up on May 2 by police who arrested more than 200 people, in addition to accusations of anti-Semitism that have grown on the Westwood campus since Oct. 7. when Hamas militants attacked Israel and the nation launched its retaliatory war in Gaza.
The committee, made up of 44 representatives, 24 of them Republicans, has three Californians, Republican Representative Michelle Steel and Democratic Representatives Mark Takano and Mark DeSaulnier. The panel describes itself on its website as “promoting access to high-quality education for students” and opposing “one-size-fits-all government-run schools.”
During an explosive committee hearing on anti-Semitism on December 5, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faced pressure after giving evasive answers about whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” was a violation of the rules of student conduct. even saying in their answers that it depended on the “context”. School presidents and administrators facing elected officials since then have fared better on similar issues.
Block will be joined by leaders of Northwestern and Rutgers universities, where presidents recently signed agreements with protesters to end the camps but did not accept their main demands: divest from arms companies and ties to Israel and boycott academic associations. with Israel. universities. Block has not reached any agreement with pro-Palestinian activists.
The presidents of Yale and Michigan, who were previously scheduled to testify alongside Block at the hearing, titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Anti-Semitic Campus Chaos,” will be called to appear for transcribed interviews. The head of the Berkeley Public School District testified earlier this month during a similar hearing aimed at K-12 schools.
Foxx has admonished UCLA and other universities for making what she considers “shocking concessions to illegal anti-Semitic camps on their campuses” and criticized UCLA leadership for not having police prepared to intervene on April 30. when the mob attacked the pro-Palestinian camp.
UC issued a statement Tuesday outlining UCLA's free speech and anti-discrimination policies.
“While free speech is protected on the UCLA campus (and at all other public universities), that right is not absolute. We also have legal obligations under federal law to protect students from discrimination and harassment,” said Charles F. Robinson, general counsel and senior vice president. “Our policies do not allow anyone to intimidate, harass, or prevent anyone from moving freely around our campus. UCLA follows the University of California Anti-Discrimination Policy, which prohibits harassment and discrimination based on an individual's actual or perceived protected category. Protected categories include religion and national origin. [shared Jewish ancestry].”
Critics say the hearings are an attempt by House Republicans to use campus unrest for political gain during an election year. They also note that while reports of anti-Semitic incidents on campuses have increased significantly since October 7, there have been no similar hearings on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hatred that has also skyrocketed.
A committee spokesperson did not respond to a request to interview Foxx. A UCLA spokesperson also did not respond to a request to interview Block.
Foxx previously ordered Block, UC President Michael V. Drake, and Rich Leib, chairman of the UC Board of Regents, to produce all documents, communications and security videos related to alleged anti-Semitic incidents at the UCLA since October 7. She gave them until Tuesday afternoon. share those documents, as well as texts and other communications from staff, police and regents.
In a letter last week demanding the documents, Foxx described what she saw as an anti-Semitic trope: a picture of Block, who is Jewish, displayed at the camp that “showed him with horns and red eyes.”
Before the protests began, Block was widely praised for expanding enrollment, diversity, philanthropy and research funding to help the university weather the financial crisis and global pandemic. The last controversy Block faced was in 2019 when The Times revealed that years earlier, UCLA had been aware of allegations of parents pledging donations to its sports programs in exchange for their children being admitted to the university.
But after the attack on the camp overnight on April 30 and an hours-long delay in the police response to quell the melee, it has faced condemnation from some elected officials, faculty, students and staff. While his biggest critics at UCLA have been from the left, he at the hearing is more likely to face opposition from the right, following a pattern in previous hearings.
Pro-Palestinian professors at UCLA have expressed frustration that their chancellor has flown to Washington, DC, while the campus remains unstable.
“UCLA is the center of the fire at every American university, but he is focusing on the audience,” said Yogita Goyal, a professor of English and African American studies and a voting member of the Academic Senate who said she opposes Block's leadership. “Congress should not dictate what happens on our campus.”
Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science at the UCLA School for Palestine Justice, said he hoped Block would use the hearing to “reject the committee's narrative, which focuses on anti-Semitism to the exclusion of anti-Semitism.” . “Palestinian hatred… is the dominant force on our campus causing violent harm to our students.”
“UCLA's response to the campus encampment failed to protect students from anti-Palestinian violence, but it now has the opportunity to come clean and start making changes,” Blair said.
Inna Faliks, a Jewish piano teacher, said she “hoped the audience would help,” but that it was “hard to know” whether the previous ones had made a dent.
Faliks, a voting member of the Academic Senate who opposed the recent votes against Block, accused the UCLA camp of being “pro-Hamas” because of its slogans and checkpoints that did not let Zionists through, saying that “made Jewish teachers and staff feel horrible.”
Judea Pearl, an Israeli-American computer science professor, said he, too, felt the sting of anti-Semitism on campus, but thought the issue was too often ignored by activists who described themselves as anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic.
“There is Ziophobia on campus. But Zionism is not a bad thing,” Pearl said. “It is good to partner with Israeli universities, for example. We need your investigation because it is good investigation.”
Pearl disapproved of Block's handling of the camp, he said, because it was not cleared more quickly after its lifting on April 25. He also said that a tense pro-Israel counterprotest before the attack was overshadowed by the night of violence.
“Unfortunately, this hearing is being held by Republicans. I wish it would be done by Democrats who really care about higher education,” Pearl said. “But it's better than doing nothing.”
In addition to the hearing, UCLA is preparing for a possible strike by graduate student workers. The union representing these workers at the University of California's 10 campuses voted last week to authorize a strike in response to the arrests and use of force in dismantling pro-Palestinian camps at UCLA and elsewhere. The strike began Monday at UC Santa Cruz.
Gene McAdoo, a doctoral student at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies who is part of the union and joined the pro-Palestinian camp, said he thought Block “would have a really hard time.”
“I don't think he'll come out of it safely,” McAdoo said. “He's been getting pressure from the left to resign, but after this he could come from all sides.”
