UC Santa Barbara temporarily suspended the MultiCultural Center and its Instagram account after pro-Palestine student activists posted signs during a gathering at the Center, expressing solidarity with Palestine and dissent against university administration, the Associated Students President Tessa Veksler and Zionism on Feb. 26.
The signage was not attributed to any specific individual or entity. Hanz Herman / Daily Nexus
The signage garnered polarizing reactions from the campus community, leading to published statements from Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and Alpha Epsilon Pi and social media backlash.
A university-wide email from Chancellor Henry T. Yang and other university administration members condemned the signage posted by pro-Palestine student advocates.
“We were distressed to learn of incidents over the weekend that included offensive social media messages and signage at the MultiCultural Center entrance. Campus offices are reviewing these unauthorized and unofficial messages,” the email read.
“The signage has been removed and campus is conducting a bias incident review based on potential discrimination related to protected categories that include religion, citizenship, and national or ethnic origin,” the email continued. “The posting of such messages is a violation of our principles of community and inclusion.”
The decision to temporarily suspend the Center was made following “discussion with student leaders and [MultiCultural Center] staff,” according to university spokesperson Kiki Reyes. The MultiCultural Center (MCC) Instagram account has been deactivated since the Feb. 26 gathering.
“The unauthorized posters and social media posts have been removed and we are conducting a review of the incident,” Reyes said in a statement to the Nexus.
Though the signage was not attributed to any specific individual or entity, one of the posters at the gathering was signed by the Jackson Social Justice Legacy Scholarship (Jackson SJ) interns and MCC faculty and student staff.
Jackson SJ interns, the MCC, political science and communication double major Tessa Veksler and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) did not respond to requests for comment.
SSI at UCSB published a statement on Instagram in response to the gathering.
“While the MCC prides itself on dedicating to creating a safe and inclusive space for cultural minorities, this attempt aims to silence, threaten, intimidate, and discriminate against the Jewish community,” the SSI statement read.
The MCC, Jackson SJ interns nor SJP have published statements in light of Monday’s gathering as of Feb. 27.
Monday’s collective action reportedly began before 9 a.m., with visible signage on the doors of the center reading “Zionists not welcome.”
Around 11 a.m. in the MCC Lounge, students expressing pro-Palestine sentiment gathered to create posters as students in favor of Israel sat together in protest of the already existing signage.
Discussions around Palestine and Israel began shortly thereafter. Veksler entered the Lounge at around 12:30 p.m. in protest of the signage and to discourse with the gathering’s attendees.
Students posted signage opposing UCSB administration and Zionist sentiment throughout the Lounge, with more than 100 signs covering the windows and walls of the room.
Students posted more than 100 signs covering the windows and walls of the room. Courtesy of Ericka Bradley
The signage carried the following phrases, among others: “Admin not welcome”; “Fuck your neutrality”; “We are not disposable”; “Free the speech, free the people”; “Justice for Palestine”; “Blood on your hands”; “Divestment Now”; “The olive trees will rise again”; and “When people are occupied, resistance is justified”.
Some signage also voiced specific dissent against Veksler and Dean of Student Life Katya Armistead.
“Tessa Veksler supports genocide,” “Fuck a ‘neutral’ A.S. president” and “Dean of Student Life, stop letting people die. Katya’s emergency exit,” the signage continued.
Some signage voiced specific dissent against the Associated Students President and Dean of Student Life. Courtesy of Ericka Bradley / Daily Nexus
Veksler took to her personal Instagram following the gathering in opposition to the anti-Zionist signage.
“I am floored by today’s events. I am deeply upset by the blatant antisemitic messaging displayed at UCSB’s Multicultural Center,” the post read.
The gathering began to split down the middle of the MCC Lounge as it continued, with pro-Palestine-leaning students on one side and pro-Israel-leaning students on the other. Discourse around the ongoing crisis in Gaza, Zionism and antisemitism continued throughout the early afternoon.
The gathering ended at around 3:20 p.m. following conversations escalating from students and university administration present. MCC staff shut its blinds and took down its signage visible to the outside thereafter.
The gathering received negative responses on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Various X users doxxed MCC faculty and staff and misattributed them to Monday’s gathering, sharing individual contact information in public posts. Instagram users have also left negative comments on departmental accounts like UCSB’s African diasporic Cultural Resource Center.
Reyes said the University investigates all reports of complaints against staff and “take appropriate actions, when possible.”
“We have shared a guide to respond to doxxing and individualized support,” she continued. “Creating a safe and welcoming learning environment on our campus is a continuous process that requires ongoing engagement with all constituent groups of our community.”
The Nexus will continue to report on this topic as more information becomes available.
A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the Feb. 29, 2024, print edition of the Daily Nexus.
CORRECTION [2/28/2024, 2:53 p.m.]: A previous version of the article said the University investigates all complaints against community members. University Spokesperson Kiki Reyes clarified that the University investigates all reports of complaints.
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The tolerant leftist brownshirts, again.
Trite Fox News type hyperbole. The real brownshirts are in the Knesset.
No
I am an 1984 grad, a life-long Democrat and have never seen Fox news. If, indeed, “tolerant leftist brownshirts” is lifted from Fox news, in this case, I would have to agree with Fox. Anti-Semites at UCSB disgust me.
1984 grad, how fitting for a double-think genocide enabler like yourselff.
#OKBoomer
With your spelling, it is clear that UCSB has come quite a way since 1984 in selecting students.
If you really opposed genocide, you would oppose Hamas and support Israel.
How is defending yourself from occupants genocidal? Bombing innocent civilians (aka what Israel is ding) of a certain type is! … for the millionth time
No mention of how they were threatening specific people in their signs? Saying you can run but you can’t hide?
No “threat” except prosecution for aiding and abetting war crimes. Lying and disinformation to support war crimes is a war crime. Joseph Goebbels was as much a war criminal as Hitler. Many of the Israel boosters are committing war crimes in violation of the ICJ ruling by promoting false narratives to support the slaughter of Palestinian innocents.
It’s a popular slogan, not a threat. Incidentally, it was one specific person who is a public figure, a politician and a circuit rider as a professional victim. You can do better.
Zionist propaganda mills will hype this to obscure the ongoing genocide and meanwhile the s Israel-First sleazoids “doxxed MCC faculty and staff and misattributed them” – a far worse ofense than any signs that might have been in poor taste. Tessa is a self-nominated public figure who advertises herself for speaking engagements and as such has a lower expectation of privacy. Yet nobody doxxed her — it was staff at MCC who were doxxed. Aside from the ethnic cleansing which Tessa is on record supporting and encouraging, the double standard reeks of fascist Double-think? Were some of the many signs… Read more »
False
A lot of terrorist sympathizers and supporters on campus. Closet antisemites are coming out in full force
Terrorist symps like IDF fanbois – only know how to attack unarmed civilians, hospitals, journalists.
Nope
Oh yeah, I remember when Hamas targeted military infrastructure on Oct 7th. How do you feel that Hamas leadership are billionaires while their people suffer intentionally under their rule?
As a matter or fact Hamas targeted multiple military installations and police stations on Oct 7th. Attack on Re’im military baseAt 10 a.m., less than five hours after the attacks began, fighting was reported at Re’im military base, headquarters of the Gaza Division. It was later reported that Hamas took control of the base and took several Israeli soldiers captive before the IDF regained control later in the day.The base was reportedly the location of IDF drone and surveillance operations. Hamas reportedly posted video of dead Israeli soldiers it had killed at the bas
Whether some soldiers and military bases were also targeted is irrelevant. Hundreds of innocent civilians were murdered, most in the most horrible of manner. You are defending inhuman monsters.
Talk about a penetrating glimpse into irrelevancy (vis a vis the issue).
I support hummus
yep
What about the fact that these posters were put up in response to a Halal and Kosher cooking event. How is that not antisemitic?
False. No need to make stuff uo,
Yep!
Exactly one poster out of about a hundred mentioned “stay out of our kitchen” that does not make the whole project a “response” to anything. Aside from that, MCC is for marginalized vulnerables who have not dominated and saturated law, communications media and financial industries. Sorry but if Mom and Dad set you up with a Lexus and all expenses paid education you are not a vulmerable martginalized person so step aside and let the oppressed have a go at an education thanks.
What is “vulmerable” and “martginalized?”
The best argument for Israel is the nature of its enemies. All you have to do is look at them and think, “I want to be the opposite of whatever they are.”
Jimmy Carter, for instance. US President. Genuine Christian. Despised by Zionists.
Every one of your criteria has blatant (dis)qualifiers (e.g., Trump, the Inquisition [I assume Hitler was despised by Zionists)…). You really want to stand on those as your marks of decency? Is this the best you can do? Sad.
Worth mentioning while this was happening, the official MCC instagram account posted a comment stating “[Jews] should go back to Poland” — it struck me as one of the more overt bits of antisemitism here and its omission from this article is disappointing.
Not true. MCC did not and would not “post” such garbage. If someone else suggested reverse settler exodus on their comment thread, which I never saw, it would not be them “posting” the comment, as you claimed.
It was a comment posted by the @ucsbmcc instagram acc linked from the MCC website. Obviously I don’t know who the lunatic running the account last Monday was, but if they’re posting from the official MCC account…then, well, like it or not that’s tantamount to the MCC as an org posting it.
All MCC social media has (very understandably) since been deactivated, but I’m sure you can find a screenshot pretty easily.
Sounds like Anon2 is referringg to one random dude who had access to the password somehow. Well he was FIRED and that was a while back. Aside fom which his point was that if you emigrated to Israel from Poland it is a lie to say you are somehow “indigenous” to Palestine. The proper ethical thing WOULD be to re-immigrate to the country you were born in rather than stealing housies and farms on the West Bank or continuing the 1948 Kakba. So what if someone DID post that. But in any case it was not an offical MCC policy… Read more »
Went from it didn’t happen to maybe it did and if so, so what? I saw the comment, have a screenshot of it and replied to it myself. First off many Jews have been born in Israel… and why do you think they immigrated from Poland in the 40s??? You are a sick human
Typical juvenile name-calling from a geocide-enabler. Reminder: this is college, the third grade tactics, such as you engage in as well as all the crocodile tears and pleas to muzzle criticism of Israel, do not belong on campus and are not welcome. Nobody claimed that all Jews in Israel immigrated from Poland, that is a straw man argument. The point is that if you are born in some random country, say for instance Poland, you do NOT thereby get a “birthright” to steal a house or an olive garden or a water source or farm from a Palestinian family which… Read more »
“The proper ethical thing WOULD be to re-immigrate to the country you were born in.” I don’t believe this is true; I don’t think you even believe this. If you want to advocate for Palestinian liberation you must, by cross-sectionality, argue for universal liberation, including the right for immigrants to live in the land they immigrate to. Your frustration here is justified however, by the fact that settler colonialism and apartheid are NOT the same as immigration. Direct your justified anger towards injustice responsibly and towards the systems that perpetuate that injustice, not at immigrants.
This article is beyond coded, and does a horrible job at portraying the entirety of the events that took place at the MCC. Purposefully quoting Veksler in a way that diminishes her true stance on the subject, which is that ANY exclusion at the MCC, not only antisemitism, is unacceptable, proves a blatant bias. This article also implies that the MCC was suspended because of it being Pro-Palestine, when in reality, it was suspended because it was actively and aggressively excluding a minoritized student body, which is contradictory to the purpose of an MCC. Do better. Awful reporting.
*ANY exclusion at the MCC, not only antisemitism, is unacceptable, proves a blatant bias.
(My edit did not update)
LOL. Her “true” position is (1) push the Zionist talking points (2) cover-up the slaughter of Palestinians (3) troll and incite faux pas on the part of a few anti-Zionists (4) go for the jugular and pose as poor little victim (while Palestinian children starve to death under rubble (5) seek attention for herself (6) position as leader of Zionist lobby (7) serve as a tool of settler expansion of Eratz Israel from the river to the sea, steal more Palestinian homes on the West Bank, commit utter ethnic cleansing n Gaza, outlaw criticism of Israel with herself as poster… Read more »
Your true position is pro Jihad
Jihad just means struggle. Usually struggle with one’s own temptations, shortcomings, insecurities and doubts. Sounds like “Tom” needs …um, some “help” dealing with his Islamophobia.
In context it is clear what the poster is intending. Pure pedantry on your part.
No surprise someone accuses DN staff of writing “beyond coded” when the commenter is just reading into the article her own anxieties and phobias stuff that is simply not there. (Are there mean journalists in the room with you now, Karen?) Fact is, Nexus did a good job. But it is the policy of Zionism to attack journalism and free speech. Just watch them leverage a handful of scribbles on whiteboard into a cause celebre as they try to put a gag order against people like Professor Willian Robinson and Professor Richard Falk both of whom spoke truth to power… Read more »
Utterly unfair to shut down MCC over this. UC is poised to attack freedom of speech now. Braking News: When you are president of student government, you are fair game for criticism. And no, you can’t hide from criticism. That is not a “threat” nor is it “antisemitism.” “You can’t hide, you support genocide” is a popular meme that suggests liabiity for war crimes. It is not a threat in the general sense like a threat to slap someone or something untoward. But with the Israel lobby and its aggressive spinoofs and doxing outfits headlining “UCSB Student Threatned” gullible readers… Read more »
Please we beg you to place these “activists” on no fly lists to protect the rest of us. These are clearly “zealots” who would think nothing if taking down a passenger plane.
And here we have yet another specimen of Zionist attack on American liberties. Express an opinion, get branded and no-fly…this is the extension of Netanyahu authoritariansim into America. Sad.
Did he/she/they self-identify as a Zionist in the above post? Must have missed it. Or are you possessed of special mind-reading abilities (or simple racial bias)?
Haaretz Today | On Israeli TV, You’re an Antisemite if You Dare Mention the Occupation
Israeli documentarian Yuval Abraham’s acceptance speech at the Berlin International Film Festival for ‘No Other Land’ on Saturday has been branded as antisemitic by the Kan public broadcaster. Anyone who refers to the facts is seen as a Jew-hater these days.
That says a lot about where we are headed with all this drama about “feeling unsafe on campus because because…”
There is nothing wrong in the signage. All slogans are right.
When a mighty continue occupation and kill people indiscriminately silence is compliance with mighty.
America has blood on its hands.
The only people who have blood on their hands is Hamas. Amazing how October 7 is conveniently forgotten. If you want to attack a country and murder their civilians, don’t complain when they fight back. Ask the Germans and Japanese about WW2.
Hopefully, the suspension of MCC will become permanent. Despite its misleading title, these centers do not bring people together. They divide. They tend not to be welcoming to certain groups, notably Jews and whites. (And no, not all Jews are white.) While I was teaching at UC Irvine, I twice witnessed SJP/MSU protesters march from the Cross Cultural Center to disrupt Jewish events and then march back to the CCC. There were at least two other times I did not personally observe, but that’s exactly what they did according to multiple witness accounts. Campus anti-Semitism has been a problem for… Read more »
Help us understand how Zionism is different from Christian Nationalism.
I’d be happy to David….let’s talk shall we?
You all know that Zionist does not = Jewish right?