Just a day after announcing that Sonoma State University in California had reached an agreement with anti-Israel protestors on campus that included an “explicit” call for an academic boycott of Israel, the university president was placed on leave for “insubordination” amid calls that he be ousted from his position.
In a statement released on behalf of the Board of Trustees for the California State University, Chancellor Mildred Garcia said, that SSU President Ming Tung “Mike” Lee’s “message was sent without the appropriate approvals” and that “[f]or now, because of this insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave.”
California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, praised the board for its quick action calling Lee’s actions “just despicable.”
“This isn’t about a particular opinion about the war,” he said, noting that he has expressed his own criticism of the Israel government over the years. Rather, it is about a “California public university advocating for a complete severing of ties to Israel, an academic boycott of Israel and participating in a movement to economically to debilitate Israel.”
Students have “every right to vocally protest the Israel-Hamas war,” he added, “but when it tips into harassing and intimating Jewish students or any students, and blocking Jewish students from entering parts of campus or demanding the university boycott Israel, including the 7 million Jews in Israel—half the Jews on the planet—that’s a problem.”
In response to the backlash, Lee issued a second statement on May 15 saying “in my attempt to find agreement with one group of students, I marginalized other members of our student population and community.” He also made clear that “the points outlined in the message were mine alone… .”
The anti-Israel encampment began at Sonoma State in late April, and according to Lee’s May 14 “agreement” letter, SSU agreed to establish an “Advisory Council of Students for Justice in Palestine,” that will serve as a “mechanism to ensure SSU administration accountability for all agreements.”
Those agreements, which are no longer believed to be in effect, included an academic boycott of Israel in which students could not participate in study-abroad programs in the Jewish state and no faculty exchanges and collaborations with “Israeli state academic and research institutions” would take place. Instead, school would promotes “open scholarly exchange” with Palestinian scholars and students.
Additionally, the agreement Lee sent out called for the university to review its investment and then meet with members of the SJP advisory to “determine a proper course of action leading to divestment strategies that include ethical alternatives.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, SJP is a network of pro-Palestinian groups that have a history of spreading anti-Israel propaganda and promoting BDS.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of the Amcha Initiative, which combats antisemitism on campus, said she hopes Lee is “not allowed to return.”
“Any university leader who agrees to implement an antisemitic boycott that undermines the academic mission of his university tramples on the educational opportunities and academic freedom of his students and faculty, and incites animus and harm toward his campus’ Jewish members, must be removed.
“However,” she continued, “getting rid of Lee is not enough. CSU must repudiate Lee’s ‘agreement’ and state unequivocally that no CSU school will ever agree to an economic or academic boycott of Israel.”
Several Jewish community advocates noted that the SSU agreement makes clear what other colleges have danced around—the goal of an academic boycott of Israel, as called for by the BDS movement.
“Sonoma State said the quiet part out loud,” said Wiener.
Rossman-Benjamin agreed, saying that academic boycotts against Israel risk endangering Jewish students. Pointing to AMCHA’s annual audit of 100 colleges and universities popular with Jewish students, she said those with BDS activity are “three times more likely to have incidents targeting Jewish students for harm than schools with little to no BDS activity.”
Located some 50 miles north of San Francisco in California’s wine country, Sonoma State University has about 6,400 students. A webpage devoted to diversity and inclusion highlights a number of different “cultural” graduation ceremonies being held this month, none are Jewish and a listing about a “Holocaust and Genocide” memorial on campus does not mention “Jews”.
Further, a “belonging and inclusion” study taken last year asks students to rate “how welcoming” the campus is to various groups, including African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Muslims and others. Jews were not listed as one of the groups.
Marc Levine, the ADL’s Central Pacific Regional Director, lives 45 minutes from Sonoma State University and has gone there on occasion for events. He says it has a small, but active Hillel community, and that his own 17-year-old son was thinking of attending.
“Sonoma State is a great regional university,” Levine said, “and unfortunately since the 2017 wildfires [in which 22 people died and 5,300 homes were destroyed] and the pandemic, the student population has dropped by a third, so there’s a lot of work to be done to make Sonoma State welcoming for new students. Mike Lee failed that test and should never be reinstated from his leave.
“Hopefully, they will re-establish themselves as a school that welcomes all students.”
