UC Santa Barbara has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint after the student government president, Tessa Veksler, claims she experienced months of antisemitic bullying, harassment, and threats both online and on campus.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed the complaint on Thursday and will be representing Veksler.
It is demanding that UCSB conduct an investigation into the harassment and discrimination that Veksler experienced, and take disciplinary action against the perpetrators.
The demands also urge the university to issue a statement condemning antisemitic harassment, the marginalization of students based on their Zionist beliefs, and that the university conduct antisemitism education and training for students, faculty and staff.
Veksler said she tried to handle this issue with the administration directly, but received little support or protection.
“When I realized that I was fending for myself, I realized that I couldn’t do it alone and that I needed to do it in a way that not only would seek justice for myself but would make sure that no other student would have to fear going through what I went through,” Veksler said.
In February, signs were posted throughout the university’s MultiCultural Center expressing support of Palestine, stating that Zionists were not welcome in the center, and calling for Veksler to be removed from office and with statements such as, “You can run but you can’t hide Tessa Veksler.”
Before this incident, Veksler said, she already was receiving harassment online for expressing her support of Israel and sharing her identity as a Zionist.
Following the incident at the MultiCultural Center, Veksler said, she began experiencing more physical harassment such as writings on bathroom walls, posters placed around campus calling her a genocide supporter, and a direct letter calling for Veksler to leave campus and step down from her role as student government president.
“That resulted in me actually moving all my winter-quarter final exams online because I was at a point where I couldn’t focus because I was constantly on edge,” Veksler said.
Veksler said that despite the harassment, she was still able to accomplish a number of her goals as student government president, but that she had to fight even harder to do so.
“I was still able to accomplish a lot and a lot of what I ran on, but I was definitely prohibited from doing my job because I had to fight so hard to even be in it,” Veksler said.
The Brandeis Center focuses on advancing civil and human rights for Jewish people. The organization has been focused on combating antisemitism in education, according to Denise Katz-Prober, the Brandeis Center’s director of legal initiatives.
“This is a really problematic and disturbing reminder that the forms of antisemitism that we have been seeing for years have intensified,” Katz-Prober said. “The university administrators are not doing enough to address the problem head-on and root it out.
“That’s why we’re seeing both a continuation and an escalation of the antisemitic incidents on campus, where Jewish students are being targeted on the basis of their Jewish identity connected to Israel.”
A federal complaint is filed with the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education and is not a lawsuit filed in court.
The Office of Civil Rights Title VI enforces the Civil Rights Act, and if it finds the university to be in violation of that statute, it can withhold federal funds from the school.
Veksler said she’s doing this because she cares about the future of the campus and wants to leave it in a better place for Jewish students.
“You deserve the right to thrive wherever you choose to go,” Veksler said. “I hope the Jewish students continue fighting for that right, but more so I hope that non-Jewish students join them because we can’t do it alone.”