UC Santa Cruz condemns students’ ‘celebration’ of Hitler’s birthday
SANTA CRUZ — A group of UC Santa Cruz students are alleged to have “celebrated” Adolf Hitler’s birthday last month, singing “Happy Birthday” and eating cakes decorated with “hateful and horrific” symbols.
In a letter emailed campuswide Friday, UCSC officials said the antisemitic celebration “had been referred to student conduct for follow-up and adjudication.”
The April 20 “celebration” came shortly before a student parked off campus, in downtown Santa Cruz, discovered an antisemitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ flyer on their windshield, according to the campus message. The flyer included “despicable and degrading claims about Jewish people and LGBTQIA+ people,” according to the message.
In response, campus authorities were said to be reaching out to Santa Cruz city officials to “ask for their support and collaboration to address the concerning flyers reported downtown.”
“We unequivocally condemn these — and all — antisemitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ actions,” the message, signed by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Success Akirah Bradley-Armstrong, stated. “They are at odds with our Principles of Community and, as such, will be addressed accordingly. These disturbing incidents follow a national trend of increased antisemitic rhetoric and violence. Whatever the purpose and wherever they take place, we reject any and all acts of antisemitism.”
White supremacy and any action intended to degrade, dehumanize, or intimidate another based on identity “has no place at UC Santa Cruz,” according to the statement.
Campus officials issued a similar condemnation a little more than a year ago, when Crown and Merrill Colleges were defaced with anti-Black, antisemitic and white-supremacist graffiti in March 2022. Just a few days before the start of the Jewish holiday of Hannukah in December 2017, someone spray-painted a white swastika at UC Santa Cruz’s East Remote Lot, marking the 11th antisemitic act that quarter.
In UCSC’s Hate/Bias Summary, Fall 20/Winter 21, the latest period for which data was available and during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, there were 35 incidents of hate or bias reported, with ancestry/ethnicity making up more than 19% of the reports, behind gender, at nearly 27%. In the school year 2019-2020, there were 91 total incidents reported, down from 2018-2019’s 125 reported incidents.
The university is encouraging all its community members to report incidents of hate or bias reporthate.ucsc.edu.
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