(Trends Wide) — The University of California, Santa Cruz condemned recent reported anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ incidents on and near campus, which included a group of students who allegedly gathered to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
“They sang Happy Birthday and ate cakes emblazoned with symbols of hate and horror,” Akirah Bradley-Armstrong, UC Santa Cruz vice chancellor for Student Affairs and Success, said in a statement. The reported party took place on campus on April 20, according to the statement.
A second reported incident involved a student who “found an anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ flyer” on the windshield of his vehicle in downtown Santa Cruz on April 21. “The pamphlet included despicable and demeaning statements about Jews and LGBTQIA+ people,” the statement said.
“We unequivocally condemn these — and all — anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ actions,” Bradley-Armstrong said in the statement.
The report of the Hitler party on campus has been “referred to student conduct for follow-up and adjudication,” the statement said. School officials contacted the city for help in resolving the issue of flyers reported off campus.
“Whatever the purpose and wherever they take place, we reject any and all acts of anti-Semitism. Members of our Jewish community and members of our LGBTQIA+ community are an integral part of our family, and we stand with them in against all these acts of hate,” Bradley-Armstrong said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted about Hitler’s alleged birthday party: “This is absolutely sick. These types of disgusting acts have no place in California.”
The reported incidents at UC Santa Cruz come less than a month after the Anti-Defamation League reported that anti-Semitic incidents in the US reached their highest level last year since the organization began tracking them in 1979.
The annual audit found that incidents including assault, vandalism and harassment increased by more than a third in just one year and reached almost 3,700 cases in 2022.
Just an hour’s drive north of Santa Cruz, Stanford University campus police have been investigating an anti-Semitic drawing left on a Jewish student’s dorm door in March, which included “multiple swastikas and an image modified to look like Adolf Hitler.”
“This incident is being investigated by the Department of Public Safety as a hate crime,” the university said in a statement.
UC Santa Cruz encourages students affected by “worry, fear and anger” surrounding the reported incidents to contact the school’s Counseling and Psychology Services for support.
“White supremacism has no place at UC Santa Cruz. Neither does any action intended to demean, dehumanize, or intimidate another on the basis of identity. We will not tolerate such poison, nor will we tolerate the fear and terror that it purports to inspire,” Bradley-Armstrong said in the statement. “United by our shared sense of humanity, we must strive to be a welcoming place for all people. Together, we must continue to reject all hate speech.”
Trends Wide’s Krystina Shveda and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.
(Trends Wide) — The University of California, Santa Cruz condemned recent reported anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ incidents on and near campus, which included a group of students who allegedly gathered to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
“They sang Happy Birthday and ate cakes emblazoned with symbols of hate and horror,” Akirah Bradley-Armstrong, UC Santa Cruz vice chancellor for Student Affairs and Success, said in a statement. The reported party took place on campus on April 20, according to the statement.
A second reported incident involved a student who “found an anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ flyer” on the windshield of his vehicle in downtown Santa Cruz on April 21. “The pamphlet included despicable and demeaning statements about Jews and LGBTQIA+ people,” the statement said.
“We unequivocally condemn these — and all — anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ actions,” Bradley-Armstrong said in the statement.
The report of the Hitler party on campus has been “referred to student conduct for follow-up and adjudication,” the statement said. School officials contacted the city for help in resolving the issue of flyers reported off campus.
“Whatever the purpose and wherever they take place, we reject any and all acts of anti-Semitism. Members of our Jewish community and members of our LGBTQIA+ community are an integral part of our family, and we stand with them in against all these acts of hate,” Bradley-Armstrong said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted about Hitler’s alleged birthday party: “This is absolutely sick. These types of disgusting acts have no place in California.”
The reported incidents at UC Santa Cruz come less than a month after the Anti-Defamation League reported that anti-Semitic incidents in the US reached their highest level last year since the organization began tracking them in 1979.
The annual audit found that incidents including assault, vandalism and harassment increased by more than a third in just one year and reached almost 3,700 cases in 2022.
Just an hour’s drive north of Santa Cruz, Stanford University campus police have been investigating an anti-Semitic drawing left on a Jewish student’s dorm door in March, which included “multiple swastikas and an image modified to look like Adolf Hitler.”
“This incident is being investigated by the Department of Public Safety as a hate crime,” the university said in a statement.
UC Santa Cruz encourages students affected by “worry, fear and anger” surrounding the reported incidents to contact the school’s Counseling and Psychology Services for support.
“White supremacism has no place at UC Santa Cruz. Neither does any action intended to demean, dehumanize, or intimidate another on the basis of identity. We will not tolerate such poison, nor will we tolerate the fear and terror that it purports to inspire,” Bradley-Armstrong said in the statement. “United by our shared sense of humanity, we must strive to be a welcoming place for all people. Together, we must continue to reject all hate speech.”
Trends Wide’s Krystina Shveda and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.
