(Los Angeles, CA – January 13, 2022) – StandWithUs thanks the University of Southern California’s (USC) administration for announcing a series of actions to address ongoing concerns about antisemitism and anti-Zionism on their campus on January 13th. We are pleased to know that the administration will seek input from mainstream Jewish community organizations, faculty, and students and will ensure Jewish and Zionist students feel safe and supported.
Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs stated, “Although USC took a long time to make this announcement, these actions are an important step in the right direction. We appreciate USC’s recognition that protecting Jewish and Zionist students is necessary at any school committed to diversity and inclusion. We expect that the actions proposed by USC's new Advisory Committee on Jewish Life and its student-focused campus pledge will reflect additional steps requested by the Jewish and Zionist community to create a campus environment that does not tolerate antisemitism. This should include our strong recommendation to adopt the consensus-driven IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.”
These actions follow a stream of antisemitic incidents creating a hostile environment for Jewish and Zionist students, including tweets made by a Student Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer referring to the student's desire to murder Zionists and the severe harassment and bullying of a Jewish student leader due to her Zionist identity while she was Vice President of USC’s student government, forcing her to resign.
StandWithUs applauds and joins the faculty, students, and community organizations that are fighting against anti-Jewish bigotry on this campus. This includes USC professors who organized an open letter to the administration, along with USC Hillel, Chabad at USC, ADL, AJC, Jewish Federation, EndJewHatred, Alums for Campus Fairness, IAC Mishelanu, and many more.
StandWithUs will continue to support and empower students, faculty, and partners to educate about and combat antisemitism in all its forms and on all campuses.
About StandWithUs
StandWithUs (SWU) is an international, non-profit and non-partisan Israel education organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, as well as challenge misinformation and fight against antisemitism.
Through university fellowships, high school internships, middle school curricula, conferences, materials, social media, educational films and missions to Israel, StandWithUs supports people around the world who want to educate their schools and communities about Israel.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters and programs on 5 continents, including the U.S., Israel, UK, Canada, South Africa and Brazil.
For the last ten years, SWU has consistently received the highest possible ratings from Charity Navigator (4 stars) and Guidestar (Platinum).
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