As UCLA Chancellor Gene Block sat in Washington D.C. defending his record on campus antisemitism before Congress on Thursday morning, pro-Palestinian student protesters set up a second encampment on campus.
Block was summoned before the House Committee Committee on Education and the Workforce, alongside the presidents of Rutgers University and Northwestern University, in the latest in a series of hearings where the Republican-led committee grilled university leaders for their handling of antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
“Our job today is first and foremost, to hold those who are supposed to be in charge to account Dr. Gene Block, you will testify to the horrific violent events that unfolded at UCLA, leading to 243 arrests,” said Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., in her opening statement. “You cleared the encampment, only after a violent riot erupted for days and stood by as Jews were assaulted, and the illegal checkpoints blocked access to campus in broad daylight.”
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx R-N.C., speaks during the hearing on “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism” on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
UCLA student protest leaders have decried the hearings as “sham trials” designed to “repress organizing to protect the U.S. war machine and its genocidal operations, in collusion with the UC,” in a social media statement. They took advantage of Block’s absence to start a new encampment zone on Kerckhoff Hall’s patio using wooden barricades, metal fences and tables.
As the occupation grew, Block was busy navigating a daunting tight-rope of condemning antisemitism while supporting free speech, and while speaking to the need to protect students from violence while also speaking out against antisemitism.
“No student should be threatened or excluded based on their beliefs or identity and we’ll always have to strive hard to meet this obligation. We must also maintain our commitment to academic freedom and free speech,” said Block in his opening statement. “It’s not always easy to strike a perfect balance but that must be our goal.”
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Block also said many Jewish students have had to “confront rhetoric and images on campus that any reasonable person would find repugnant” and that as a Jew himself he knows what the sting of antisemitism feels like. While he did not go to great lengths to acknowledge any leadership errors, he admitted that “with the benefit of hindsight” the university should have been better prepared to remove the encampment following safety threats.
The congressional committee was laser focused on the harm caused to Jewish students.
Meanwhile, representatives from faculty and graduate worker unions at UCLA lambasted the committee and Block for failing to protest the rights and safety of pro-Palestinian protesters.
“We believe these hearings represent a dangerous attack on higher education, academic freedom and free speech. At UCLA we have seen how failures to protect the rights of free speech and peaceful protests have put our students and colleagues at risk,” said Caroline Luce, communications chair of UCAFT, which represents 6,500 teaching faculty and librarians in the UC system, in a Wednesday press conference.
Graduate student workers at UCLA recently voted to authorize a strike in response to the arrests of student protesters and use of force in dismantling the encampment. They intend to hold at rally at 1 p.m. today on campus.