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  • How UC is navigating the complicated response to the Israel-Hamas war

    How UC is navigating the complicated response to the Israel-Hamas war


    Student advocates prepare to march outside the UC Board of Regents meeting at UCLA on Nov. 16.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    Students on California campuses are fearful and upset six weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, with Islamophobia and antisemitism on the rise at colleges across the country.

    The climate across the University of California system is especially tense and has students feeling unsafe, forcing system officials to navigate a delicate issue that is painful for many on its 10 campuses. 

    Systemwide leaders and campus chancellors have, over the past several weeks, made several statements about the war and what they’re doing to keep students safe, but it’s been a challenging endeavor. Students and other stakeholders have regularly criticized UC officials for both what they have and haven’t said.  

    Earlier this month, UC and California State University officials were criticized by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus for not more forcefully condemning antisemitism on their campuses. Days later, when UCLA Chancellor Gene Block condemned what he labeled antisemitism at an event organized by Palestinian students, his statement was rebuked by those students who denied the charges of antisemitism and accused UC officials of a double standard for ignoring attacks against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students.

    Now, UC is going beyond words and statements. UC President Michael Drake last week announced that his office is committing $7 million toward addressing antisemitism and Islamophobia on campuses. Drake hopes the effort will tangibly benefit students and ease their anxieties by investing in emergency mental health resources, new educational programs and training for staff, including around free speech. 

    Students march outside last week’s UC board of regents meeting at UCLA.
    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    It’s a start, said Celene Aridin, a UC Davis student and president of the UC Student Association who had appealed to the president’s office for more mental health services, which she said are necessary because students are grieving.

    “It has not been an easy time for students who are impacted. It’s been hard for them really to just go to school and attend classes normally. Their mental health is not OK. They are not OK,”  Aridin said.

    The $7 million investment is a “smart approach,” according to Kristen Shahverdian, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America, an organization that advocates for free speech on college campuses and in general.

    “I think that they’re looking at some of the areas where there clearly are gaps and need some more robust resources,” Shahverdian said. “That it’s not just one lane I think is really important, that they’re coming at this from a lot of different directions.”

    The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel killed about 1,200 Israelis, according to officials. The subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people there, including at least 4,500 children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. 

    While the war has been ongoing, cases of Islamophobia and antisemitism have increased on U.S. college campuses, including reports of harassment and assaults. It has prompted a federal response, with President Joe Biden’s Department of Education last week announcing it is opening new investigations at six colleges into reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia. 

    Although none of its campuses are the ones being investigated, UC has been no exception to reports of Islamophobia and antisemitism. 

    Bears for Palestine, the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, wrote on Instagram that Muslim students have been “assaulted, harassed and spat on” and that “in classrooms, Palestinian and Arab students have been the target of genocidal threats.” In a statement to the campus, UC Berkeley’s chancellor, Carol Christ, cited “harassment, threats and doxing that have targeted our Palestinian students and their supporters.”

    Palestinian students at other campuses, including UCLA, have made similar reports. Mohammad, a UCLA student and spokesperson for the UCLA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, said Palestinian students at UCLA have been subjected to physical and verbal assaults.

    “By just wearing a keffiyeh, it’s almost like it’s justified to call me a terrorist. By just walking around with a keffiyeh, for my friends, it’s almost justified for them to be pepper sprayed, for them to be jumped,” Mohammad said. He was granted partial anonymity because of concern for his safety. 

    The California Legislative Jewish Caucus, meanwhile, reported several antisemitic incidents in its letter earlier this month to college leaders, calling on them to take action to protect Jewish students. In the letter, the legislators said they heard from Jewish students at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and San Jose State who were attacked physically for supporting Israel. They also said Jewish students at UC San Diego needed a police escort to safely leave a student meeting.

    In that Nov. 7 letter, the caucus members criticized UC and Cal State officials for not doing enough in response to antisemitism on their campuses. The caucus called on them to be “crystal clear in word and in deed that antisemitism — like all other forms of hatred and bigotry — will not be tolerated on our campuses.”

    A Jewish student at UC Berkeley, Hannah Schlacter, said during last week’s board of regents meeting in Los Angeles that a Jewish student at her campus was hit in the head with a water bottle at a protest. She questioned why the university hadn’t labeled the incident a hate crime. 

    UCLA’s chancellor, Block, did make a statement on Nov. 10 condemning what he called “despicable Antisemitic language” and “extremely hateful behavior” at an event on the campus that week. He was presumably referring to a Nov. 8 pro-Palestine rally on the campus, which received national attention after some students beat a piñata of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Block’s statement angered the students who organized the rally, including Students for Justice in Palestine and UCLA’s chapter of UC Divest. In a statement, UC Divest said reports that antisemitic language was used at the rally were erroneous. The statement cited a New York Post report that quoted a student saying, “beat that f****** Jew” while hitting the piñata. In reality, according to UC Divest, the student said, “Rip that f****** piñata.” 

    “UC Divest rejects the claims that anti-Semitic actions were perpetrated by individuals at our rally and condemns anti-Semitism,” the UC Divest coalition added in its statement. 

    The group also accused UC of a double standard, saying that “when students ask administration for support in the wake of violent hate crimes” against pro-Palestinian Muslim students and others, “we are ignored, gaslit and invalidated.”

    Students aren’t the only ones who have demanded more from campus leaders. Faculty members have weighed in too. 

    Last month, the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, which includes faculty in ethnic studies across UC, accused UC leadership of statements “that distort and misrepresent the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and thereby contribute to the racist and dehumanizing erasure of Palestinian daily reality.” The council’s letter was condemned by one UC regent, Jay Sures, who said it was “rife with falsehoods about Israel” and specifically took issue with the faculty asking UC to retract charges of terrorism. 

    And this month, a faculty coalition at UCLA criticized campus leadership for not denouncing pro-Palestinian rallies on campus. “The atmosphere on campus results in Jewish students, staff and faculty who are afraid to be on campus, show solidarity with Israel, or practice their freedom of religion in public,” the faculty wrote in the letter, which now has more than 350 signatories. 

    Being met with criticism from students and other stakeholders hasn’t been abnormal for college leaders over the past six weeks, said Michelle Deutchman, the president of UC’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. 

    In Florida, the head of the state’s public university system attempted to ban campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and was subsequently condemned by Palestinian students as well as free speech advocates.

    At Harvard, critics said campus officials didn’t condemn Hamas strongly enough in their response to the Oct. 7 attack. Weeks later, when Harvard President Claudine Gay condemned antisemitism during a speech at a Harvard Hillel Shabbat dinner, she was praised by some students and criticized by others. A spokesperson for Harvard Jews for Liberation took issue with Gay conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism and said that a “disproportionate focus on antisemitism on college campuses continues to distract from the devastating siege on Gaza,” according to The Harvard Crimson.

    It’s a delicate line that college presidents and chancellors across the country have struggled to balance. 

    “If and when chancellors or presidents spoke, they were met with some kind of critique about what they said, and if they didn’t speak, they were also met with critique. So unfortunately, right now it feels a little bit like a lose-lose situation,” Deutchman said.

    Deutchman added, though, that UC’s decision to invest $7 million into initiatives and programs to address antisemitism and Islamophobia could be a step toward benefiting all students.

    Of the $7 million, $3 million will go toward emergency mental health resources for students and staff. Another $2 million will go toward educational programs, which will aim to improve the public discourse on the issue by focusing on a better understanding of antisemitism and Islamophobia as well as how to recognize and combat extremism. The final $2 million will go toward training of faculty and staff, including in areas such as free speech.

    “It’s really hard to have a conversation about discourse on campus if people don’t have a foundation of what’s allowed and what isn’t,” Deutchman said. “So to the extent that they’re going to have an infusion of resources into education and training and helping all the different stakeholders on campus learn how to respond in the face of challenging speech and events, I think that’s really important.”

    As for the $3 million for mental health resources, Aridin, the UC Student Association president, said she’s optimistic it will help students but she also called on UC officials to consult students at each campus before deciding specifically how to spend the money. What students at one campus need might be different from what would most benefit students at another campus, Aridin said.

    “There are different student populations on each campus that need different things,” she said. “It could look like therapy, it could look like support group counseling, but it could also look like funding for some food or money for a space for students to come talk about their grief with one another. And it just depends on what students on each campus need.”





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  • More time with subs is the wrong response to teacher shortages

    More time with subs is the wrong response to teacher shortages


    Middle school history teachers discuss their lesson plans for teaching about the Great Depression.

    Credit: Allison Shelley / American Education

    Twenty-five years ago, when pastor Sweetie Williams asked his 12-year-old son, Eli, why he never had homework, the answer exposed scandalous conditions that would reshape California education forever. Eli’s San Francisco middle school — like many of the 20% of California public schools then serving the greatest number of Black, Latino and low-income students — lacked books, operating bathrooms, proper heating and enough qualified teachers to permanently staff classrooms. The historic litigation that followed in May 2000, Williams v. California, established new laws guaranteeing every student three fundamental rights: permanent, qualified teachers; sufficient instructional materials; and clean, safe facilities.

    Today, as Assembly Bill 1224 (Valencia) races toward a Senate hearing, we’re witnessing some of the same staffing chaos that prompted the Williams lawsuit. In the West Contra Costa Unified School District, parent Darrell Washington watched his rising fifth grader endure what he called “a chaotic game of musical chairs” with two or three different teachers in a single year. At Stege Elementary, third grade teacher Sam Cleare saw students arrive in her classroom, where she was often “their first credentialed teacher for the entire year.”

    In response to teacher shortages, are legislators rising to meet the challenge? Are they grappling with how to raise teacher compensation and improve working conditions to attract and retain educators? Are they seeking to compel those districts stuck on autopilot to do more to recruit new teachers or to place in the classroom their fully certified staff who aren’t currently teaching before turning to short-term substitutes? No.

    The principal response of legislators has been AB 1224, which would double the time untrained substitute teachers can remain in any one classroom — from 30 to 60 days, a full third of the school year. The bill thereby lowers teacher standards for the state’s most disadvantaged students, essentially abandoning our children’s rights to equal educational opportunity to accommodate district requests for administrative convenience.

    When a teacher vacancy exists, districts are supposed to prioritize assigning the most qualified candidates: fully credentialed teachers first, then interns who have the subject matter training but are still learning how to teach it, followed by emergency-style permits that allow those with partial subject matter competence and teacher training to teach for the year under close supervision, and finally waivers, which permit individuals to teach for a year by waiving unmet certification requirements with state approval if the district can demonstrate the candidate is the best person available.

    Williams requires all classrooms to be staffed by a single, designated permanent teacher who is at least minimally certified to teach the whole year, according to one of these bases. That puts the onus on districts to figure out well before the school year begins how they will staff each classroom with a state-qualified teacher.

    Thirty-day substitutes — those affected by AB 1224 — are nowhere in this hierarchy precisely because they are not qualified to serve as the teacher of record for any classroom. They receive zero subject matter training and zero instruction on how to teach a subject, so they have no understanding of lesson planning, classroom management, assessing learning, or differentiating learning for special ed students or English learners. They’re educational placeholders, not teachers. 

    Teachers represent the single most important school-based factor in learning outcomes. When we park unqualified staff in classrooms for months, we’re not solving teacher shortages; we’re creating educational voids that harm student progress for years to come. Our students need qualified educators who provide continuity, expertise and genuine care, not “continuity” with unqualified caretakers.

    Statewide teacher assignment data reveals exactly how this policy will worsen existing inequities. While 84% of California’s teachers are fully trained, this drops to just 76% in districts serving working-class communities like West Contra Costa, but rises to 89% in affluent areas.

    Schools serving larger populations of low-income students, English learners and foster children are already twice as likely to rely on emergency-style permits. AB 1224 will systematically widen these gaps, exacerbating a two-tiered system where privileged students get qualified teachers while vulnerable students get warm bodies. 

    Meanwhile, AB 1224’s “accountability” measures provide legislative lip service. The bill relies on existing legal requirements that districts make “reasonable efforts” to recruit more qualified personnel before turning to long-term substitutes. Yet we know from our experiences with West Contra Costa Unified and elsewhere that districts typically make no particular efforts if an obvious candidate is not already in front of them and there is no outside enforcement of the hiring hierarchy. AB 1224 does nothing to change this. The bill does not define “reasonable,” has no documentation requirements, and has no oversight or accountability measures. 

    And while this same expanded access to substitutes was temporarily allowed during the pandemic, frankly, the whole system was in chaos then, and many virtual classrooms were providing little more than day care, even with qualified teachers. Yet, AB 1224 provides no sunset date like that exception did. To the contrary, the pending proposal is for a permanent change in law, a permanent authorized dilution of instructional quality, a permanent permission for districts to avoid the hard work of recruiting and retaining qualified educators — all to be disproportionately visited upon the most disadvantaged students in the state. 

    The response to teacher shortages must not be to lower standards, but the opposite. As if our collective hair were on fire, the state and districts need to be doubling down on bringing back the fully certified teachers who have left the classroom (more than enough to cover the shortages). Likewise, the state and districts need to work harder to develop the next generation of diverse and fully prepared educators. Since the pandemic, California has invested over $2 billion in evidence-based solutions: the National Board Certification Incentive Program, Golden State Teacher Grant Program, teacher residencies, a grow-your-own program, and Educator Effectiveness grants — all designed to increase supply and retention in high-need schools. The latest annual Teacher Supply Report from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing suggests the state is starting to turn a corner as a result of these efforts. New teaching credentials issued in 2023-24 were up over 18% — the first surge in new credentials since the pandemic in 2020-21. 

    In the meantime, districts have existing tools: emergency permits for at least provisionally qualified candidates, intern teachers and residents, teachers with permits to cover those on statutory leave, and experienced “career substitutes” who already are allowed to teach in a single classroom for 60 days. And before even turning to these substandard options, districts’ “reasonable efforts” must include returning fully credentialed teachers to a district’s highest priority: classroom instruction. When Superintendent Alberto Carvalho took the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in late 2021, one of his first actions was to fill some 700 vacancies with certified educators who had been serving in the district office and various non-teaching roles. 

    That’s 700 classrooms and several thousand students’ educational lives that were not sacrificed for administrative convenience. Today’s Eli Williamses deserve no less.

    •••

    John Affeldt, who was one of the lead counsels on Williams v. California, is a managing attorney at Public Advocates, a public interest law firm in San Francisco, where he focuses on educational equity issues.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • New law requires Cal State to overhaul response to Title IX complaints

    New law requires Cal State to overhaul response to Title IX complaints


    California State University, Fullerton

    Credit: CSU Fullerton/Flickr

    What began as reports detailing the failure of the California State University to deal with Title IX complaints has led to a new state law requiring that the system take action. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed the first two bills in a legislative package addressing sexual harassment and violence on college campuses.

    Of the bills Newsom signed, the first, Assembly Bill 1790, requires Cal State to implement recommendations in a July 2023 report from the California State Auditor. The audit found the system had “not adequately or consistently addressed some allegations of sexual harassment.” Universities are required to resolve sexual harassment complaints under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

    The second, AB 2608, calls for campuses to update their annual sexual violence and harassment training to include a discussion on “how to recognize if someone is at risk of alcohol- and drug-facilitated sexual assault” beginning in September 2026. The bill applies to Cal State (CSU), the California Community Colleges, the University of California (UC) and higher education institutions that receive state funding. Both CSU and UC registered their support along with the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.

    There are 11 other Title IX-related bills in the legislative pipeline. Cal State leadership is supporting three and has not taken a position on the rest, a spokesperson said.

    “The CSU is already working to meet all of the audit requirements,” Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith wrote in an email. “AB 1790 adds a requirement of reporting to the legislature on our progress. In terms of an additional workload, this bill will require the CSU (to) share the report we have already agreed to prepare for the State Auditor with the Education Committee.”

    Assemblymember Mike Fong, D-Alhambra, was a lead author on both bills signed this week. 

    The raft of Title IX bills was released following a California Assembly Higher Education Committee report finding that students and faculty at each of California’s three public higher education segments do not trust the way campuses respond to instances of sexual harassment and discrimination.

    It was the latest in a series of investigations into how the system handles such misconduct. A 2023 state audit found the CSU system routinely failed to address allegations of sexual assault, including instances in which universities closed cases improperly. In addition, a 232-page systemwide report by the Cozen O’Connor law firm found that the system did not adequately respond to complaints because it was understaffed and lacked enough resources. It also found that CSU did not have a way to handle misconduct that was “disruptive to the learning, living, and working environment” but does not rise to the level of discrimination or harassment.

    A spokesperson for Fong wrote in an email to EdSource that each bill was “modified in consultation with stakeholders to address the fiscal implication of the bills” and that the cost of most of the bills in the package should be “minor and absorbable.”

    Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Burbank, authored AB 810, another bill in the package, which would require job applicants, as part of the hiring process, to disclose decisions determining that they committed sexual harassment.

    “We are hopeful the Governor will sign the bill. He has been very proactive when it comes to signing bills to address sexual assault and harassment,” a spokesperson for Friedman wrote. “We haven’t yet spoken to his office regarding 810, but we feel confident that this bill aligns with his previous support in this area.”

    In addition to AB 2608, the three Title IX-related bills that have received Cal State’s support are:

    • AB 2047, which calls for a systemwide Office of Civil Rights to oversee campus Title IX offices. The Cal State system has already implemented such an office, according to Bentley-Smith, and committed “a large fiscal and personnel impact” to back the office prior to the bill.
    • AB 2407, which requires triennial audits of how Cal State and the UC handle sexual harassment complaints. Bentley-Smith said the system does not anticipate needing to add personnel or new processes to implement the bill.
    • AB 2492, which would create confidential positions to help students, staff and faculty navigate the sexual harassment complaint process. Bentley-Smith said some of the positions already exist and that additional training will be necessary.

    A recent CSU news release said the system is restructuring its civil rights services and seeking to “increase staffing at the system and university levels, establish uniform standards and training programs, and develop more robust data collection and tracking systems.”





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