The UC Ethnic Studies Council is calling for UC Regent Jay Sures’ resignation after he spoke at an event where another speaker made Islamophobic remarks.
At the Jewish American Summit on Aug. 30, Mosab Hassan Yousef, an author and former Israeli spy, made a number of comments attacking Muslim Americans, including telling them to “get the f— out of the United States. Go back to the s—holes where you came from.”
In a social media statement released Monday, the UC Ethnic Studies Council — which represents almost 700 ethnic studies faculty across the UC system — criticized Sures for staying silent about Yousef’s remarks.
Other prominent politicians like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff have condemned Yousef’s remarks on social media.
The council said Sures’ silence on the remarks was “not an isolated concern.”
“We contextualize Sures’s failure to speak out against Mosab Hassan Yousef’s call to ethnically cleanse Muslims from the United States within Sures’s long history of targeting students and faculty who have stood up for the Palestinian right to life and his strategic silence, which amounts to sanctioning violence when it comes to structural discrimination and state violence against Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians,” said Christine Hong, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz and member of the UC Ethnic Studies Council, in an email.
Hong alleges Sures violated UC Regents Policy 4400, which affirms the UC’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and serving “all parts of the community equitably.”
The Council previously called for Sures’ resignation in 2023 after controversy between the faculty group and Sures over the UC system’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Additionally, after a pro-Palestinian protest in front of Sures’ home last year, he unsuccessfully filed a restraining order against a UCLA graduate student. Sures was later ordered to pay the student’s legal fees.
Sures also rebuked Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine for hosting a pro-Palestinian activist previously convicted in an Israeli car bombing.
“It just really shows that he’s not just comfortable being around people making these bigoted remarks, he’s actively doing the bigotry himself, right? He’s an active proponent of this bigotry against Muslim students, against pro-Palestinian students,” said a member of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. “That’s not somebody that should be in any position of power when clearly they hold such bigotry in their hearts.”
Hong says the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council is planning to release a petition calling for Sures to resign.
The UC Office of the President did not respond to a request for comment.