Dec 13, 202321 min read

Why Are So Many Students Supporting Hamas Terrorism? | Tabia Lee

“When I turn on my TV and I see groups of students yelling 'Gas the Jews!'—that's not freedom of speech. That's something else. That's calling for murder. That's supporting killing innocent people. How can we be supportive of that?”

In this episode, we sit down with Tabia Lee, a former DEI educator at De Anza College in California. She was fired after refusing to follow the college's woke social justice orthodoxy. Today, she is trying to reform California’s mandatory ethnic studies high school curriculum, which she argues is infused with extremist ideology, including antisemitism.

Watch the clip:

“I never thought I would see something like that in America—the support of terrorist groups and terrorist actions from our students,” Lee says.

🔴 WATCH the full episode (42 minutes) on Epoch Times: https://ept.ms/S1114TabiaLee

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek: Tabia Lee, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Dr. Tabia Lee: Thank you, Jan.

Mr. Jekielek: We've had good reactions to our last interview. Since that time you've taken on a number of new roles. You're working on revitalizing ethnic study curriculums and bringing in new ideas and vibrancy. Please tell me about that.

Dr. Lee: Yes, I am very happy to be working as director for the Coalition for Empowered Education. In my capacity there, I am serving as director of education and building a nationwide network to help teachers learn about different approaches to ethnic studies. We are working to counter the current default approach, which is a liberated ethnic studies model. We are also supporting teachers in engaging more humanistic and holistic pedagogies around ethnic studies and gender studies, which are important areas which have come into the mainstream. They used to be fringe things on campus, but they're definitely mainstream now. We are currently seeing the fruits of their labor with the many protests across the world at this time.

Mr. Jekielek: Let's dive in. What is this liberated approach that you are describing?

Dr. Lee: This is where we have a subversion of language. When you hear the word liberated, you think of people being freed and freedom. But really what we're seeing in this model is a critical social justice-infused understanding of liberation, ethnic studies, and gender studies. What do I mean by that?

A critical social justice approach is one that really emphasizes privilege and oppression and power in every interaction. It sees racism and race in every disparity or human interaction. It encourages us to focus on our checkboxes of identity. What are our racial checkboxes? What are our ethnicity checkboxes? What are our gender-based checkboxes? Then certain people are elevated into positions of being able to speak on matters and others are supposed to be silent and let their representatives speak for them.

Sometimes it's called standpoint epistemology. It is this idea that because of who I am, you and I could never fully understand each other because my gender and my race is influencing and impacting everything that I've experienced. I have a unique knowledge that you do not have. Therefore, I should be deemed the authority on any issues relating to those race and gender checkboxes that I occupy. I will always be in that particular caste or state or understanding of the world, which really focuses on division.

If we can never truly understand each other because of these checkboxes, and if I have this secret form of knowledge that you could never know because of your standpoint and the checkboxes that you have, how do we ever get to know each other? How do we understand each other? How do we work together based on that division and understanding of each other?

Mr. Jekielek: In this model, certain races are elevated and certain ones are not. It's curious how that works.

Dr. Lee: The critical social justice ideologues have what they call a matrix of privilege and oppression, and sometimes they call it a matrix of domination. It's unfortunate, but our students are being taught to identify themselves on these matrices and to interact and engage with each other based on these positions. It really flies in the face of a more classical social justice approach, which would recognize human agency, free will, and the individual experience. Now it's a focus on group experience and group representation. It's a focus based on these claims that America was founded by white supremacy culture, and some other things that people may not have even heard of.

When I hear white supremacy, I usually think of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and people of that nature. But after being called a white supremacist when I was in my former DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] role, and then trying to figure out what were these people saying and where were they coming from, I discovered this whole framework of personality characteristics that are being attributed to white culture.

It's very degrading and demoralizing for all other people, because supposedly if you're not white or not supporting white supremacy, then you need to be the opposite of those characteristics. That actually means not being on time, not being objective, and not looking at the written word as an important thing. These are the characteristics we're told we should rail against in the critical social justice framework, and that we all have a responsibility or duty to stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed.

The definition of who is oppressed and who isn't is very strange. We're seeing it manifested in the pro-Hamas protests on the streets and some of the social media posts that have been made by these liberated ethnic studies professors who are writing this curriculum. They may influence entire future generations because this is what's being promoted as the model.

My work with the Coalition for Empowered Education involves raising people's awareness that there are other ways to understand ethnic studies. To understand ethnic studies or gender studies, you don't need to be anti-American. You don't need to put people in checkboxes and focus on privilege and oppression. There are other ways to study and appreciate what different cultures and ethnicities and groups have brought to this grand experiment. We can do it in a way that is not going to destroy the very fabric of civilization and tear it asunder.

Mr. Jekielek: Basically, you are talking about real diversity and real inclusion.

Dr. Lee: From a classical perspective, equity is fairness, but that's not the way that critical social justice proponents are understanding it. They are understanding it as equality of outcomes in our schooling, in our education, in our economic system, in our social system, and in every way, instead of focusing on equality of opportunity.

I'm really thankful to John McWaters, one of the scholars helping to frame that for people. Anti-racist work has always existed, and gender-based work has always existed, but there are different waves of it. The first and second waves were really focused on equality, and now we have this third wave that is very different. It's a very different feminism than grandmother's feminism. It's a very different anti-racist effort than your grandparent’s effort.

Mr. Jekielek: It may seem bizarre to people that this would be connected with pro-Hamas protesting. You observed some very interesting things while at De Anza. Essentially, you realized that antisemitism was baked into this ideology. Please break that down for me.

Dr. Lee: At De Anza, I came face-to-face with modern antisemitism. That's why I try to educate people on the connections between antisemitism and anti-Zionism because they're deeply connected. I agree with Rabbi Sacks and others who have really made it clear that anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism. On university campuses, we can quibble about what antisemitism is and what definitions we use. But in some places, there are no definitions and it's very intentional. People refuse to adopt the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition. They refuse to adopt any definition of antisemitism, even when students have directly asked for it. De Anza was one of those places.

Instead of making a resolution to support the Jewish students' request to define antisemitism, so that the university could act on the deeply entrenched antisemitism there, the student government ended up condemning Israel and talking about the wrongs that it had done and why it was overreaching. They called it a subtler colonialist state and made references to apartheid, things that weren't even related to what the students were asking for, which was a place where we could understand and come to a common definition of antisemitism as a learning community. These were things that took place before I arrived there, but it definitely colored my entire experience there.

I was a member of the Equity Action Council. Some of our local Hillel representatives came and requested that the Equity Action Council make the environment more inclusive of Jewish students, faculty and staff members. They pointed out that we have a website that mentions anti-racism and which says, "We stand against anti-racism, and here are some resources." They said, "We see you have Black Lives Matter on there. We see you have stopped AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] hate. Could you add something saying that you also stand against antisemitism?" I went back with my team members and my supervising dean to talk about those recommendations that were given to us, and the response I received was very telling.

I was told that it was not important for us to look at these issues, that the college had also received recommendations from CAIR [Council on Islamic Relations], and that they hadn't followed up on those either. I said, "Let me see those recommendations too, because I genuinely want an environment where every student feels welcome to be their most authentic selves." Those recommendations were never shown to me. I don't know if they really exist.

There were a lot of instances where things were hidden and not shown, even when I made direct requests. I was told that it wasn't important for us to focus on Jewish inclusion, because Jewish people are white oppressors. The role of faculty and staff was supposed to focus on decentering whiteness. If we did discussions or talks around Jewish inclusion, that would not be decentering whiteness.

I said, "That shows a misunderstanding of the Jewish diaspora and its diversity. How can you say that Jewish people are white oppressors when it is such a diverse and global group?” My supervising dean and my fellow staff members never had an answer for that. They just said, "No, we're not going to do that." I asked if I could have a budget to bring in speakers, because I had no budget. Although I was the director, I never knew my budget. All of those things were withheld from me.

I went ahead and did it anyway. From the needs assessment conversations, and from everything that I heard from people who came to address us directly, I knew that we needed to address this as a community. Unfortunately, I didn't get the support that was needed, not just from my direct supervisor and the folks who were working directly with me, but from the institution as a whole.

The summit that I organized wasn't even publicized to students. It was suppressed and didn't appear on the calendar. But then two weeks after the five-week summit that I ran, there was an event with topics including things like anti-Israel fill-in-the-blank, and anti-Zionist activism. Those were highly publicized to the students. When they log on to their online canvas, a learning management system, a pop up would say, "Come to this meeting." Our events weren't publicized in that way, and they weren't included on the calendar. They weren't pushed out to the students.

Sometimes we donate to our former university because we have fond memories of how it shaped us as scholars, of the work that we did there, and of how inclusive it was. But many of these institutions have changed and now they're drastically different. If you are donating to your institution just as a tradition, I encourage you to take a look at what is really happening. See what is happening in these ethnic studies and gender studies programs, and see what they are promoting to students.

If it's infused with this critical social justice ideology, does that align with you and your values and what you want to see in the world? These protestors that we're seeing in the streets, they're not popping out of nowhere. They're coming from our colleges and universities. They're supported by faculty that used to be fringe, but are now mainstream, and it's happening in every discipline.

You might think, "I'm in the STEM area," or, "I'm studying philosophy.” It has nothing to do with that. Every single discipline on campuses has become infused with this default perspective, and that's why I speak so much about it. Prior to a couple of years ago, folks didn't have the language to describe it. They felt something was wrong, but they couldn't say the words, "Okay, this is a critical social justice ideology."

Giving people the language to describe this is key. Some people call it cultural Marxism. Some people call it critical race theory. Critical social justice is one name that captures the gender studies aspect, as well as the ethnic studies aspect. This is so crucial to understand, because those checkboxes are guiding the new order that some people would like all of us to live under. But some of us are questioning it.

Mr. Jekielek: Are these protests happening at De Anza as well? You're essentially saying that this is something you would expect.

Dr. Lee: Yes, and it is happening throughout the Bay Area as well. Some faculty on campus are offering their students extra credit to be political pawns and do pro-Hamas rallies in the streets. The slogans that are being used are the same slogans that I took to my dean and tried to get her to act on when the student government at De Anza made their resolution condemning Israel. When they were asked to define antisemitism, they came up with that kind of anti-Israel action instead. The Jewish students who brought forth the resolution attempting to define antisemitism were shouted down and told, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

Many people haven't heard that statement until recently. Turn on your news and you can see protests where students are chanting that slogan. Jan, I want to believe the students don't know what they're saying. They are implying that from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, Palestine will be free. That means the obliteration and destruction of Israel. That means that the state of Israel will no longer exist. It's such a dangerous thing to say. Many of the students don't know the geography and the political implications. It sounds like a rhyme and they're joining in together. They feel like they're part of something, and like they're making a change.

We've seen these liberated ethnic studies faculty members who are writing the curriculum for the state of California come out and post similar statements on their social media. They have celebrated these brutal terrorist attacks. They have made statements that this is all the result of systemic oppression and systemic racism. You hear all of these terms and equivocation for terrorism.

I never thought I would see something like this in America—the support of terrorist groups and terrorist actions by our students. How are we even seeing these things on the streets day after day? As a professor, I want people to have free speech and freedom of expression and academic freedom, but where is the line drawn? When does it become hate speech? When we call for the obliteration of an entire country and an entire people, is that too far?

Each time I see these student groups coming out and saying these hateful comments, supporting hate speech, and supporting Hamas, a known terrorist organization, I wonder to myself, “Why are these deans quiet? Why are the presidents of these universities quiet? Is this representing their institution? What does their silence mean?” We're often told by these critical social justice ideologues that silence equals violence and complicity. Then what does the silence of these institutional leaders mean?

Mr. Jekielek: All of a sudden, they do seem to be standing up for free speech. That almost seems like a new thing.

Dr. Lee: Their silence means, “We tacitly support what's being said because we're not making any statement to the contrary.” Then the students are getting that affirmation again. They think, "This is what we all stand for. This is what we should be standing for if we're committed to social justice." But that's not the social justice that I've taught my students about and that I've been committed to my whole life.

It concerns me because if you think back to 9-11 and the terrorism that took place here on American soil, there was no celebration from student groups and educational institutions. There was no belief that this was okay, and that the acts that took place because of hundreds of years of American imperialism and colonization in the Middle East.

Why is there marching in the streets to support Hamas, a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy the West and the way of life that enables these students to protest and to make these statements? I wonder if the students understand and recognize that they would be the first to be tamped down on if Hamas had its way.

We can see the potential destruction of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. It is the one place where you can be yourself. You can be an Arab Israeli citizen, you can be a Mizrahi Jew, and you can be an LGBTQ+ person freely without being beheaded. Yet, we see these students holding up banners that say "Queers for Palestine." Over there they would be beheaded in an instant. They are considered despicable, and they would be despised.

Why is this taking place? What has happened to our educational system when we see our students out there promoting anti-American sentiment and supporting terrorism? What are the dangers to us as a society as a result of that? Where are we heading with that, and why? How has it gotten so far along? It used to be a fringe thing, but now this is mainstream and students are being told that it's normal to support terrorism.

That concerns me a great deal because I'm someone who loves our country and loves this nation. This is a grand experiment, and it's not perfect. We will always have things to work on. We are human beings trying to realize these aspirations that were set out in the founding documents. Some people want to destroy and shred those documents and then lead us into what?

What kind of system will we have when the republic is destroyed, as so many people are calling for? In good conscience, I can't support that. It worries me a great deal, and we don’t understand the danger of embracing these kinds of ideologies.

This is everywhere. It's at our doorstep, and we all need to take a look into what's happening in our schools. Those are the breeding grounds for many of these toxic ideologies. Are you really safe in a world where our youth are being corrupted, and their minds are being destroyed with terrorist propaganda and anti-American sentiment?

Mr. Jekielek: Both you and I recently reviewed a clip of Hamas leadership explaining what their intentions are. This information may shift some minds of people that don't actually understand what they've signed up for when they join these protests.

Dr. Lee: Yes. That Hamas leader said, “Anything we do is okay because we are the victims.” That is the mentality of these individuals and of this worldview. If you have the oppressed status or victim status, any action you take, no matter how immoral and how brutal, is okay.

Mr. Jekielek: Including October 7th-type action, as he says explicitly.

Dr. Lee: Yes, and they are justifying that and feeling proud about it. Then you can see our students celebrating and saying, "This is okay because our teachers and our faculty members and our mentors told us that this is the response to oppression." This is the response to all of the words they use, like settler colonialism and apartheid. These things aren't rooted in any objective reality or history, but students have been taught this and they parrot it back. They're not learning the whole picture.

They're not learning about the actual history of the region. They're not learning and understanding indigeneity and what that means. They're learning a twisted version that supports a terrorist vision of the world, and that is very toxic and dangerous.

We need to start taking a closer look at it because it's not just learned professors in the small liberal arts college anymore. We're also seeing this in our medical professionals. We're seeing this in our athletes. We're seeing this in every aspect of life on the campus, and also off the campus in civic life. It's really deeply concerning to see our teachers and healthcare professionals proposing and stating this toxic ideology. They think of their patients and students as either victims or oppressors, and that people should receive certain levels of care and others should not because of their oppressor status or victim status.

What kind of world are we headed when our doctor or our teacher doesn't look at us as an individual, but as a group representative, and that we should be held accountable for everything that group has done historically, whether it's objectively true or not? It's based on a toxic narrative that's being taught over and over again. When I turn on my TV and see groups of students yelling, "Gas the Jews," that's not freedom of speech—that's something else. That's calling for murder. That's supporting killing innocent people. How can we be supportive of that? They say that it is because of systemic oppression. What is that?

Mr. Jekielek: I've observed there's a conflation of the idea of protesting against war. Some people are just very committed to being anti-war, and against various types of Israeli policy, like the Gaza Invasion. They simply do not like the current Israeli leadership or believe that Israel should be allowed to exist at all. Can you speak to this?

Dr. Lee: Unfortunately, we have lost a lot of our understanding of world history, historical events, and the chronology of the world. Whenever Israel is attacked, there is an immediate call for them to stand down and to not defend themselves. I have a big problem with that. I am not someone who supports war, but to say that a country doesn't have a right to defend itself or that they should immediately begin diplomacy does not make sense.

Over 200 hostages have been taken, and we have this situation of just brutal terrorism. I find it so interesting that Israel is held to different standards than every other nation in the world. We see these statements coming out of the United Nations and other organizations, and they're always the same. Why is that?

It's the deeply rooted antisemitism rearing its head, and it's really visible to so many of us. That is creating an environment of fear and intimidation for Jewish students on campus, and not just Jewish students who are Zionists. Because sometimes people say, "It's just about the Jewish people who are Zionists." There are many people who are not Jewish who are also Zionists, and who support the right of Israel to self-determination. These environments are toxic, not just for Jewish students, but for all students, and for freedom and diversity of viewpoint as well.

We're seeing students who are holding up their flags in support of Israel being attacked by students holding Hamas flags and Palestinian flags. That's not okay. We're seeing students being locked into the libraries of their schools. It's easy for some people to say, "That's just those students. They're just a small number and it doesn't affect me." It does affect you.

Those kinds of environments where we see exclusion and we see authoritarianism advancing doesn’t just stop with the Jewish people. It marches onward to the next group, and then the next group. People need to understand that part of history, because that part of history is now repeating itself. Some of us are unaware. We don't have the knowledge of history so that we can say, "No, we don't want that kind of world again." But we are rapidly heading in that direction.

Mr. Jekielek: This ideology is manifesting in the medical profession, where there is disparate treatment of different identity groups by doctors.

Dr. Lee: Yes.

Mr. Jekielek: Please tell me about that.

Dr. Lee: Yes. This is encouraged in their medical training and in their certificate programs. They are not focusing on medical competency or compassionate care anymore. There is an infusion of critical social justice ideology. We have doctors and medical students participating in die-ins and lying on the ground to protest this idea or that idea. They are lying on the ground and pretending to be dead. Why do we see our medical professionals going out to pro-Hamas rallies and having that be part of their practicums? How does that help them to be more compassionate doctors and to serve their patients?

What about the Jewish patient or the Zionist patient, or fill-in-the-blank patient that doesn't fit the narrative of these critical social justice ideologues? When they come to that medical professional for care, do they get a different kind of care? We've seen some statements made by medical professionals on social media, very out in the open, that celebrate the acts of Hamas. How is that keeping us safe? Even some of the high leadership in the American Psychological Association are coming out and saying they want to classify the Zionist perspective as a psychosis. There's all kinds of toxic things happening under this ideology. There are attempts to redefine what is psychosis and what is competent care.

Mr. Jekielek: With doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists, even if someone is the worst criminal, you provide them with care because they're a human being. But this new ideology is a complete undermining of that.

Dr. Lee: Yes, and I fear for the patients who will be under the care of people who have been trained in these ideologies. How could they ever see the person sitting in front of them as an individual? They have been taught and have accepted that the person in front of them is a representative of their gender checkbox, their race checkbox, or the intersections between those different identities. Some of them are more oppressed than others. These are the professions that should be focused on the compassionate care of the individual. In the case of educators, it should be teaching the individual child that's right there in front of you.

Mr. Jekielek: There are a few groups that you've written about recently, like White Coats for Black Lives.

Dr. Lee: White Coats for Black Lives has chapters in over 100 American public and private universities. Sometimes we think, "They're not in the public school. My child's in an elite private university." They are there too. There is no space where this ideology hasn't crept in and captured the higher levels of administration and faculty, who are then impacting students. Behind all of these student groups are the faculty advisors who encourage them, who support them, who give them extra credit to go out to political rallies, and who influence grades based on what they say and what they write, but if it aligns with the ideology or not.

That is so saddening. What happened to critical thinking? What happened to the ability to do the research and scholarship that we used to value in our educational institutions? Now, it's this expression of fidelity to the orthodoxy. That's the most important thing. That's more important than knowledge or innovation. The things that you're doing with your peers should all be focused on uplifting the oppressed instead. Who defines the oppressed? The answer is these ideologues. How do they define them? Sometimes it is in ways that aren't rooted in any objective reality. It's rooted in their need to spread antisemitism, and anti-women, anti-American ideas throughout the society.

Mr. Jekielek: The concept of decolonization has been mentioned again and again over the past weeks. What does that actually mean?

Dr. Lee: It is explained by critical social justice ideologues as the decolonization of our minds, our ways of understanding the world and each other, and our ways of being in the world. Because supposedly, our minds have been colonized due to our constant oppression and our experience of living in a nation that they claim was founded under white supremacy, and that now has a white supremacy culture.

At De Anza, when people would do their workshops, they would talk about this decolonization of the mind and of our learning spaces. That means that all the white supremacy culture characteristics that were identified, like being on time, being objective, and all of these other personality characteristics and traits, we would actively work to not embody those things and not support people who promote those characteristics.

Concerning this whole idea of the settler colonialists, it really speaks to an ignorance of the geopolitics, the history of the region, indigeneity, and who is actually indigenous to Judea and Samaria. It is willful ignorance of these facts. These are documented in history books and in the research we have done on thousands of years of human history. It's not like, "Oops, we just don't know." It's a misrepresentation of history that is very intentional, and it aligns with the antisemitism that undergirds it.

Mr. Jekielek: What does decolonization mean in the context of the Israel-Hamas war right now?

Dr. Lee: From the social media posts we are seeing from these liberated ethnic studies folks, it means what the Hamas terrorists did on October 7th, and also before and since that time, are justified because they were oppressed. That's the natural reaction to oppression. You don't see me engaging with that a lot, Jan, because it's malarkey. It's a bunch of gobbledygook. It's not related to objective history or facts, and it's not rooted in objective reality.

It's a fantasy that has gone widespread. It's a virus that has gone into the minds of our youth and our faculty who are in the streets violently yelling and screaming, “Free Palestine.” What about freeing Gaza from Hamas? No one is talking about that part.

This is a battle that involves global ideas and world civilization. If you don't understand the connections between the only democracy in the Middle East and America, and why it's important for America to always stand with Israel, then I have some questions about that.

Some people say, "We're just against war. We just don't want any war to happen." Great. What do you do when your nation is attacked, when your citizens are brutalized and murdered in their beds, when your children are kidnapped, and when your Holocaust survivors and elderly people are taken? Do you sit down and chat with the people who did it, or do you have another response?

If you are sitting down and chatting, what does that tell this organization of terrorists who is saying, "We've done it, and we will do it again and again"? They're not going to stop and they will not stop with Israel. This will come here as well. It saddens me to see our young people in the streets laying out the welcome mat for their own destruction.

Mr. Jekielek: In 2001, immediately after 9-11, I knew a young guy who said, "America is reaping what it sowed." I am wondering if there are now more like him that have been taught or indoctrinated in this way. We have this open border where at least seven or 8 million people have come across. You really have no idea who many of them are. You would imagine that people that wish America harm would push their people through there. If there is a terrorist attack, how many people would be like that young man I just mentioned?

Dr. Lee: These are very real and pressing questions. You have people that are calling for the dismantling of America, American culture, and American society. After you destroy everything and dismantle it, what's next? Many people can see that coming to our doorstep, and these students are celebrating that? I hope we don't have to learn the hard way like some other nations and peoples have had to learn.

I've had the opportunity to speak with people in post-Soviet nations. Everyone should take a gap year and travel. People with their Queers for Palestine signs, just go to Gaza and see how you're received with that sign. If you got to see the world from the perspective of people who are living in those oppressive environments, then your perspective would maybe change a little bit.

Mr. Jekielek: Tabia Lee, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Dr. Lee: Thank you.

Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Tabia Lee and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.