Former Student Government President is Suing UCSB Over Anti-Semitic Abuse and Harassment

The former student government president of the University of California at Santa Barbara is suing the University for failing to protect her from a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse and harassment she endured during the 2023-2024 academic year.

One University of California Santa Barbara staffer even egged on a crowd of students that was hounding her, according to the complaint.

The federal lawsuit says that Tessa Veksler, who is Jewish, was doxed and called a “Zionist dog.” But “UCSB refused to assist Tessa in protecting herself from these ongoing attacks and harassment, choosing instead to leave her to face the anti-Semitic mob alone — and increasingly vulnerable — for months on end.”

It says she was the “victim of repeated and systematic assaults and other abuse by a horde of antisemitic instigators on campus.”

“Tessa suffered this nightmare despite having repeatedly pleaded for help from UCSB administrators and representatives,” the complaint argues. “But her pleas fell on deaf ears. And the assaults and abuse intensified, all with the full knowledge, consent, and even the active participation of one of the University’s representatives.”

Although talking about an “assault” usually connotes some kind of physical attack, nothing like that is alleged in the complaint. It seems the term is being used here to encapsulate the regular and targeted verbal abuse Veksler received from anti-Semitic campus mobs.

Los Angeles lawyer Todd Lander, who is representing Veksler, told the California Globe that, “We appreciate your interest in the litigation, but we unfortunately cannot presently provide any insight or commentary beyond the content of the Complaint filed in the District Court–which speaks for itself.”

Veksler was first targeted by anti-Semitic hordes after she wrote a very mild reaction to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel on her personal instagram account.

As the lawsuit notes,  what she wrote in her personal capacity–not as student government president–was not “provocative or divisive.”

She said the “murder of civilians, raping of women, kidnapping of children, is not and never will be justifiable.”

She expressed her solidarity with her “Jewish community/neighbors” and “with the people of Israel.”

Veksler also said that being a “Jewish student on a college campus should not be a safety hazard.”

But she soon became one.

The complaint says that the “campaign began online, and within days of Tessa’s October 8 post. Tessa was accused of supporting genocide, and subjected to base and sordid antisemitic tropes. Nor did time temper the venom of the protestors or their targeting of Tessa.”

By February 2024, the locus of the abuse was the University of California at Santa Barbara Multicultural Center because her student government  office was adjacent to it.

“On February 25 and 26, 2024, students posted signs throughout the MCC where Tessa’s student government office was located, threatening her and making it clear she was unwelcome on campus and should be excluded because she is “a Zionist.” The messages on various posters were uniform in their venom and menace: “Zionists are not welcome, “Zionists not welcome,” and “Ziofascists GTFO [get the fuck out].”

Other signs said, “You can run but you can’t hide, Tessa Veksler supports genocide” and “Zionists not welcome here.”

The Multicultural Center’s official Instagram account even posted favorably about the signs.

“Tessa faced this harassment on a daily basis, and it wasn’t merely the relentless assault on social media or the mounting threats to her safety. Indeed, in her determination to fulfil her secular duty as student body president, she routinely went to her office in order to be accessible to her fellow students. But that office was immediately adjacent to the MCC, and she was thus forced to walk past the myriad signs expressing hatred of her as she was laboring to do her job on behalf of,  among others, the very student authoring those toxic and antisemitic messages.”

When Tessa tried to confront the protestors directly, a masked USCB official who was mulling around in the crowd, sided with them.

“Then, on one occasion and in what can only be described as a descent into the surreal, a UCSB representative – donning a face mask, as were many of the agitators – expressed solidarity with a group of Tessa’s antisemitic abusers in the campus MCC. Tessa had approached the crowd on her own in an effort to speak with them in a civilized manner, only to be met with ongoing verbal assaults. And this masked UCSB representative chose to actively side with those assaulting Tessa, in an obvious attempt to silence her. “

The lawsuit says the harassment continued into April when a student government poster with her photo on it was vandalized.

She was hounded all over campus.

“Even Tessa taking a simple walk through the UCSB campus descended into an indulgence of that assault and abuse, with antisemitic crowds wielding blowhorns and screaming epithets and insults at her.

The “threats and this harassment took place under the watchful eye of the University and its administrators. But the UCSB did nothing, despite its elaborate anti-discrimination Policy and Tessa’s repeated pleas for help.”

University of Santa California at Santa Barbara spokesperson Kiki Reyes did not respond to requests for comment today and last Friday.

The University is supposed to respond to the lawsuit by April 7.