What the heck is going on at UC Davis?

For the past few years, I have had the honor of teaching Jewish students at UC Davis Hillel. I always started with a “check-in,” asking a simple question: How has your week been?  Too often, the answers were painful.

One spoke of being harassed while crossing the quad.

Another described taking detours to avoid protests where chants glorified Hamas.

A third recalled a professor’s open hostility toward Jews.

These are the lived realities of Jewish students at UC Davis, realities that leave them feeling unsafe, unwelcome, and unprotected in the very place where they should feel most at home.

That sense of vulnerability is only deepened by UC Davis’s decision to keep one of its own professors on the payroll despite her violent words that shocked the community.  Let me explain.

Just three days after the October 7 massacre in Israel, UC Davis Assistant Professor Jemma Decristo posted threats on social media aimed at Jewish reporters and their families. Her words were chilling, punctuated with emojis of blood, a knife, and a hatchet:

“One group of ppl (sic) we have easy access to in the US is all these Zionist journalists who spread propaganda & disinformation / they have houses w addresses, kids in school / they can fear their bosses, but they need to fear us more.”

This was not a slip of the tongue. It was a targeted call to violence against all Jews—a clear act of antisemitism and racist hate speech.

In response, I wrote to UC Davis Chancellor Gary May and urged him to take bold action. I asked: “How could a faculty member who openly called for violence against Jews remain on the payroll of a public university? How could Jewish students feel safe knowing a professor at their own university had threatened Jewish lives?”

Campus officials responded, promising to “refer the matter to the appropriate departments” and asserting that UC Davis “rejects all forms of violence and discrimination.”

Two years later, nothing has changed. According to the university, Decristo is not teaching, though is listed as faculty at the university. The investigation, I’m told, remains a “confidential personnel matter.”

While administrators hide behind confidentiality, students themselves have documented the clearest evidence of misconduct. Recent reviews of the professor describe a classroom environment filled with fear and bias.

One student wrote in February 2025:

‘This professor is racist against Jews and Israeli students. She thinks they are Zionists, projects intimidation, exerts division, and is not approachable if you’re of Jewish descent. She unashamedly made her hate views clear and public on social media. UC Davis did little to address her degrading students.’

Another noted in June 2024:

‘Avoid this class and professor…Did not feel like a safe learning environment.’

These reviews reveal a consistent pattern of intimidation, bias, and a hostile learning environment for students.

And let’s not kid ourselves. Had she threatened Black, Muslim, or LGBTQ communities, her dismissal would have likely been swift and unquestioned.

And yet, rather than removing her, the case has become a bureaucratic saga. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year that the Decristo incident “has been a driving force in the push for reform” of the UC faculty discipline process.

If this is true, the UC is driving very, very slowly.

UC Regent Jay Sures was right when he questioned the method of faculty self-policing altogether. “The current process, in my mind, is unacceptable,” he said. “The concept of having faculty perform self-governance is not working.”  Sures also called the Decristo case “antisemitic and disgusting.”

UC Davis’ lack of action in the face of repeated antisemitic statements by a faculty member stands in stark contrast to the ideals the university pledges to uphold in its mission statement, which promises to “exercise integrity in all that we do” and to “build community by embracing our diversity.”

Despite these pledges, the university has remained silent for two years—a silence that amounts to complicity, allowing Decristo to remain on the faculty.

It is long past time for UC Davis to take appropriate action—or stand in shame.

A version of this op-ed was originally published in The Sacramento Bee.