Introducing Our Next Project: Profiles in Hatred
Documenting the shameful past and present of the oldest hatred at UCF by examining its worst offenders
As college campuses across the United States undergo a twisted Renaissance to restore the ideals of their German counterparts in the 1930s, elite universities have dominated the headlines. Columbia, Harvard, and Yale have seen consistent and prominent reporting about their antisemitic student populations and complicit university administrations.
But while venerable American institutions - the presses, the judiciaries, the legislatures, and other vital societal backbones - may be downstream of these elite universities, one more element is required to make a society truly and virulently antisemitic: the masses. Jew-hatred on a societal level has always required the support of a plurality at least.
That's why large public schools - educating the 99% - have an outsize role to play in the shaping of American-Jewish relations.
UCF Jewish Monitor has aimed from its outset to serve as a "living history" of this very phenomenon at the world's largest public university: The University of Central Florida.
While this publication lacks the power to change the direction of this university and its administration, it does have the power to document UCF's appalling cowardice, disgusting apathy, and criminal negligence towards its Jewish community. This publication can't change the course of the future, but it can perform a critically underrated service: preventing this shameful legacy from being forgotten. If we forget the past, we cannot possibly prepare for the future - and preparing for the future is an unfortunate requirement for today's Jewish community in America.
As such, today we are announcing the next step in documenting the antisemitic, anti-Indigenous and racist mistreatment of UCF's Jewish community: profiling specific individuals at UCF who have contributed the most to harming Jewish students.
What is the Profiles in Hatred Project?
Think of the Project as a Canary Mission just for UCF.
The Project will catalog individuals in UCF's administration, faculty, and student leadership who are either complicit in or contribute substantially to harming Jewish students and faculty at the University of Central Florida.
Our profiles will describe people who either had a position of power during an anti-Jewish event, were made aware of said event, and chose not to take action to stop harm from occurring to Jewish students; or who directly perpetuated harm against Jews through their own actions.
To begin the Project, we have released our first Profile: Dr. Andrea Guzman, who currently serves as the Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at UCF.