UC San Diego Course Says Israel Commits "Sophicide," Prof. Urges Students to Evade University Monitoring
Professor Shaista Aziz Patel's ETHN 100A — a mandatory course in the ethnic studies program — frames Israel as "genocidal" and encourages students to "defeat the surveillance regime" of UC San Diego
A mandatory undergrad course in the ethnic studies program at UC San Diego is teaching students that Israel is committing “sophicide,” that the U.S. has committed genocide in various locations worldwide, and that UCSD functions as a “giant surveillance laboratory,” the Jewish Onliner has discovered. The course professor, Dr. Shaista Aziz Patel, encourages students to use an external platform (Slack) for course discussions instead of the university-monitored Canvas system, in order to “defeat the surveillance regime.”
ETHN 100A: THEORETICAL APPROACHES
It appears to be the first time the syllabus has explicitly addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Patel began teaching the course in 2022. A syllabus from Fall 2022 obtained by Jewish Onliner contained no such references.
The course description frames contemporary America through the lens of multiple ongoing crises:
“The pandemic is not over, neither the viral nor the structural ones of anti-Blackness, anti-indigeneity, Zionism, settler colonialism, casteism, capitalism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, heteropatriarchy, and other structures of violence that keep white supremacy intact.”
Students are expected to develop what Patel calls “more honesty than what has been afforded to us,” with course materials drawing from abolitionist, antiracist, and “global liberationist movements.”
The syllabus dedicates substantial space to the concept of “sophicide.” Patel describes this term in the following way: “the Zionist regime’s deliberate annihilation of Indigenous knowledge traditions inspired by the land itself, as well as the carriers of that knowledge, including elders and women. It involves the crushing of Palestinian life and learning through the systematic murder of Palestinian students, mentors, teachers, researchers, scholars, academics, writers, librarians, archivists, spiritual leaders, historiographers, creatives, poets, interns, lecturers, professors, staff, and lab technicians.”
The syllabus goes further in its institutional critique, explicitly rejecting what she describes as university surveillance systems. In a section titled “On Canvas and Surveillance,” Patel writes: “Please note that I am against cop pedagogy where every move of students is tracked and they are penalized for making any errors, and also against the giant surveillance laboratory that the UCSD is.”
She offers students the option to bypass the university’s official Canvas learning management system entirely, providing her personal email address as an alternative for assignment submissions and directing students to use Slack for course discussions to avoid what she characterizes as institutional monitoring.
Who is Professor Shaista Patel?
Patel, who joined UC San Diego’s Ethnic Studies Department in 2018 as a scholar of Critical Muslim Studies, holds a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. According to her faculty bio, she identifies as a Pakistani Shi’i Muslim scholar whose research focuses on Dalit/anti-caste studies in diaspora and transnational feminist studies. Her work examines intersections of race, caste, gender, religion, and capitalism through a decolonial lens.
Patel has previously made controversial claims on social media regarding the Israeli-Hamas war. In a December 2023 Facebook post, Patel denied reports of sexual violence against Israeli women during the October 7 Hamas attacks, stating “very young students in my Islam class asked me about the lies forged by New York Times and circulated by western media and politicians that Israeli women were raped on Oct 7th 2023.” Patel made this claim despite extensive documentation by human rights organizations, survivor testimony, and forensic evidence confirming systematic sexual violence during the attacks that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis.
Potential Legal Liabilities
Whether the syllabus violates federal anti-discrimination law remains an open legal question that would ultimately be determined through formal complaint processes and federal investigation, should those avenues be pursued. However, the combination of a required foundational course, explicit characterization of Jewish self-determination as oppression, and mandatory acceptance of contested political claims creates what some legal observers might characterize as a strong case under current Title VI enforcement standards.
With UC San Diego receiving $1.73 billion annually including over $600 million in federal funding, potential Title VI enforcement mechanisms could create significant institutional exposure.
Defund academia and pulls the plugs on all of academia’s foreign-student-visa cash machines.