UC Berkeley got a visit on Jan. 30 from the Accuracy in Media project, which drives near American college campuses in trucks with large electronic billboards on the sides that flash the names and sometimes photos of people that AIM has decided have antisemitic views.
The goal, according to AIM, is “to shame those who hold such views out of having them.”
CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed “deep concern” about the billboards in a letter sent Monday to UC Berkeley leadership, saying that AIM “doxxed” and made false statements about people who had “voiced pro-Palestinian views,” including Berkeley graduate students, faculty and alumni.
“Accuracy in Media’s deliberate intimidation, harassment, and targeting of Arab, Muslim, and other pro-Palestinian members of the Berkeley community and their allies is opprobrious and should not be tolerated,” according to the letter, composed by CAIR attorney Jeffrey Wang.
Washington D.C.-based AIM has alienated itself from mainstream pro-Israel Jewish groups and drawn stark criticism from Jewish campus leaders who say its tactics are counterproductive. It also has ties to the gonzo right-wing investigative group Project Veritas.
This is not the first time such a truck has visited Cal, flashing names. After student clubs at the UC Berkeley School of Law passed a controversial rule in 2022 excluding Zionist speakers, AIM targeted UC Berkeley law school students’ homes in January 2023. The previous fall, AIM parked a truck near the law school and alarmed the Jewish community with a truck that featured a picture of a saluting Adolf Hitler.
“I am deeply disturbed that the Accuracy in Media truck has returned,” law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Tuesday in a statement sent to J. “Its harassment of our students is loathsome and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. It is an attempt to intimidate students for their speech that is protected by the First Amendment.”
UC spokesperson Dan Mogulof said there is little the university can do to prevent AIM’s trucks, although the administration is there to support targeted students.
“The university has no ability to control who uses and access city streets around the campus,” he said.