A new federal complaint filed by a pro-Israel Jewish civil rights firm paints a disturbing portrait of life for a small group of Jewish students at Cal Poly Humboldt, which went into lockdown last spring due to extreme pro-Palestinian protests.
The complaint describes a campus culture of relentless antisemitic harassment and cyberbullying.
Cal Poly Humboldt is located in Arcata, a progressive town of about 20,000 residents located a few miles from the Pacific Coast. It’s the northernmost university in the Cal State system and advertises well-regarded programs in natural resources and a campus “in one of the world’s most beautiful natural environments.” For a public university it is quite small, enrolling about 6,000 undergraduate students, and has a modest Jewish population. Its mascot and sports teams are the Lumberjacks.
Rabbi Naomi Steinberg of Temple Beth El Eureka, who is a lecturer emeritus at Cal Poly Humboldt, wrote in an email to J. that members of her synagogue’s antisemitism task force last winter “repeatedly” expressed concerns to university administrators “over an increasingly hostile atmosphere for Jewish students on campus.”
“Ongoing meetings have not yet produced tangible results,” Steinberg said. “I hope this federal complaint will lead to a positive outcome for all concerned.”
Steinberg, for her part, has opposed labeling all pro-Palestinian protests as “antisemitic,” has been outspoken about the loss of life in Gaza and has facilitated conversations in Arcata on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The campus was riven by strident pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel demonstrators last spring opposing what they said was a genocide in Gaza. They demanded that the university “divest completely from companies affiliated with Israel,” student Stella Baumstone wrote in an essay after being suspended over her participation in the protests.
Demonstrators — not all of them students, according to the university — clashed with police and barricaded themselves inside buildings. The situation was so “complex” that classes were moved online during the last couple of weeks of the semester, the university said, stating at the time that “the safety, health, and wellbeing of our students is paramount.”
The federal complaint filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law details extreme incidents last school year targeting Jewish students affiliated with Chabad of Humboldt. The complaint was filed on March 6 with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
One incident detailed in the complaint occurred on Sept. 18, 2024. According to the filing, the Jewish student group on campus was tabling at a “Clubs Fair” for student organizations. The Chabad-affiliated group describes itself on its webpage as “a space where Jews and Allies of Jews can come together to meet new people. Our goal is ‘to get more students to do something Jewish!’”
A Humboldt student approached the table and shouted “that the Jewish students were baby killers, genocide supporters and land stealers,” according to the complaint. The student then “grabbed items off the table and blocked other students from approaching the table,” the complaint says, adding that university administrators present “failed to take any action to stop the individual from disrupting the event.”
Another incident occurred on Oct. 7, 2024, when the Jewish student group set up a table to “honor the victims of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack.” According to the complaint, masked protesters congregated “approximately twenty feet” away and “drew a circle in chalk around the Jewish students’ table with the words ‘Zio Corner.’” “Zio” refers to Zionists and is sometimes used as a slur by white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Zack Mink, a senior at Cal Poly Humboldt and co-leader of the Jewish student group, told J. that he was at the club table when the incident happened. He said a second chalk circle was drawn representing the “liberation zone,” meant to “put us in a bubble while we’re trying to welcome students and actually encourage them to have productive conversations.” His instinct was to seek help from administrators, Mink said, but ultimately he felt helpless. “These things are just being ignored by the administration while they’re happening,” he said.
Later that day, Mink saw a protester use a ladle to toss red paint on an administration building to symbolize “blood of the martyrs,” he told J. The protester also reportedly threw paint inside the building, on a Jewish community member, and on someone who was recording the incident with a camera.
Another masked protester approached Mink and an Israeli friend and threw what appeared to be red glitter at them, which Mink believes was also meant to represent blood. “It’s still an ongoing hate crime investigation by university police,” he said.
Anonymous personal attacks on YikYak, a campus social media site, began after Mink, a journalism major, published a February 2024 op-ed titled “It’s Getting Hard to Be Jewish on Campus” in the campus newspaper the Lumberback.
Mink, who worked with the Brandeis Center to file the complaint, said he began wearing a mask and hood around campus last school year to hide his identity. This year, he said he chose classes that would allow him to be fully remote, for his safety.
The complaint is seeking an Office of Civil Rights investigation of alleged Title VI violations. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, color and national origin” in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
The university, called Humboldt State until 2022, issued a statement about the complaint.
“Cal Poly Humboldt is reviewing the federal complaint and will, of course, fully cooperate with the Office of Civil Rights in any investigation,” it said. “Hatred or discrimination in any form, including anti-semitism, is contrary to our core values. The University unequivocally condemns all acts of hatred, bigotry, and violence, and we are committed to keeping safe our students, staff, and faculty of all religions. We will continue to work together to foster a learning and working environment where we can all feel safe, included, and respected.”
On the same day it announced the Humboldt complaint, the Brandeis Center announced two other complaints, both in Southern California. One was leveled against Scripps College and the other against the Etiwanda School District, the nonprofit said in a press release.