San Francisco Women Against Rape, which enraged Jews when it listed anti-Zionism as a prerequisite for becoming a volunteer, has abruptly lost four city contracts that were scheduled to run through the end of the fiscal year in June.
The San Francisco Department on the Status of Women cut off the final two months of contracts paying $287,000 over 12 months. It was due to SFWAR being out of compliance with terms and conditions of the grant agreements, according to the department.
All told, the rape crisis center lost out on roughly $100,000. But SFWAR would not have received about half of this money regardless, as it was earmarked for positions that are unfilled.
Emily Murase, executive director of the Department on the Status of Women, only would reveal that the violations dealt with “an issue related to the health and safety of clients,” and were “completely unrelated” to anti-Zionism. Richard Eijima, a department secretary, confirmed that SFWAR had been warned prior to the cutoff.
He also acknowledged that the move was unrelated to a probe of SFWAR currently being conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, which is investigating a civil rights complaint made against the nonprofit.
Pete Pierce, a Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for the Department of Justice, confirmed the probe, but declined to comment further on an ongoing investigation.
Nina Jusuf, SFWAR’s executive director, could not be reached for comment.
The flurry of activity comes nearly two years after it was first revealed that SFWAR’s application form asked potential volunteers to “take a stance against Zionism.” Jusuf wrote an e-mail to j. shortly thereafter confirming that SFWAR, which receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds, was an “anti-Zionist organization.”
Abby Porth, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, is unsure exactly what prompted the city to take its action, but she believes San Francisco has been keeping a much closer eye on SFWAR following complaints from the Jewish community in 2003.
“We believe that the city’s oversight and monitoring and scrutiny of this organization is directly linked to our raising concerns about the discriminatory nature of its activities,” she said.
SFWAR and the JCRC have been in contact over the past two years, and the offending anti-Zionist language was removed from SFWAR materials. But the center never issued an apology to the Jewish community, and Porth does not believe an open Zionist would be welcome there.
The final two months funding from the city’s $68,000 contract with SFWAR to run a rape crisis line has been diverted to San Francisco General Hospital’s division of psycho-social medicine.
Jon Dean Green, the division’s administrative officer, said the city approached the hospital, which had not lobbied for these funds. In addition to the final two months of SFWAR’s contract, Green said, San Francisco General will handle crisis-line duties until at least December, when the city contract may go up for bid.
The San Francisco General rape crisis number is (415) 437-3000.
SFWAR will continue to operate its rape crisis hotline at (415) 647-7273 using state funding from the Office of Emergency Services, which provides the bulk of its operating costs.
It does not appear that the city’s curtailment and the federal probe will have any effect on SFWAR’s state funding. Eric Lamoureux, a California Office of Emergency Services spokesman, said the organization was “in compliance” and would continue to receive its $302,328 in yearly grants. Porth complained that the state has been “unresponsive” in acknowledging SFWAR’s “discriminatory practices.”
Murase said the Department on the Status of Women would work with SFWAR to “get them into compliance.” She said SFWAR might be eligible to reapply for its lost $48,000 grant for teen programs in July, but would not be able to bid for the other three contracts until December, if at all.