A recent revelation has brought to light a controversial move by an ethnic studies instructor at UC Berkeley.
Victoria Huynh, a Ph.D. student who teaches Asian American studies courses, offered her students extra credit to attend a campus walkout protest for Gaza. The protest was co-organized by Bears for Palestine, the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group known for expressing support for Hamas and their atrocities on civilians in Israel.
In an email sent to her students on October 24, Huynh outlined the extra credit opportunity. Students were given the option to attend the "national student walkout against the settler-colonial occupation of Gaza" or watch a film about Palestine and call a California lawmaker to pressure them over Israel. Huynh stated that participating in either activity would count as a field trip or earn students an extra 5 points on the field trip category of their grade. She also requested photographic proof of their participation.
The email included a digital flyer of the protest, scheduled for October 25 in Sproul Plaza. The photo on the flyer depicted a Palestinian rioter hurling a rock at Israeli border guards. Huynh directed students in a different section of the same course to contact her colleague Derek Wu for extra credit validation.
The walkout protest, organized by Bears for Palestine, is part of the larger movement by SJP, an extremist organization known for its support of Hamas atrocities in Israel. The group recently sent out a "day of resistance" toolkit to students, urging them to support Hamas in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which resulted in numerous atrocities on civilians in Israel. The toolkit encouraged students to act as part of the movement and continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.
Bears for Palestine, the official UC Berkeley chapter of SJP, released a solidarity statement for Hamas, expressing unwavering support for the resistance in Gaza and the broader occupied Palestinian lands.
This revelation comes at a time when local campus chapters of SJP are facing deactivation in Florida for violating state law that bans providing material support to foreign terrorist groups. The chancellor of the State University System of Florida, in consultation with Governor Ron DeSantis, made the decision to deactivate these chapters.
Victoria Huynh, despite being the daughter of Vietnamese refugees of communism, has a long history of radical far-left politics. She is a prison abolitionist, advocating for the complete abolition of the American criminal justice system. Huynh's academic, professional, and activist careers are deeply rooted in radical revolutionary leftist politics. It is unclear when she became radicalized, but she holds an undergraduate degree in ethnic studies from Brown University.
Huynh's controversial plan to offer extra credit for students to participate in the protest aligns with similar actions taken by UCLA instructors who also offered credit for attending anti-Israel events. This trend has sparked outrage among pro-Israel donors, leading to crises and scandals at some elite institutions.
Despite attempts to reach out to Victoria Huynh, her colleague Derek Wu, and UC Berkeley for comment, none have responded at the time of publication. Huynh has locked down her X account, and the university has removed public access to her academic profile page.
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