An incoming dean at California State University Los Angeles is a staunch defender of the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and has denounced the minister's Jewish critics.
Julianne Malveaux, whom Cal State L.A. appointed to lead its newly established College of Ethnic Studies, wrote in 2018 that "white people's hatred for Minister Farrakhan is irrational and ... racist" after the Women's March movement faced calls to denounce its ties to Farrakhan, who has compared Jews to termites.
In a series of past remarks uncovered by school reform journal Education Next this week, Malveaux also lashed out against Jewish critics of the Nation of Islam leader. Malveaux condemned a congressional effort to denounce Farrakhan in 2018, framing the push to condemn the minister as being led by Jews asking black people to "buck dance," according to the Nation of Islam's official newspaper, the Final Call.
"We have tens of thousands if not millions of people, black people, in these United States who are members of the Nation of Islam. They are productive people in our community, who many of us interact with, work with, on a daily basis," the Final Call quoted Malveaux as saying. "They are not racist people. They are not anti-Semitic. They are black people. So, until these Jewish people who are running around asking black people to buck dance, until they ask white people to buck dance, I ain't having it! I'm just not having it!"
Malveaux reportedly appeared at a 2005 event hosted by Farrakhan, where she criticized attacks on the Nation of Islam leader's rhetoric.
Farrakhan has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks. The Nation of Islam leader has attributed "pedophilia and sexual perversion" in Hollywood to "Jewish influence," said that "powerful Jews are my enemy," and accused Jews of being responsible for the slave trade in the United States. Farrakhan in 2018 tweeted, "I'm not an anti-Semite. I'm anti-Termite."
Malveaux, a columnist and former president of Bennett College, is also a staunch critic of Israel. During the country's latest conflict with the terrorist group Hamas last month, Malveaux wrote that the Jewish state "has a lock on U.S. foreign policy" and that "too many Jewish people say that criticism of Israel makes you anti-Semitic."
In a 1994 appearance on PBS, Malveaux said she hoped for the death of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease," she said.
Malveaux is set to take the helm of the College of Ethnic Studies on July 1, according to Cal State L.A.