UC Davis Professor Under Fire Over Posts Threatening ‘Zionist’ Journalists And Their Families
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A UC Davis assistant professor sparked an outcry and demands for her firing over inflammatory comments appearing to threaten “zionist” journalists and their families amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Jemma Decristo, an assistant professor of American studies at University of California, Davis, wrote in a post last week on X that “zionist journalists” spread “propaganda & misinformation.”
She followed that up with an apparent threat to those journalists and their families, as well as three different emojis: a knife, an ax, and blood droplets.
“[One] group of ppl we have easy access to in the US is all these zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation,” she wrote. “They have houses w addresses, kids in school. They can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.”
Since that Oct. 10 post and others drew attention on the platform formerly known as Twitter, Decristo made her account private. The bio, which remains visible, describes her account as “black anarchist dyke things.”
Her profile on the UC Davis website appears to have been scrubbed. Before it was taken down, her bio read: “I am an Assistant Professor in American Studies. I focus on the interplay between sound, race, gender, and embodiment.”
Before and after Decristo’s UC Davis profile was scrubbed
Decristo and UC Davis did not respond to a request for comment.
In another post to X, Decristo wrote, “to the US embassy. US out of everywhere. US GO HOME. US GO HOME” alog with three fire emojis. The post was in response to another post showing protestors marching towards the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
In yet another post to X, the professor celebrated the fire set at the Israeli embassy in Jordan, responding to the news with “HELL YEAH” and three Palestinian flag emojis.
Several X users tweeted at UC Davis’ official account asking for the professor to be fired.
“Jemma Decristo, a professor at your college, is perpetuating microaggressions against a marginalized group which includes suggested violence against children as a retaliatory measure,” one user wrote on Oct. 18. “Your Jewish students cannot feel safe. I ask you to dismiss Decristo with cause and w/o pay.”
An American journalist who did not want to be identified due to the current climate of threats told Mediaite they found Decristo’s attack on journalists alarming.
“It is absolutely horrific that they’d try to incite violence against American journalists just doing their jobs,” the journalist said. “It’s a direct call for attacks against journalists, their families, going to their homes and terrorizing them or harming them, or at the very least, it’s an attempt to silence journalists and paralyze them in fear.”
