Anti-Asian Hate Crime on SJSU Campus

Dear campus community,

This morning you received a campus SJSUAlert message about an anti-Asian hate crime attack that targeted a male of Asian descent on our campus early this morning. The suspect was arrested and the victim has received medical care. From what we know both the suspect and victim were not campus affiliates.

As I am sure for many of you, when we read this message our first concern is for the safety of members of our campus community as well as the safety of our local community. We are concerned not just for our physical safety but also for our social psychological safety and well-being. Hate crimes, especially crimes of assault and battery are especially frightening because they can make entire communities feel vulnerable, often altering our sense of safety and even changing our everyday behaviors and routines. It is not unreasonable to feel fearful, vulnerable, powerless or angry even if you have no personal connection to the victim. In the case of anti-Asian hate crimes we are particularly concerned for the most vulnerable in our community: our elders who have been systematically targeted over these last few years. Anti-Asian hate incidents and crimes have escalated in the last two years around the country including here in the Bay Area. And San José State University is not immune from those trends. We understand that this hate is based in white supremacy and systemic racism which permeates our society including media and politics. We know that hate crimes are not isolated incidents. As an institution we stand against hate and hate-based violence. Here are some of the things that are being done:

  • We are working with our local community to provide University Police with materials for AAPI specific resources and services to be distributed to the victim since the victim is not part of the San José State campus.
  • ODEI, Asian Pacific Islander Desi/American Student Success Center (APID/A), Asian Pacific Islander Faculty and Staff Association, and MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center will continue to reach out and monitor community concerns.
  • We will continue to liaise with Chief Carroll of SJSU UPD to provide opportunities for communicating questions and concerns.
  • We have met with Associated Students President, Nina Chuang to discuss this incident and will continue working together moving forward.

Here are some thing you can do:

In closing, as members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, we want to express our grief and anger at this terrible hate crime that took place on our campus. We also want to let you know that we are here and that our offices and organizations are available to hold space and provide opportunities to process as a community or even one-on-one. For anyone feeling the impacts of this hate crime we have resources available for you to process the many complex emotions you may be feeling during this time. Please know that you are not alone. Whether student or employee, our campus has counseling and resources available to you.Sincerely,Kathleen Wong(Lau), Chief Diversity Officer, Office of Diversity, Equity, and InclusionJinni Pradhan, Program Director, APID/A Student Success CenterBonnie Sugiyama, Chair, Asian Pacific Islander Faculty Staff AssociationChris Yang, Director, MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center
As always, we have resources to help those who may need them. Students can contact Counseling and Psychological Services or SJSU Cares, while employees are encouraged to contact the Employee Assistance Program. We also offer a Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) that takes referrals regarding campus community members who may need assistance in terms of mental health support. BIT can consult or can reach out to individuals to provide support. Call 408-924-6339 or use this non-emergency referral form. Below is a list of campus based organizations and resources with staff who are knowledgeable about anti-Asian hate and support on these issues. Please contact them:

Below is a list of local community resources that can provide a starting place for legal and social services where staff are knowledgeable about anti-Asian hate and support on these issues. Please contact them:

Conflict in Ukraine

Dear campus community,

As the world watches the military action in Ukraine, I want to reach out to those members of our Spartan community who have family, friends, colleagues, or roots in Ukraine and the region. For many the last weeks have been stressful and frustrating, moving now to terror. For those members of our Spartan community who are veterans, currently active in the military, have loved ones in the military or hail from military units that may be deployed to this region, the days and weeks to come will also be a source of worry, anxiety, and frustration. And there are many of us who are simply distressed at the violence and significance of these world events.

When conflict of this level occurs anywhere in the world, members of our campus community of students, staff, faculty, volunteers, and alumni are invariably impacted, sometimes gravely. Many aspects of our identity and connections are visible only to those closest to us. We ask that you continue to treat each other with grace and support.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Wong(Lau)
Chief Diversity Officer
Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

As a reminder whether you are seeking support yourself or for others in our community:

Students and employees have access to emotional support and counseling services. Students are encouraged to contact Counseling and Psychological Services or SJSU Cares and employees are encouraged to contact the Employee Assistance Program.

For those interested in contributing to support those affected by the conflict, the LA Times has an article with a list of non-profit organizations.

Resources for Our Students and Employees

As always, SJSU has resources available for our students and for our employees should members of the Spartan community experience emotional distress or trauma. Detailed information on our resources is listed below.

For students: 

If you have a mental health emergency and need immediate assistance please contact Counseling and Psychological Services.  There is always a staff member available to assist you. Please call 408-924-5910 or visit us at sjsu.edu/wellness.  All of our services are being offered online through confidential video or phone sessions.  

For after-hours emergencies, please call 911. If you live on campus, please call campus police at 408-924-2222. You may also call our main number 408-924-5910 after hours and press 4 to connect with the after-hours crisis service.

Santa Clara County Suicide & Crisis Line is also available at 855-278-4204 (Toll-free) (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This service is also available 24/7. In addition, you may send a text for help: Text HOME to 741741. The Crisis Call Center will respond 24/7/365. 

International students who need assistance regarding restrictions on travel and other issues can find resources from SJSU’s International Students and Scholars Services.

For employees:

Counseling for Faculty and Staff

Visit LifeMatters®  online for more information. Password: SPARTANS

To speak to someone from LifeMatters® confidentially, call 800-367-7474.

Santa Clara County Suicide & Crisis Line is also available at 855-278-4204 (Toll-free) (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This service is also available 24/7.

In addition, you may send a text for help: Text HOME to 741741. The Crisis Call Center will respond 24/7/365. 

Message of Support for Members of Our Community

Dear campus community, 

I am writing to you today as the violence between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza continues. 

Both peoples – Israelis and Palestinians – have a right to a secure and peaceful life. It is hard for many of us in the U.S. to imagine the suffering and horror that is happening on both sides with Israeli cities constantly bombarded by rockets from Gaza, and Gaza being bombarded by Israeli airstrikes. Lives, homes, businesses, and worlds are destroyed. Within Israel, tensions between Jews and Arabs who have lived together, many in mixed cities, have become explosive. 

For a significant number of our students, staff, and faculty who have families and friends living in Israel or in Gaza, the worry, grief, and anger has been around the clock and constant, with little hope for an end or pause in violence and deadly force.

As the rhetoric and political criticism rises in the media, and particularly in political discourses on campuses, we need to watch for when legitimate criticism becomes mixed with anti-Semitism, scapegoating and hatred. And as well, when legitimate criticism becomes mixed with Islamophobia and hatred. Both of these threads have a distinct and specific history of weaving themselves into personal attacks and rendering entire groups of people into well worn decades-old stereotypes legitimizing hatred and discriminatory behavior. We cannot abide by that. 

As much as public universities offer a space for criticism of all kinds, they can also offer opportunities for dialogue and reaching out across divides. Many in Israel and here in the U.S., Jews and Arabs, have been involved in initiatives that offer hope for a better future for all. It is my hope and plan in the future for our office to host a dialogue for those who wish to engage in similar initiatives on campus. 

As we enter finals week, please know that the concerns we have for the well-being of our students, faculty and staff are shared by our Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and by our campus leadership. It is my hope that we may continue to exercise grace and provide support as we do our work whether we are students, staff, faculty or administrators. Please reach out if you see someone from our community who may be in need of support during these difficult times as we continue many of our interactions remotely. 

As always, SJSU has resources available for our students and for our employees should members of the Spartan community experience emotional distress or trauma. Detailed information on our resources is listed below.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Wong(Lau)

Chief Diversity Officer

___________________________________

For students: 

If you have a mental health emergency and need immediate assistance please contact Counseling and Psychological Services.  There is always a staff member available to assist you. Please call 408-924-5910 or visit us at sjsu.edu/wellness.  All of our services are being offered online through confidential video or phone sessions.  

For after-hours emergencies, please call 911. If you live on campus, please call campus police at 408-924-2222. You may also call our main number 408-924-5910 after hours and press 4 to connect with the after-hours crisis service.

Santa Clara County Suicide & Crisis Line is also available at 855-278-4204 (Toll-free) (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This service is also available 24/7. In addition, you may send a text for help: Text HOME to 741741. The Crisis Call Center will respond 24/7/365. 

International students who need assistance regarding restrictions on travel and other issues can find resources from SJSU’s International Students and Scholars Services.

For employees:

Counseling for Faculty and Staff

Visit LifeMatters®  online for more information. Password: SPARTANS

To speak to someone from LifeMatters® confidentially, call 800-367-7474.

Santa Clara County Suicide & Crisis Line is also available at 855-278-4204 (Toll-free) (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This service is also available 24/7.

In addition, you may send a text for help: Text HOME to 741741. The Crisis Call Center will respond 24/7/365. 

Solidarity with Campus Communities Impacted by Global Conflicts

Dear campus community,

As we enter the last weeks of the semester, I find myself once again writing to you to raise awareness about troubling incidents that are affecting members of our campus community, local community and global community. We express solidarity with those in our communities who are gravely impacted by these incidents. 

Five days ago, on the final Friday of the observance of Ramadan, Israeli police entered Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a site holy to Muslims to clear the mosque of Palestinian worshippers. Scores of Palestinians were injured many of them protesting the plans for evictions of Palestinian families from homes from which they have lived for generations in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. We understand that our Palestinian students, faculty, and staff are experiencing fear, grief, and anger. 

The situation of serial retaliations and escalation continues daily with rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and airstrikes from Israel from Gaza, all numbering in the hundreds, the most firepower since 2014. As of this morning the death toll has risen to 53 in Gaza (14 children) and to six in Israel raising fear, anxiety, and anger for Palestinians and Jews in the region, around the world and for students, faculty and staff on our campus who have ties to these communities. There is growing concern that the conflict will continue to escalate and spread into a war. 

Four days ago in Kabul, Afghanistan, 85 people were violently killed and 147 injured by a terrorist car bombing of a girls’ high school. The victims were mostly school girls from the ethnic minority community of Hazara Shia Muslims. This attack impacts members of our Afghan American community as well as Shia Muslim communities from other ethnic groups with ties to this area and all who have supported the education of girls in Afghanistan. Communities are experiencing grief, shock, anger and fears of more similar bombings. 

It is difficult to publicly acknowledge the tragedies, grave conflicts, and issues that impact our campus communities. For a significant number of our community these incidents are part of a larger conversation on global and regional conflict that imbues our national discussions on our nation state, military engagement, and political, diplomatic and economic relations that are fraught with difficulties that stretch over generations and regions. Please know that our role in a public university is to provide resources, outreach, space for discourse, and connection to support you and provide a sense of belonging in a large complex institution nested in a larger complex global community.  

I know that there is a sense of outrage fatigue, a sense of yet another horrible incident. For some, these incidents bring but a brief notice, maybe even sadness, but for some the pain, grief, and suffering stretches over days, months, years, and generations. It is important to know that in this global and local community of San José State University that many of the world’s troubles impact various members of our campus community at different times. And while some may read this message as just another message in the long line of messages on mass shootings, conflict, killing, violence, death from COVID-19, each message helps us make visible and give voice to the stresses and grief of different communities. It is my hope that we may continue to exercise grace, provide support, and even give ourselves grace as we try to show up and do our work whether we are students, staff, faculty or administrators. 

As you finish out the final weeks of your semester please know that the concerns we have for the well-being of our students, faculty and staff are shared by our Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and by our campus leadership. Please reach out if you see someone from our community who may be in need of support during these difficult times as we continue many of our interactions remotely. 

As always, SJSU has resources available for our students and for our employees should members of the Spartan community experience emotional distress or trauma. Detailed information on our resources is listed below.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Wong(Lau)

Chief Diversity Officer

___________________________________

For students: 

If you have a mental health emergency and need immediate assistance please contact Counseling and Psychological Services.  There is always a staff member available to assist you. Please call 408-924-5910 or visit us at sjsu.edu/wellness.  All of our services are being offered online through confidential video or phone sessions.  

For after-hours emergencies, please call 911. If you live on campus, please call campus police at 408-924-2222. You may also call our main number 408-924-5910 after hours and press 4 to connect with the after-hours crisis service.

Santa Clara County Suicide & Crisis Line is also available at 855-278-4204 (Toll-free) (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This service is also available 24/7. In addition, you may send a text for help: Text HOME to 741741. The Crisis Call Center will respond 24/7/365. 

International students who need assistance regarding restrictions on travel and other issues can find resources from SJSU’s International Students and Scholars Services.

For employees:

Counseling for Faculty and Staff

Visit LifeMatters®  online for more information. Password: SPARTANS

To speak to someone from LifeMatters® confidentially, call 800-367-7474.

Santa Clara County Suicide & Crisis Line is also available at 855-278-4204 (Toll-free) (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This service is also available 24/7.

In addition, you may send a text for help: Text HOME to 741741. The Crisis Call Center will respond 24/7/365.