May 2, 2025

The Faculty of the Department of Chicana/o Studies raises great concern for the hate crimes committed on our UC Santa Barbara campus this week.1

Chicanx/Latinx students were the targets of racially motivated attacks that are clearly unacceptable. While these attacks took place locally, we call attention to the fact that they occur within a wider national context of a mass deportation regime that impacts everyone, including US citizens and children who have been recently removed from the country. We note further that the Trump administration claims to justify withholding funding from institutions of higher education for resonant incidents of antisemitism. We find this to represent a double-standard in which alleged hate crimes are used as punishment of institutions in one case, and actual hate crimes are incited by their statements against immigrants and Latine/x communities.

Unfortunately, these were not isolated incidents as Latine/x students in our courses have discussed experiencing similar incidents, at UCSB and in the larger Goleta and Santa Barbara area, but have not reported them. These racially motivated incidents are rooted in ideas that Latine/x peoples are not part of the United States and are instead racialized and dehumanized through labels such as “illegal”, “internal enemy”, “invaders” and “criminals”. We express our solidarity with the students who were targets of these hate crimes, to those students, staff and faculty who have experienced hate crimes and hate speech, and to all of our community members who now question their safety coming to campus or walking the streets of our communities. We call on UCSB’s leadership and administration as well as our communities to stand against these types of hate crimes and speech, to stand with us in rejecting the double standard and to work on the prevention of hate crimes and hate speech in all forms.

(To report a hate crime at UCSB, please contact the UCSB Police Department at (805) 893-3446, or report crime information anonymously at www.police.ucsb.edu/report-crime.

People can also report hate crimes with the California Civil Rights Department through CA vs. Hate, a non-emergency hate incident and hate crime reporting hotline and online portal established to support individuals and communities targeted for hate. For more, please visit https://calcivilrights.ca.gov/ca-vs-hate-page/)

 
1 For reference, the incidents referenced in the statement were reported on the “Fire and Crime log,” and reported by UCPD as follows:
 
On Monday, April 28, 2025, the UCSB Police Department received a report of a hate crime. An assault was committed outside of the Student Health Service building on April 28, 2025, at
approximately 5:55pm. The crime was motivated by bias against the victim's perceived ethnicity.  The suspect, who is unknown to the victim, yelled at the victim, "Get out of my country!"  The suspect also asked the victim, "Do you have a green card?" The suspect then rode his bicycle toward the victim and spit in the victim’s face.  A second victim was also struck by the suspect’s spit.
 
The suspect is described as a white male adult, 23-27 years old, approximately 5’11” in height, with blonde hair and a beard.  The suspect was wearing a navy-blue hat, dark colored hoodie,
dark colored pants, black Nike shoes, and was in possession of a black backpack.  The suspect was also in possession of a black beach cruiser style bicycle.
 
On Tuesday, April 29, 2025, at approximately 8:18pm, the UCSB Police Department received a separate crime report believed to be related to, but occurred prior to, the above hate crime.  On
Monday, April 28, 2025, at approximately 5pm, an incident of intimidation motivated by bias against the victim’s perceived ethnicity occurred outside of Isla Vista Theater (IV Theater).  The
suspect was seated in front of IV Theater and yelled at the victim, “Get the f--- out of this country b----!”  The suspect yelled a second time at the victim, “Hey b----, I said get the f---- out
of this country!”
 
The suspect is described as a white male adult, approximately 35 years old, 5’6”- 5’8” in height, 140-150 lbs, blonde medium length hair, with scruffy facial hair. The suspect was wearing dark jeans and a dark jacket.  The suspect was in possession of a bicycle.
 
 
The views expressed are of the Chicana and Chicano Studies faculty and do not reflect those of the university as a whole.