By Nanette Asimov Updated May 17, 2024 3:00 p.m. (SFChronicle.com)
Sonoma State President Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee, shown here in 2023, has stepped down after his pact with pro-Palestinian student protesters angered CSU officials and Jewish leaders.Beth Schlanker/Associated Press
Sonoma State University President Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee stepped down Friday, one day after California State University officials placed him on leave for unilaterally announcing that the campus would sever academic and financial ties with Israel.
Lee had negotiated with Students for Justice in Palestine to persuade them to remove tents they set up on Sonoma State’s campus in Rohnert Park. The deal they reached included a promise to review the university’s investments and seek “ethical alternatives” if needed — but also an unprecedented academic boycott of Israel.
CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia labeled Lee’s action “insubordination” on Thursday and quickly named an acting president. On Friday, Garcia announced that Lee “has informed me of his decision to retire.”
Lee had been in the president’s role for less than two years, following a 28-year career as an administrator and business professor at Sacramento State. He came out of retirement in 2022 to take over at Sonoma State when former President Judy Sakaki resigned amid sexual harassment and retaliation allegations.
But after announcing an agreement Tuesday that was celebrated by pro-Palestinian student protesters because it singled out Israel — and included a promise to elevate the activists to advisors who would hold administrators accountable for complying with the boycott of the Jewish state — Lee encountered swift backlash from Jewish leaders, including state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.
“Yesterday the President of Sonoma State University aligned the campus with BDS (the boycott, divest and sanction) movement whose goal is the destruction of Israel, home to (7 million) Jews,” Wiener posted Wednesday on social media.
He and Assembly Member Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino (Los Angeles County), co-chairs of the state Legislature’s Jewish Caucus, thanked Garcia on Thursday for addressing the issue quickly, and said that the state-funded university’s “endorsement of an academic boycott was totally unacceptable.”
The accord struck by Lee’s administration went beyond those reached with protesters at San Francisco State and Sacramento State, which focused not on any one nation, but on examining financial ties with companies or regions of the world that violate human rights.
“Our role as educators is to support and uplift all members of the California State University,” Garcia said Thursday in her statement announcing the disciplinary action. “The heart and mission of the CSU is to create an inclusive and welcoming place for everyone we serve, not to marginalize one community over another.”
The Sonoma president’s action also caught the attention of House Republicans who are targeting university leaders for any perceived inattention to campus antisemitism.
“Any university president who caters to a lawless mob must be removed immediately,” Rep. Kevin Kiley said on Thursday after Lee was sidelined.
Right wing politicians have labeled the antiwar protesters “antisemitic radicals” and declared the protests sweeping the nation to be “antisemitic college chaos.” They have been calling university leaders to defend themselves in tense, McCarthyesque Congressional hearings. Next up are the heads of UCLA, Rutgers and Northwestern. Two college presidents, Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania and Claudine Gay of Harvard, resigned this winter in the wake of Congressional hearings.
Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, initiated a crackdown on campus protesters after her hearing in April, prompting a wave of student encampments this spring — including the one at Sonoma State.
Lee publicly apologized on Wednesday evening and said he acted without the approval of Garcia or other CSU leaders.
Both Lee’s apology and his original announcement had been available on the Sonoma State website Thursday but were gone by Friday.
Garcia issued no update on the status of the agreement with the student protesters.
Reach Nanette Asimov: nasimov@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
May 17, 2024|Updated May 17, 2024 3:00 p.m.
HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER
Nanette covers California’s public universities – the University of California and California State University – as well as community colleges and private universities. She’s written about sexual misconduct at UC and Stanford, the precarious state of accreditation at City College of San Francisco, and what happens when the UC Berkeley student government discovers a gay rights opponent in its midst. She has exposed a private art college where students rack up massive levels of debt (one student’s topped $400k), and covered audits peering into UC finances, education lawsuits and countless student protests.
But writing about higher education also means getting a look at the brainy creations of students and faculty: Robotic suits that help paralyzed people walk. Online collections of folk songs going back hundreds of years. And innovations touching on everything from virtual reality to baseball.
Nanette is also covering the COVID-19 pandemic and served as health editor during the first six months of the crisis, which quickly ended her brief tenure as interim investigations editor.
Previously, Nanette covered K-12 education. Her stories led to changes in charter school laws, prompted a ban on Scientology in California public schools, and exposed cheating and censorship in testing.
A past president of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter, Nanette has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in sociology from Queens College. She speaks English and Spanish.
