Its self-declared mission is to create an open environment, to promote social awareness, to strengthen Islamic foundations, and to cater to the Muslim student community at UCI.
[1] In 2010, the MSU was temporarily suspended by university officials, who found that the organization had deliberately disrupted a speech given on campus by then-Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren during what became known as the Irvine 11 controversy.
[13][14][15] The MSU participates in the annual Israeli Apartheid Week, an international, week-long educational series, aiming to increase public understanding of the history of the Palestinians as well as the racial inequalities they experience and to build support for the BDS movement.
[18] In May 2009, the MSU hosted a lecture series called "Israel: The Politics of Genocide", featuring presentations of former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Islamic activist Amir Abdel Malik Ali,[19] and British parliamentarian George Galloway.
[21] However, University of California's President, Mark Yudof, who is Jewish, condemned the event in a letter published on the pro-Israel website Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
[24] Roz Rothstein, CEO of the right-wing pro-Israel advocacy organization StandWithUs, was in the audience and, during the question-and-answer session, she asked him if he supported Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
"[25] Soon after, a group of UCI faculty wrote an open letter in which they expressed concern over campus activities that foment "hatred against Jews and Israelis" and referred to statements made by the recently invited speakers.
"[27] MSU responded in a letter to the editor in New University, stating that it joined him "in condemning terrorism", that it would not tolerate "the promotion of hatred against any particular group on the basis of their race, color, ethnicity or religion", and that it did not "endorse everything that our speakers say".
[38] In 2004, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) alleged that Muslim students at UCI who wore green stoles at their graduation ceremony were inciting terrorism against Jews and Israel.
[40] The same year, ZOA filed a complaint with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) alleging that Jewish students were harassed and subjected to a hostile environment at UCI.
"[47] After five years of deliberations, the OCR again dismissed the complaint in 2013 emphasizing that discrimination laws "restrict the exercise of expressive activities or speech that are protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution," especially not "in the university environment where academic freedom fosters the robust exchange of ideas.
[48] During the MSU's Israeli Apartheid Week in 2007, a local self-proclaimed Zionist dressed up in a turban with his face covered, holding signs reading "Death to Infidels.