On June 25, 2020, a Daily Beast article revealed that a UC Berkeley professor, Jasmina Vujić, co-founded and served as vice president of a far-right Serbian political party known as Dveri, which openly espouses anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic views. Dveri has also supported convicted war criminals who orchestrated the Bosnian genocide in which over 100,000 people died, and incited anti-LGBTQ riots in Belgrade. Vujić has also signed on to a letter intimidating Belgrade Pride organizers by implicitly threatening the ‘burning of Belgrade’, and is known for her close ties with far-right ethnonationalists, genocide deniers, and supporters of Nazi collaborators.In an April 2019 public letter to the UC Berkeley chancellor’s office, Dr. Emir Ramic, a Canadian academic of Bosnian ancestry, called on the campus to reconsider Vujic’s tenure at UC Berkeley. 

Ramic’s letter reads, “[H]er activities and the activities of the organizations she actively leads and supports has disturbed many American Bosnians who survived the Serbian aggression and genocide.” The letter continues to express, “We are astounded by the knowledge that a world-renowned expert in nuclear engineering such as Dr. Vujic is actively engaged in financing and lobbying activities of the extreme and nationalistic Serbian movements that have committed great crimes both in World War II, and in the aggression and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

The University has cited that her activities are “outside the scope of the [her] employment with the university”. However, Vujic has served in influential positions throughout her time at UC Berkeley, serving as the Chair of Equity and Inclusion for the Nuclear Engineering department and a member of the admissions committee. Furthermore, she controls the distribution of nearly $10 million worth of research funds.

We call on Chancellor Carol Christ and UC Berkeley administration, as well as the Department of Nuclear Engineering to terminate Jasmina Vujić’s contract immediately and uphold a commitment to countering hate, prejudice, and discrimination in our campus community.