UCLA student council condemns antisemitism amid campus outrage

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/11/ucla-student-council-passes-resolution-antisemitism

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UCLA’s student council unanimously approved a resolution condemning antisemitism on Tuesday night, weeks after its leaders had to publicly apologise for questioning a student’s eligibility to serve on a campus judicial panel because of her Jewish faith and affiliations.

Dozens of students at the University of California, Los Angeles, attended the meeting Tuesday night to publicly voice support for the resolution. The debate, recorded in written minutes and captured on video, roiled the campus and sparked a national discussion about discrimination against Jews.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council voted 12-0 in favour of the resolution, which was presented to the board by members of Hillel at UCLA.

The resolution calls on the council to “actively fight” antisemitism in all its ugly manifestations. It also urged the council’s members participate in a diversity training on the history of antisemitism and how to recognise it, as it failed to do during Rachel Beyda’s confirmation hearing last month.

During the 10 February hearing, Beyda, an undergraduate pre-law student, was questioned about whether her faith meant she would be biased in her deliberations over the ethics and governance issues that come before the campus’s judicial panel.

“Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?” Fabienne Roth, a member of students council asked Beyda during the hearing.

After Beyda was sent out of the room, the council continued to debate her faith and affiliations, including with the Jewish sorority Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi and Hillel, a Jewish campus organisation. The council was first divided on Beyda’s nomination. But then a faculty member informed the council that the candidate’s religion did not present a conflict of interest, and the students revised their vote, approving her unanimously for the board.

Beyda declined to comment on the resolution or the hearing. “As a member of the judicial board, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to comment on the actions of UCLA’s elected student government,” she told the Guardian.

The video was shared widely online, sparking online protests and prompting a scathing rebuke by the university newspaper’s editorial board, which called the debate “discriminatory”. In response to the outcry, four members of the student government later issued an apology, which was printed in the Daily Bruin.

“Our intentions were never to attack, insult or de-legitimize the identity of an individual or people,” the students said in a statement. “It is our responsibility as elected officials to maintain a position of fairness, exercise justness, and represent the Bruin community to the best of our abilities, and we are truly sorry for any words used during this meeting that suggested otherwise.”

The resolution acknowledges the 10 February meeting, stating that Beyda was “inappropriately questioned, not about her qualifications, but about whether or not her identity and affiliation with the Jewish community created a unique conflict of interest”. It also notes other “incidents of antisemitism” at UCLA and at other universities, including a January incident in which vandals painted two large swastikas onto a Jewish fraternity house at University of California, Davis.

Avinoam Baral, president of the student council, said he was proud of the UCLA council’s decision to approve the resolution.

“This represents an important step towards an inclusive and safe climate, especially in light of recent events,” Baral said in a statement to the Guardian. “Personally, as a Jewish student, I am very proud to lead a council that has taken this stand. We look forward to moving forward from this incident as a student body.”

After Beyda’s confirmation hearing, Baral, who nominated her for the position, expressed his disbelief at the council’s line of questioning in a Facebook post.

“How is it possible, in 2015, that Jews are STILL being accused of having ‘divided loyalties’?,” Baral asked in the post. “How is it possible that in 2015, a Jewish student could potentially be barred from serving a position they are extremely passionate about it simply because of their identity?”

He concluded: “Would this sort of travesty fly if I had appointed a member of any other group whether they be religious, ethnic, cultural etc? My feeling is no.”