Submission: Bigoted actions of USAC presidential candidate unacceptable

We can all agree Undergraduate Students Association Council has its shortcomings, but on Feb. 10 of this year, it left the greatest of stains on its legacy.

Four elected councilmembers questioned a student for nearly forty minutes regarding her Jewish identity. While the incident made national headlines, one of the most vocal opponents of Rachel Beyda’s appointment was left unmentioned: Morris Sarafian, a current candidate for President in the upcoming USAC elections, who at the time was sitting in as a proxy for the current USAC External Vice President.

Sarafian claimed that because of her Jewish faith, Rachel Beyda would have a “divided loyalty.” This accusation, defined as “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide” by the U.S. State Department, is not foreign to the Jewish people. Jews have long been accused of holding “divided loyalties” throughout their very long history. This slanderous imputation carries with it the power to dehumanize and destroy, and demands our full condemnation as a Bruin community. The accusation should never be pulled from the ash heap of history and legitimized or propagated as fact – least of all by an individual who seeks the highest position of leadership on this campus.

Anti-Semitism today is not what it looked like in the 1930s. It has evolved into different repugnant forms of evil, and worse, has been masked in the guise of the new normalized culture of campus politics. To call this a slippery slope would be an understatement. To give credence to the idea that someone’s race, religion, ethnicity or sexuality could impair his or her ability to maintain neutrality and remain unbiased would be to accept, not only discrimination, but bigotry in its purest form. No society, community or university should ever allow this toxic mentality to exist. According to his platform for president, Sarafian aims to “foster campus community where we are bringing the focus of USAC back to student needs, interfaith dialogue and diversity as a focal point of our experience as Bruins.” Despite this worthwhile ambition, Sarafian’s previous actions and lack of recognition for his fault prove him unaccountable to this aim. In no way should his bigoted mentality be granted the potential and privilege to lead the next generation of representatives for UCLA.

At endorsements, when asked how he’s fought and advocated for the needs of the UCLA Jewish community in the past, Sarafian failed to recognize his past transgression. Clearly, Sarafian does not understand the Jewish community or our struggles, when just a couple of months ago, he was at the forefront of a student government conversation that in its tenets perpetuated the ugliest form of intolerance within the history of the Jewish people. As a graduating senior, I feel absolutely compelled to speak out against Morris Sarafian’s discriminatory speech against my community, just like any other leader would do within his or her respective community.

I wish I could say it would be enough for Mr. Sarafian to offer an apology. But the truth is no apology will absolve him of the wrongdoing that he committed that night. No apology will take back the words which were expressed and the damage that was done to the Jewish community as a result of them. It is imperative that Sarafian pledge to educate himself about the Jewish community, its history and the systematic struggles it faces here on this campus.

As someone who believes my USAC President should strive to represent all communities, I have no faith in Sarafian’s ability to do so.

Charney is a fourth-year global studies student and the student board president of Hillel at UCLA.

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15 Comments

  1. Before someone posts something stupid, ask yourself how you would react if the same question were posed to Muslim student…

    1. Apparently, someone already posted something stupid. It happened the moment you hit the “post” button.

      All the same, the answer to your question is, absolutely, the reaction would be the same if a similar question was put to a Muslim student, or any other ethnicity or religion.

      What seems to escape you – what made the situation so outrageous – was that on the video, the USAC members were actually seen stating that Rachel Beyda was supremely qualified for the position. After everyone agreed she was an ideal candidate, they openly admitted that they did not trust her because of her religion and ethnicity. Then they actually acted on their bigotry and voted her down.

      Regardless of the religion or ethnicity involved, it was the most blatant act of discrimination I’d ever seen from a student government.

      If there was any additional outrage on top of the discrimination, it could certainly be attributed to the fact that UCLA had already established a reputation for antisemitism. The process behind the divestiture campaign was also incredibly antisemitic. The fact that divestiture past after such a campaign made things much worse.

      Face it, UCLA is building up an embarrassing history of discrimination – particularly antisemitism. UCLA is currently ranked among the 10 most antisemitic schools in the country – and that’s the real outrage.

      1. They did not say they didn’t “trust her because of her religion and ethnicity.” They said they believed the organizations she was involved might prevent her from being impartial. Those are two very distinct things.

        And Islamophobia is very prevalent on this campus. At the Endorsement hearings this past weekend someone yelled offensive Islamophobic slurs, but no one is talking about it. Islamophobia is very real and very present on this campus, but you wouldn’t know that because you don’t go here.

        1. Petty, you need to watch the video again.

          To discriminate against someone, you don’t have to say – word-for-word – “we don’t trust her because of religion or ethnicity”.

          What they said was that she was clearly qualified for the position. Then, when they brought her in, one of the students specifically pointed out her religious and ethnic background, and then proceeded to question if Rachel could be impartial because of her religious and ethnic background.

          This series of questions was the first violation of Rachel’s rights. The board is on dangerous grounds when it asks someone about religion or ethnicity. To even imply that their religion some how compromises their integrity is a clear violation of the law.

          But it got much worse after that. After the questions and Rachel left, a 40 minute discussion took place and – regardless of the fact that they had all already agreed that Rachel was an “ideal candidate” – they voted her down. They took an action against her and it was clear that they took the action because they felt her religion and/or ethnicity disqualified her. This action was way beyond a civil suit. Now they were actually committing a felony.

          Keep in mind that this isn’t just my opinion. There was a faculty member overseeing the meeting. One of the reasons a faculty member attends the meeting is to make sure things are processed in accordance with the law. After the vote, that faculty member immediately stepped in and told the members that their actions were discriminatory. At that point, the board took another vote and voted her in.

          It was blatant discrimination. Anyone who understands the laws regarding interviewing and hiring, and saw that video, knew it. The New York Times knew it. CNN knew it. Just about the entire country knew it – except you.

          As far as my not going to UCLA – it is true – I don’t go there anymore. I am Alumni, although I’m currently embarrassed to admit it. As far as Islamophobia goes, I’m against all discrimination. I’m sorry you or your friend was subjected to racism. But that doesn’t give you the right to deny that someone else was subjected to it, too.

      2. I was saying the opposite, that nobody would try to defend the student council doing that to a muslim, and that it’s an absolute scandal that there are people defending them when they did it to a Jew… I was agreeing with the article.

        1. oops. Sorry. I misunderstood. I guess I’m capable of writing something stupid after all 🙂

  2. “According to his platform for president, Sarafian aims to ‘foster campus community where we are bringing the focus of USAC back to student needs, interfaith dialogue and diversity as a focal point of our experience as Bruins.'”

    I’m sorry, but such platforms strike me as incredibly whiny, self-centered and narcissistic. Should the focal point of USAC really on interfaith dialogue and diversity? OUR faith… OUR God… OUR concerns that we aren’t being treated “equally”?

    In case you haven’t figured it out, you’re living a dream life. You’re getting a top notch education in sunny California. You are the top 1% of people your age in the world.

    1. Adam, if you’ve been on campus for the last year, or even if you’ve read the article that you’re commenting on, you’ll know that there’s a lot of conflict on this campus that platforms like that one could help to resolve.

      1. If the platform focus is on your faith; your religion; what you’re entitled to; and how the world isn’t treating you fairly – then you are focused on some very self-centered obsessions. If these are the conflicts on campus, than they aren’t teaching the right stuff on that campus.

        The real truth is that you are attending a beautiful university and getting a top-notch education in sunny California. You are among the luckiest people who ever lived. You are among the top 1% in the history of humanity.

        If you think otherwise, than you’re not don’t know enough about Syria, Rwanda, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, Ukraine, North Korea, Greece and a host of other places where millions of people would give their right arm to live the life you live.

        Stop being so narcissistic and think about people less fortunate then yourselves.

  3. Aish HaTorah is not “Islamophobic”, given that radical Muslim activism does actually pose a serious risk to the lives of Jews worldwide. How many more times will you have to see episodes like Toulouse, Brussels, Paris, and Copenhagen unfold before you understand that this is a real threat?

    Calling things that you don’t want to hear ‘islamophobic’ is just name-calling. Mehdi Hasan in Britain even wrote an article calling widespread Muslim antisemitism the Muslim community’s dirty little secret.

    There are two billion Muslims and 15 million Jews in the world. There are more Muslims who despise Jews than there are Jews in the whole world. These are the facts, and I know they may be unpleasant. Trust me, though, however unpleasant they are for you, they are far more so for me.

  4. I don’t see how you can call Adam Milstein a racist.. I also don’t see how recognizing Muslim hostility towards Jews is “Islamophobic”.

    If most Muslims harbor anti-Jewish animus (which they do), then isn’t it incumbent on Jews to parry that hostility by exposing it? I mean, who do you think came up with ” Palestine is ours and the Jews are our dogs.” in 1920? It wasn’t us…

    1. I am calling him racist and Islamophobic based on the offensive content he posts on his twitter page.

      1. No, sorry, don’t see it. “Criticism of Palestinian terrorists and their supporters is not the same as Islamophobia”.

        But I could see how Jews would become “Islamophobic” after things like this:

        Pierre Van Paassen
        Extract on the 1929 Hebron Massacre
        from Days of Our Years (1936)

        “Falsified photographs showing the Omar mosque of Jerusalem in ruins, with an inscription that the edifice had been bombed by the Zionists, were handed out to the Arabs of Hebron as they were leaving their place of worship on Friday evening, August the twenty-third. A Jew passing by on his way to the synagogue was stabbed to death. When he heard of the murder, Rabbi Slonim, a man born and bred in the city and a friend of the Arab notables, notified the British police commander that the Arabs seemed to be strangely excited. He was told to mind his own business. An hour later the synagogue was attacked by a mob, and the Jews at prayer were slaughtered. On the Saturday morning following, the Yeshiva…was put to the sack, and the students were slain. A delegation of Jewish citizens thereupon set out to visit the police station, but was met by the lynchers. The Jews returned and took refuge in the house of Rabbi Slonim where they remained until evening, when the mob appeared before the door. Unable to batter it down, the Arabs climbed up the trees at the rear of the house and, dropping onto the balcony, entered through the windows on the first floor.

        Mounted police–Arab troopers in the service of the government– had appeared outside by this time, and some of the Jews ran down the stairs of Slonim’s house and out into the roadway. They implored the policemen to dismount and protect their friends and relatives inside the house and clung around the necks of the horses. From the upper windows came the terrifying screams of the old people, but the police galloped off, leaving the boys in the road to be cut down by Arabs arriving from all sides for the orgy of blood.

        What occurred in the upper chambers of Slonim’s house could be seen when we found the twelve-foot-high ceiling splashed with blood. The rooms looked like a slaughterhouse. When I visited the place in the company of Captain Marek Schwartz, a former Austrian artillery officer, Mr. Abraham Goldberg of New York, and Mr. Ernst Davies, correspondent of the old Berliner Tageblatt, the blood stood in a huge pool on the slightly sagging stone floor of the house. Clocks, crockery, tables and windows had been smashed to smithereens. Of the unlooted articles, not a single item had been left intact except a large black-and-white photograph of Dr. Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Around the picture’s frame the murderers had draped the blood-drenched underwear of a woman.

        We stood silently contemplating the scene of slaughter when the door was flung open by a British solder with fixed bayonet. In strolled Mr. Keith-Roach, governor of the Jaffa district, followed by a colonel of the Green Howards battalion of the King’s African Rifles. They took a hasty glance around that awful room, and Mr. Roach remarked to his companion, “Shall we have lunch now or drive to Jerusalem first?”

        In Jerusalem the Government published a refutation of the rumors that the dead Jews of Hebron had been tortured before they had their throats slit. This made me rush back to that city accompanied by two medical men, Dr. Dantziger and Dr. Ticho. I intended to gather up the severed sexual organs and the cut-off women’s breasts we had seen lying scattered over the floor and in the beds. But when we came to Hebron a telephone call from Jerusalem had ordered our access barred to the Slonim house. A heavy guard had been placed before the door. Only then did I recall that I had inadvertently told a fellow newspaperman in Jerusalem about our gruesome discoveries.

        On the same day of the Hebron massacre, the Arabs had rioted in Jerusalem, crying: “Death to the Jews! The government is with us!” The fact that the attacks on Jewish communities in different parts of the country had occurred simultaneously was interpreted by the Mufti’s newspaper Falastin as irrefutable evidence of the spontaneity of the outburst of Arab indignation. The Acting High Commissioner, Mr. H.C. Luke, had informed newspapermen that the government had been completely taken unawares. Yet a full ten days earlier it was he who had ordered the various hospitals, and especially the Rothschild clinic of which Dr. Dantziger was chief surgeon, to have a large number of beds in readiness in view of the government’s expectation of a riotous outbreak.”

        http://www.hebron.com/english/article.php?id=252

  5. If you feel there needed to be an article then, you should have written one. This is addressing one person and one issue and trying to distract from that is just political crap. Plus, seriously–you’re criticizing someone for being an ex-con…they served their time, that’s not your business, and you’re quite the smear campaigner yourself. Get a grip.

  6. And now the shmuck has the temerity to claim that he has been racially profiled

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