Know your issues: Divisiveness prevents progress between communities

Opinion columnists outline the issues incoming students need to know, but aren’t always told. Here are the things your new student advisor doesn’t tell you at orientation.

Coming to this university at the peak of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, as well as during the rise of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on campus, I gradually became more aware of what it meant to be a student at a school with terrible campus climate. As my time at UCLA continued, I watched as many students were targeted for their religious and ethnic identities.

Worldwide conflicts have divided this campus. Students have become blinded by difference and have struggled to recognize the vast similarity between communities. Campus issues circle on themselves, and no progress is being made to address and resolve these issues. In order to stop this vicious cycle, current and incoming students should work among within themselves to combat microaggressions toward people of different religious and ethnic identities, as well as look to resources provided for students to address this issue.

Context

  • Anti-Semitism spiked on campus during Rachel Beyda’s judicial board appointment, where a student’s religious identity was politicized by the Undergraduate Students Association Council. Beyda, despite being extremely credible for the position, was interrogated by student leaders for being the president-elect of the Jewish sorority, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi. Leaders used inherently anti-Semitic terms such as, “divided loyalties,” when asking her how she could be unbiased in Israel-related cases.
  • A tweet interpreted by some to be Islamophobic was found on the account of former USAC president Avinoam Baral in the summer of 2014. The specific tweet that caused the uproar was one in which Baral mocked racial profiling in airports, coming off as insensitive and complacent when it comes to issues faced by Arabs and Muslims.
  • Positions within the USAC President’s office such as the campus climate director have been made in order to deal with campus climate.
  • Student groups affiliated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have struggled to reach agreement toward any sort of dialogue.

Published by Shani Shahmoon

Shani Shahmoon is an opinion columnist and a member of the Daily Bruin Editorial Board. She writes about student activism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mental health issues.

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