A series of missteps by our undergraduate student government – which culminated with the nationally publicized questioning of Judicial Board candidate Rachel Beyda because of her involvement with the Jewish community – has pointed to a crucial need for university officials to educate students on more subtle instances of discrimination and hate speech.
Students – even those who pursue the additional responsibility of acting as elected officials – need the guidance and help of an administration that currently seems too often willing to react to major moral and ethical lapses rather than try to prevent them.
The Daily Bruin Editorial Board does not believe the statements made at the Feb. 10 council meeting came from a place of hatred on the part of the councilmembers, but instead from an atmosphere rife with ignorance and suspicion. The statements speak to an environment that has formed on a council and a campus frequently rocked by contentious and bitter debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Under these circumstances, it’s possible to accuse students of having ulterior political motives related to the conflict in almost any context.
This is the environment that UCLA administration needs to tackle and change through increased education.
A submission published in the Daily Bruin on March 9 lays out some basic tasks that UCLA could take to battle anti-Semitism on campus, and these examples provide a foundation that can be expanded and built on by the university.
The university should take on a comprehensive effort to educate students on the history and background of some forms of discrimination, to help give context to complicated social issues. A campaign to educate students on less obvious forms of hate speech and discrimination would also go a long way in helping to mold students to be sensitive to how what they say can affect both others and themselves in the future.
In addition, having the university step in to facilitate conversations between student groups invested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raises the level of discourse and legitimacy of the discussions about the divisive issues.
Tepid statements decrying the general state of campus climate are obviously not enough when councilmember actions are being broadcasted globally and UCLA is being seen nationally as a den of anti-Semitism and hate.
Chancellor Gene Block called the firestorm over the Beyda confirmation “a teaching moment,” in an interview with The New York Times. It certainly has the potential to be that, but direct action needs to be taken by the university and the chancellor to help improve conditions.
Even as the rest of the world gawks at the fissures that threaten our student unity, our campus is not broken. However, it will take university action to initiate the healing process.
A one sided editorial that totally ignores the words, actions and deeds of the other side.
The responses to this (if not-censored) will prove my point.
***crickets***
If you don’t want your school to be seen as “a den of anti-Semitism and hate” then you should lobby your administration to take administrative action against these offenders, just as they would against any member of the student council who attempted to use their position in a bigoted manner against a student of any other identity or background. As it is, ignoring the issue is a clear Title VI violation.
And I’ll believe that they didn’t really mean it when they apologize directly to Rachel Beyda for their actions, instead of trying to CYA with boilerplate PC lingo.
The Editorial Board of the Daily Bruin – attempting to minimize and misreport the event – makes itself part of the problem instead of the solution.
The Editorial States: “The Daily Bruin Editorial Board does not believe the statements made at
the Feb. 10 council meeting came from a place of hatred on the part of
the council members, but instead from an atmosphere rife with ignorance
and suspicion.”
The council did MUCH WORSE than just make “statements”. After establishing Rachel was Jewish, after having a 40 minute discussion where the 5 board members repeatedly implied that Rachel would not be able and function honestly and without bias because of her religious affiliations – the 5 members of the board acted on their antisemitic beliefs and voted her down. They took action and – hadn’t a faculty member not stepped in to stop them – they would have committed a discriminatory crime that would’ve exposed UCLA to legal action, done damage to Rachel’s academic career and injured the integrity of the student government system.
The writer says that their actions didn’t come from “hate” but rather from “ignorance and suspicion”. The truth is that “ignorance and suspicion” is the path to racism, antisemitism and hate. Those board members were past the “ignorance and suspicion” phase. They had already formed their opinion about Jews and they judged Rachel based on those opinions. They simply could not have behaved the way they did without harboring some degree of animosity against Jews.
The Editorial States: “The statements speak to an environment that has formed on
a council and a campus frequently rocked by contentious and bitter
debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Blaming antisemitism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is kin to blaming the victim. It is offensive and wrong. The antisemitic assumption that Rachel was dishonest and unable to do her job without bias solely because she is Jewish has absolutely nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
Blaming antisemitism on the Israeli-Palestine conflict is part of the antisemitic canard that Jews have “dual loyalties” and can’t be trusted. Would the writer of this editorial ever suggest that racist video against African Americans in Oklahoma U was a backlash to the conflicts in Africa? Of course not. But he seems quite comfortable conflating antisemitism in UCLA with the conflict in Israel-Palestine on the other side of the world. Why does this double standard exist?
The writer of this editorial needs to work on his own biases. He should be honest and acknowledge that what happened here goes way beyond mere “statements” and he should know that conflating acts of antisemitism with the Iraeli-Palestine conflict is offensive and a way of blaming the victim.