Editorial: LET’S ACT! must take steps to rebuild student trust

After an election cycle riddled with enough scandal and damaging rhetoric to rival the national political stage, LET’S ACT!’s 2015 candidates faced the most disappointing election night for the slate in recent memory.

Bruins United swept every executive position on council, including the External Vice President’s office, which has not gone to a Bruins United candidate for the last eight years. LET’S ACT! won only two of nine contested positions.

If the slate wants to survive another year, its leadership must learn from the myriad of missteps and critical oversights of the past year that alienated it from communities at UCLA and ultimately resulted in Friday night’s crushing loss.

Amid some successes for the slate and its supporters, LET’S ACT! has been at the center of more bad publicity than it could surmount this academic year. LET’S ACT! member and former Undergraduate Students Association Council President Devin Murphy resigned halfway through his term, stalling most of the work he was doing there and losing his constituents’ trust at the same time.

To be fair, two Bruins United councilmembers also resigned this school year. But LET’S ACT! members dealt with Murphy’s resignation in a damaging way: In the middle of the November divestment meeting, several members of the slate questioned the legitimacy of former Internal Vice President Avinoam Baral’s ascendancy to the presidency. The questioning was horribly timed and made these councilmembers look petty, mean and motivated by political ends.

At a Feb. 10 council meeting, several students who identify with the slate engaged in an anti-Semitic line of questioning against a student being appointed to the judicial board. That event unquestionably damaged the relationship between USAC and the campus Jewish community. It also created a wealth of bad feeling on campus for LET’S ACT!.

One of the most vocal questioners at that meeting, Morris Sarafian, was then run on the president’s ticket for the slate. Sarafian never directly addressed the meeting during his campaign, even after several members of the Jewish community spoke out against his candidacy.

Perhaps the most damaging incident for the slate was the appearance of a myriad of documents on Facebook the Monday of election week, alleging that LET’S ACT! illegally funded its 2013 and 2014 campaigns using money funneled from student fees and raised from selling drugs and alcohol at parties.

LET’S ACT! has denied any wrongdoing and an investigation of the matter by the Election Board is ongoing. But Facebook posts by one of LET’S ACT!’s candidates this year, Jaimeson Cortez, advertises the sale of marijuana and alcohol at a party attended and hosted by many prominent LET’S ACT! members. The post gives the student body and this board enough reason to believe this allegation is true. And if one allegation found in the documents is true, what’s to stop students from believing the slate used student fees to fund its campaigns?

In many ways, the reputation that hurt LET’S ACT! in this election cycle is one it earned itself. Its survival as a slate is dependent on its acknowledgment of this fact and a commitment to do better.

To be clear, Bruins United is by no means a perfect slate. It has just as often been motivated by petty politics and have been rocked by its own share of campaign funding scandals, as well as ugly campaigning that many students found offensive and discriminatory. Its programming tends to be underwhelming and it almost never engage in the kind of lobbying and advocacy work that LET’S ACT! is known for.

But that’s exactly why it’s so important to have two competitive slates on the ticket for student government. If LET’S ACT! keeps up this long road of grave missteps, that may not be the case in years to come.

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14 Comments

  1. What’s pathetic is that Let’s Act actually won two of the nine contested seats. The student body at UCLA deserves competent representation that will work to fix things that it actually has the authority to fix. Bruins United is far from perfect, but at least it is not deluded as to its purpose. BU thinks its job is to use the University student board to do things that relate to the University; Let’s Act thinks that its job is to use a University board to liberate peoples of color from the imaginary tyranny of the white man.

    List of Let’s Act! accomplishments:

    1) Let’s Act wasted countless months working to pass a symbolic resolution singling out Israel (and implicitly aligning UCLA with a movement calling for Israel’s destruction)
    2) Let’s Act members then refused to appoint a Jewish girl to a non-partisan judicial position because they were worried her being Jewish would make her opposed to the anti-Semitic and non-student related resolution passed the previous month.
    3) Let’s Act then fundraised illegally by selling illegal substances.

    Hours after its loss, one of Let’s Act’s 2 elected candidates went on record to the Daily Bruin insulting BU’s newly elected president (presumably because Heather Rosen is Jewish)

    There is only so long you can keep people voting for you with a such a piss-poor record. The nightmare finally ended this election.

    If you don’t start pushing platforms that appeal to anyone other than far-leftist activists, you won’t win an election anytime soon.

    1. SO….the plight of people of color in this country is imaginary? This is exactly why we need people to advocate for people of color and the struggles of people of color. No one has a problem with having a Jewish president or a president from any ethnic or racial background that isn’t the problem. The problem is having people advocate for students that have mindsets like yours, mindsets that oppression of colored people in this country is something imaginary. I totally understand the idea of having USAC deal with only student issues but NEWSFLASH people don’t just come to UCLA and leave their struggles and inequalities at the door when the come in. Inequalities, marginalization, and under-representation stay with people of color their whole lives, which is why people of color need people who will ADVOCATE FOR THEM. Sadly the reality right now is that the people who will even admit to the injustices and inequalities of colored people not even advocate, just admit that there are issues are people of color.

      1. It’s not entirely imaginary, but a lot of it is. Let’s Act is an umbrella tent of ethnic minority associations — most, if not all, of which are extremely militant against whites and promote a persistent sense of self-victimization that makes for a toxic campus atmosphere.

        Even to the extent campus minorities need a student government to advocate for them, that does not explain Let’s Act’s disgusting attitude toward Jewish students on this campus.

        Note that Let’s Act did not win a single full-slate endorsement from any group other than a minority grievance organization. Every non-partisan student group went for Bruins United.

        It should also be noted that more than 50% of the campus is white and Asian and do not need a student government whose only focus will be left-wing activism. Minorities with grievances about racism are not the majority of the campus.

        Are there statistics available on the demographic breakdown of the vote?

      2. You wrote:

        “No one has a problem with having a Jewish president or a president from any ethnic or racial background that isn’t the problem.”

        Actually, the last USAC board proved that statement demonstratively false.

        We all witnessed – on video – four USAC board members all agreeing that Rachel Beyda was extremely qualified for her position. Then we saw those same 4 board members casually and openly denying Ms. Beyda a position solely because they believed that – as a Jew – Ms. Beyda would not be able to vote honestly.

        They certainly had a problem with Jews and to see them discussing their bigotry so casually turned out to be a national embarrassment. It will take UCLA years to live it down.

        If you’re going to make a comment, make an honest comment.

        Newsflash for you: Some of the people you think are advocating for equality are actually some of the worst bigots on campus.

      3. No, the plight of people of color in this country is not imaginary. But how will the people of color in this country be helped by active discrimination against the Jewish people and by having Hillel, the Jewish organization on campus, branded as opposition? This was the point of M D’s initial comment, which you chose to disregard.

  2. The editorial board is sugar-coating. Consider these 5 points:

    1)The Non-Invest in Israel vote.

    2)The questioning of the legitimacy of Avinoam Baral’s (VP and Jewish) ascendanding to the presidency.

    3)The blatant anti-semetic questioning of Rachel Beyda.

    4)Running Morris Sarafian – an active participant in the anti semetic questioning of Rachel Beyda – for President on the Let’s Act ticket.

    5)Morris Sarafians refusal to address Jewish groups in the community during the election.

    These 5 points show that Let’s Act pursued a consistent anti semetic agenda. They were not “lobbyng” or “social activists”. There was nothing noble in their motives. They used the Israel-Palestine conflict to cover their contempt and disdain for all Jews. Consistently, when they had the opportunity to behave badly towards a Jew – not merely Zionists or Israelis, but any Jew in the local community – they abused their power and did their utmost to oppress them. They claimed they were fighting bigotry and they turned out to be perhaps the worst bigots on campus.

    It would be nice if this editorial acknowledged what the rest of the country already knows.

  3. The editorial board is sugar-coating. Consider these 5 points:

    1)The Non-Invest in Israel vote.

    2)The questioning of the legitimacy of Avinoam Baral’s (VP and Jewish) ascendanding to the presidency.

    3)The blatant anti-semetic questioning of Rachel Beyda.

    4)Running Morris Sarafian – an active participant in the anti semetic questioning of Rachel Beyda – for President on the Let’s Act ticket.

    5)Morris Sarafians refusal to address Jewish groups in the community during the election.

    These 5 points show that Let’s Act pursued a consistent anti semetic agenda. They were not “lobbyng” or “social activists”. There was nothing noble in their motives. They used the Israel-Palestine conflict to cover their contempt and disdain for all Jews. Consistently, when they had the opportunity to behave badly towards a Jew – not merely Zionists or Israelis, but any Jew in the local community – they abused their power
    and did their utmost to oppress them. They claimed they were fighting bigotry and they turned out to be perhaps the worst bigots on campus.

    It would be nice if this editorial acknowledged what the rest of the country already knows.

      1. You think there is no antisemitism on the left? Where have you been?

        You obviously don’t attend this university. Let’s Act is very much to the left and they take pride in that position.

        In fact, if you’re unaware of the rise of antisemitism on the left, than you probably not reading many newspapers.

    1. There are multiple Asians on the board. The board is only 50% white actually in total. Of the 9 disputed positions, whites won 7 I believe.

      It is utterly racist for you to be complaining about the number of white people on the board. Imagine your reaction if I complained there were too many minorities on it? Would you be OK with that?

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