Benjamin Zuckerman, a researcher and professor emeritus in the department of Physics and Astronomy, has served as the president of Californians for Population Stabilization for seven months and on its board for 17 years. And that should worry us all.
Californians for Population Stabilization is a Santa Barbara-based organization that claims to promote the well-being of California’s environment and economy by blaming California’s population growth on immigrants and running ad campaigns that advocate for stricter immigration laws. Californians for Population Stabilization’s targeting of immigrants shouldn’t come as a surprise when one considers its connections to racist-extremist groups like the neo-Confederate group, the League of the South, and its record of hiring a documented neo-Nazi. In fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center classified Californians for Population Stabilization as a one of 79 designated hate groups in California.
Everyone certainly has the right to advocate for what they believe in. But we must stand in opposition when a UCLA research professor actively pushes to remove our fellow classmates and tear us apart. As a recent UCLA alumnus who studied physics, I call on the UCLA student body to stand in support of your fellow immigrant Bruins and reject any rhetoric that unfoundedly alienates them – even if it comes from an esteemed professor.
Having a faculty member leading a hate group planning against student immigrants is frightening. UCLA is world-famous for our ingenious spirit and bold endurance, not for ostracizing students for their status.
Californians for Population Stabilization, however, is antithetical to that embrace of diversity.
Californians for Population Stabilization was co-founded by Garrett Hardin, who, as reported by the Santa Barbara Independent, was classified by SPLC research analyst Stephen Piggott as a “white nationalist” who spearheaded the U.S. nativist movement. Four years ago, Californians for Population Stabilization hired John Vinson, a founding member of the League of the South, as a senior writing fellow and most recently hired neo-Nazi Parker Wilson to join the Californians for Population Stabilization team.
With Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals hanging by a thread and racist hate crimes spiking since President Donald Trump’s election, it is important to remind Californians for Population Stabilization and students that the majority of Californians support some path to citizenship for immigrants – legal or undocumented. Californians for Population Stabilization masks its nativism and xenophobia by claiming to work in favor of the California people – this was made clear from its inception – and we should not be fooled by this.
While the anti-immigrant movement in California has recently been emboldened, I will continue to be a voice for a community that is pro-immigrant and therefore pro-American, and I urge my fellow students to do the same.
We cannot allow racism and xenophobia to persist on a campus that prides itself on its diversity and acceptance.
Prado graduated from UCLA in spring 2017.
DACA is an illegal program created by the previous administration.
The “D” stands for deferred deportation.
I am all for combating racism and the like, but what a crappy article. If you are going to try to smear a professor, provide something besides a bunch of vague statements that don’t actually say anything.
It’s another one of the old, “if you don’t think that borders shouldn’t exist, you’re a racist.”
Unsustainable population growth in California has been disastrous for our water supplies, ecological diversity, open spaces and overall quality of life. Much, but not all, of that population growth has been fueled by illegal immigrants with low skills and high fertility rates.
Any opinions piece or article that cites the SPLC as though it were an unbiased, agenda-free, non-partisan organization should be immediately suspect. I’m an immigrant and I donate yearly to Californians for Population Stabilization. Why? I have seen what out of control reproduction has done to China. No thanks. Keep California green and lean!
“Everyone certainly has the right to advocate for what they believe in.”
The article should end right here. Congratulations on acknowledging our democratic freedoms in the West.
I was born in CA and believe state resources should focus on educating citizens. The UC is subsidized by the CA taxpayer, and most taxes are actually paid by a small proportion of people. It’s not racist to advocate for that. Word is that every candidate for governor of CA from the DNC wants to re-introduce affirmative action in the UC. The idea that a Mexican citizen who happens to be brought up here would get priority over US citizens (and cal grants and in-state tuition) is preposterous and not even worth debating. Yet it’s a very real conclusion of your side of this argument.
You’re probably a north campus major so I can’t get too riled at your words. Good luck trying to remove this article when you graduate and prospective employers google this and want nothing of your willingness to publicly witch-hunt.
Hector Prado is a Mexican supremacist pig who defends MS-13.
” Prado graduated from UCLA in spring 2017″
And what a sorry example of a public education Prado is. Perhaps he can find employment at the SPLC which boasts a $340 MILLION dollar portfolio growing by millions each month.
There is good money in smearing people; get yours while its hot.
Promoting Hate via Misinformation and Ad Hominem Attack would be a more accurate title for Prado’s piece.
His first mistake was to rely on output from the hate-mongering SPLC. Its lack of integrity has been exposed in many articles over the years. For a collection of those, see http://populationstabilization.org/censorship.html I’ve seen a dozen more such articles appear during just this past year.
A second mistake was to not have bothered to do any substantive research on what Zuckerman’s actual beliefs are. Shortly after Zuckerman joined the CAPS board of directors he wrote “Is Overimmigration Morally Defensible,” which was published in at least a half dozen major newspapers throughout the US (see, e.g., http://www.bio.sdsu.edu/pub/stuart/2001%20OverimmigrnDefensible.pdf ) (I was co-author on the piece but Zuckerman did 90 percent of the writing).
Prado’s third mistake was to call Garrett Hardin “a “white nationalist” who spearheaded the U.S. nativist movement.” Hardin, whom I began reading in the 1960s, was one of the best writers and scholars on population issues of the last half of the twentieth century and a major champion of US population stabilization. In the 1960s when large family sizes were the primary driver of US population growth, Hardin’s writings focused on reducing average US family size and getting women full access to family planning information and services. When US family size dropped below replacement level (2.1)) and increasing immigration rates became the major driver of US population growth, Hardin “stuck with the program” (of population stabilization) and focused much of his writing on immigration. Most of Hardin’s big-talker peers in academia and environmental organizations “dropped out of the program” at that time, put their tails between their legs (to hide their lack of cojones?), and fled for the hills. Paul Ehrlich and the Sierra Club are the archetypes. Not able to handle the heat that comes with addressing “over immigration”, they became “globalists” and said it would be “mean” for any country to have a national population policy.
I do not expose a dozen other pieces of misinformation in Prado’s piece, lest the UCLA administration be tempted to revoke his degree.
The author uses the term “anti-immigrant movement” but fails to define its agenda. Is he referring to those sovereign Americans exercising their inalienable right of self-determination to demand enforcement of our immigration laws that were created to protect the public and American jobs? DACA is a lawless executive action that in all likelihood would have been thrown out by the courts. I’d like to again remind Mr. Prado that the American people have every right to reject the idea that people here illegally should be “respected” and rewarded for their deliberate trashing of our immigration laws.
Concerning the charge that CAPS hired a neo-Nazi, I can provide some concrete information, as a longtime supporter and former board member of CAPS. I met and talked with Parker Wilson a few months after he was hired as a CAPS staffer. As he did to others, he seemed an enthusiastic, articulate and informed young man, a recent history major graduate from Chico State University highly recommended by his professors. When a journalist discovered that Wilson had a secret life under various pseudonyms on the internet as a neo-Nazi, CAPS immediately fired Wilson. The CAPS executive director then sent a bouquet of flowers to the journalist as thanks for her role in assisting with this “housecleaning.” Maybe the moral of the story is: when hiring, demand that applicants submit a list of all pseudonyms under which they have operated on the internet or elsewhere! But in sum, both CAPS and Zuckerman are completely above reproach in this matter. Not so smear artists in training like Prado.