Tuesday, 4/29/97 Letters
Justices’ official resignation Our fellow Bruins, It is after
much thought and reflection that we, Jihad Saleh and James
Burkhardt, hereby officially resign from our positions as UCLA
Judicial Board Justices. The series of events that spurred this
resignation stem from our dedication to personal integrity and our
shared desire to better our university. As Judicial Board justices,
it was our responsibility to uphold the UCLA Constitution as well
as mediate the interpretation of the guiding documents of the
University Students Association Council (USAC). As the equivalent
of UCLA’s Supreme Court, campus politics should, theoretically, not
be a part of the position. Reality, however, has dictated
otherwise. As passionate and visionary individuals, we have both
struggled with the politics of our justiceship. To not express our
passion and not share our vision for the betterment of our campus
and community would be to allow that passion and vision to die. Our
responsibility to the betterment of our communities and shared
environment has spurred us to seek other means through which we can
make better use of our qualifications and experience. While we have
enjoyed the time we spent as justices, we agree that the lack of
quality, conscientiousness and principle-guided leadership on this
campus has created a void. This void needs to be filled by
leadership that can prepare UCLA for the next millennium, and
beyond. The political pendulum has swung from right to left long
enough. The time has come to break the pendulum and move in only
one direction, forward … Jihad Saleh fourth-year political
science, sociology James Burkhardt second-year Chicano/Chicana
studies, history Bruin Libertarians’ President replies The article
on the Bruin Libertarians’ Drug Legalization Event stated that, in
seeming contradiction to my free speech philosophy, I did not
accommodate a heckler during the event, calling him the
"burn-in-hell guy." My answer to said editorializing in the news
part of the paper is this: while I could have been more polite, and
my reply could have been much more intelligent, I would never dream
of using force, either my own or that of the state, to silence
anyone’s speech. In fact, I am campaigning to eliminate the
restrictions on free speech, meaning hate speech censoring, at
UCLA. In retrospect, I should have argued with Gregg Tipton, but I
thought the university would actually enforce the rather tight
sound restriction – only an hour from noon to one – and I didn’t
want to engage in a potentially long discussion with an evangelist
while time was a concern. When I marched through West Hollywood to
protest Clinton’s signing the Defense of Marriage Act, I got both
literally and figuratively left behind when I started arguing with
a heckler. When engaging in protest, it is not always in the
interest of effective politicking to humor people who want to argue
with you. Gregg Tipton could have gone on about God all he wanted
to later. We had an open microphone later in the rally. He made no
effort, to my knowledge or to the knowledge of any other members of
the Bruin Libertarians, to take this opportunity. Incidentally, Ms.
Lee’s assertion that "Few students seemed to care – most were
concerned with enjoying themselves" must not have been derived from
the same rally I attended. We had fifteen people sign up to become
members or get more information. I have to order more flyers on our
positions – most of them are gone. UCLA students aren’t as
politically disinterested as Ms. Lee would have us assume. Justin
Sobodash President, Bruin Libertarians third-year political
science