Antisemitism in American Education > UCLA's Rabidly Antisemitic Cultural Affairs Commissioner

 

For Employment at UCLA Cultural Affairs Commission,

Jews Need Not Apply

Dec 6, 2024 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

How far has the antisemitic rot spread on American campuses? This far: at UCLA, students who identified as Jews, or who were suspected of being Jews, were refused employment at the Cultural Affairs Commission of the Undergraduate Students Association Council. More on this antisemitic discrimination can be found here: 

UCLA student culture group accused of hiring discrimination against Jews

by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, December 4, 2024:

A petition alleging that the Cultural Affairs Commission of the University of California, Los Angeles Undergraduate Students Association Council actively avoided hiring Jews because of their assumed Zionist perspective was accepted by the USAC Judicial Board, according to a memorandum.

A preliminary hearing will be held on Tuesday for the petition filed by the editor-in-chief of Ha’Am, UCLA’s Jewish news magazine, Bella Brannon, on Monday against CAC Commissioner Alicia Verdugo.

According to Ha’Am, the petition contended that every student who revealed their Jewish identity in their applications for CAC staff was rejected. One rejected applicant allegedly said they would need to observe Shabbat during the staff retreat, and another noted that as a Jew, one campus issue that was important to them was the right to express religious identity.

In an allegedly leaked internal communication published by Ha’Am, Verdugo allegedly warned subordinates that “lots of Zionists are applying – please do your research when you look at applicants, and I will also share a doc[ument] of [a] no-hire list during [the] retreat.”

In another supposed leaked document, CAC laid out its hiring policy as reserving the right “to remove any staff member who dispels anti-blackness, colorism, racism, white supremacy, Zionism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, ableism, and any/all other hateful/bigoted ideologies.”

But not Islam, the most hateful ideology that ever existed. 

Ha’Am noted that not only was the movement for the self-determination of the Jewish people in their historic homeland singled out among political movements to be included among forms of discrimination, but antisemitism was not mentioned in the list. The petition reportedly argued that the references to Zionism and the rejection patterns indicated that Jews were not hired because it was assumed that because they were Jewish, they were Zionists….

Apparently Alicia Verdugo is quite worried about such recently-invented pathologies as “colorism,” but as for the oldest hatred, the one with the most victims — within living memory, six million people were murdered because of it — antisemitism, she doesn’t even bother to list it among the eleven kinds of discrimination she does list. Antisemitism doesn’t bother Alicia Verdugo, in fact she’s a fan, but she is bothered, mightily, by Jewish students and doesn’t want any of them hired by the UCLA Cultural Affairs Commission.

That she heads.

The logic of the antisemites such as Alicia Verdugo is this: 1) all Jews are Zionists 2) all Zionists are bad, 3) therefore all Jews are bad. Both the Major and Minor Premises of the syllogism are way off: not all Jews are Zionists, and Zionists (many of whom are not Jews) are not bad for supporting the simple desire and proven need of Jews to reclaim their ancestral homeland as a refuge for the most persecuted people in the history of humanity.

Verdugo didn’t want any critical media coverage of an event she organized at the CAC, protesting the university’s decision to prohibit pro-Palestinian encampments on campus. So she kept all Jewish reporters out of the event. Sounds like discrimination to me. Just two days after Hamas’ atrocities carried out on October 7, 2023, this same Alicia Verdugo, a one-woman bottomless well of anti-Israel hate, took that occasion not to denounce Hamas, but to proclaim that CAC would continue to be unwavering in its support for Palestinian “liberation.” She did not mention at all, so as to exempt from that declared support, the 6,000 Hamas members who had just been engaged in the torture, rape, mutilation, and murder of 1,200 Israelis. Instead, the CAC wanted to “honor the Palestinians on the front lines,” which sounds to me like a reference to those Hamas members on flatbed trucks and motorcycles who smashed into Israel on October 7. And her declaration ended with the line “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” which, rightly understood, is a call for the disappearance of Israel and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state.

The CAC Instagram post also recommended that followers read the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization’s Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine. PFLP is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department. Verdugo emphasized in the statement that the condemnation of Israel was not mutually exclusive with condemnations of antisemitism and assured that “Judaism is separate from the political movement of Zionism.”

Verdugo’s Instagram recommends that UCLA students read a pamphlet on Palestinian strategy put out by the PFLP, long designated as a foreign terrorist group by the State Department. This recommendation could be interpreted as giving legitimacy to, and support for, the terror group, by helping to spread its propaganda. This may well violate American law. Perhaps those lawyers no doubt working pro bono for Jewish students on the UCLA campus, could bring a charge against Alicia Verdugo of knowingly providing support for the PFLP, a designated terror group.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, that has for many months been investigating antisemitism on college campuses, will no doubt want to look into the antisemitic practices — the refusal to employ anyone suspected of being Jewish, the promotion of PLFP propaganda — by UCLA’s Cultural Affairs Commission, as directed by its head, Ms. Verdugo, who is about to learn a lesson that she won’t soon forget.

A world of woe awaits you, Alicia Verdugo. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Antisemitism on Campus > UCLA Cops tell parents Hamas protesters can block Jews from classes; Pro-Hamas protesters don't have a clue - Spencer

 

UCLA: Campus cops tell parents that the school is allowing

pro-Hamas protesters to block Jews from classes

APR 30, 2024 4:30 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Capitulation to pro-jihad forces and mob rule will not result in anything positive. Jewish students, pro-Israel students, and students who believe in justice and the rule of law should withdraw from UCLA immediately.

Or, they should sue the university for all it's worth.

No place for truth on American university campuses...

Robert Spencer on Real America’s Voice:

Campus Pro-Hamas Protestors Don’t Have a Clue

APR 30, 2024 11:30 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Antisemitism in Administration and Student Body Forces Neutral Student President Out of UCLA

The Palestinian propaganda machine is running full-speed

in American Universities, and both students and staff are

more than willing to believe the lies they produce

UCLA Student President Leaves

Due to Anti-Israel Harassment

BY: PARDES SELEH

After a long, tedious struggle with anti-Israel harassment from administrators and student members of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a former graduate student body president has decided to leave his UCLA education behind, in his quest for a less hostile learning environment.

Former UCLA law student and Graduate Student Association (GSA) president Milan Chatterjee has been the object of bullying and framing ever since he refused to allocate campus funding to an event that either promoted or rejected support for the State of Israel. Chatterjee’s “viewpoint neutrality” policy stated that topics surrounding Israel were irrelevant to the nature of campus politics and thus, campus funding should not be directed to taking sides on such measures.

The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an anti-Israel hate group responsible for leading the smear campaign against Chatterjee, responded with a plethora of threatening legal documents, administrative pushes, and media allegations painting Chatterjee as a biased student body president and calling for his apology and resignation. SJP leaders Rahim Kurwah and Yacoub Kureh, two UCLA grad students, enlisted the help of Palestine Legal (PL) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to send lawyers after Chatterjee to intimidate him, as well as push UCLA’s figurehead administration to launch a detailed investigation into his actions.

I would love for someone to ask the Students for Justice in Palestine if they would be happy with a two-state solution in Palestine? I would be willing to bet that few, if any, would want anything less than the annihilation of Israel. That's what they call 'Justice'. Hitler had a different name for it.

These allegations were easily debunked time after time, but that did not stop hateful anti-Israel activists from attempting to publish falsehoods and make them a supposed reality. Worse, the UCLA administration did nothing to stand by the GSA neutral policy and defend Chatterjee for doing his job. Instead, Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Jerry Kang aided the SJP by taking part in the investigations and harassment directed at the student president.

"Your administrators chose to not take any action

or even investigate this matter."

FORMER UCLA LAW STUDENT AND GRADUATE STUDENT

ASSOCIATION (GSA) PRESIDENT MILAN CHATTERJEE

Finally, Chatterjee has had enough. Not only was his reputation being constantly tarnished with cruddy lies and hateful spews; he was fighting to not fall behind in his schoolwork, his health, and his sanity. In a letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, Chatterjee revealed his decision to complete his final year of law school at New York University (NYU) in Manhattan. He wrote:


Dear Chancellor Block,  

I write to inform you that I have decided to complete the final year of my UCLA School of Law program at a different institution. The hostile and unsafe campus environment I am facing at UCLA has left me with no choice but to move away from this university at great additional expense to me and my family.

Since November 2015, I have been relentlessly attacked, bullied and harassed by BDS-affiliated organizations and students. The smear and harassment campaign started with the false accusation that I (an Indian-American Hindu) was not “viewpoint neutral” when allocating funds, in my capacity as Graduate Student Body President, to a diversity event. What really occurred is that my administration and I abstained from supporting either a pro- or anti- BDS agenda. This condition was explicitly approved by a UCLA administrator. The event took place on November 5, 2015 and a variety of campus viewpoints were actively represented, including both sides of the issues raised by the BDS movement. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky-- one of America’s leading constitutional law scholars-- and four legal organizations concluded that my administration and I acted in a viewpoint neutral manner.

Subsequently, BDS activists wrote defamatory articles about me and led a grassroots campaign against me on the UCLA campus. They even tried, on multiple occasions, to remove me as Graduate Student Body President. I reached out to senior members of your administration-- many times-- for guidance and support to defuse this situation. Furthermore, I believed that these administrators would be especially sensitive given the public outcry caused by similar BDS-led efforts against UCLA students Rachel Beyda, Avi Oved, Lauren Rogers, and Sunny Singh. I could not have been more mistaken. Your administrators were non-responsive and unhelpful.

In fact, when Palestine Legal and the ACLU circulated a legal letter defaming me on the Internet, had their attorneys write a libelous article about me in the Daily Bruin, and sent lawyers to Graduate Student Association meetings to attack me personally, I contacted the Interim Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs many times for help. Not only did she decline to provide me with the necessary legal support, but she told me that I needed to get my own attorney. Finally, I was connected to the American Jewish Committee, who found the situation serious enough to refer me to a pro-bono counsel.

In late February 2016, my new attorney, Peter M. Weil, of Glaser Weil LLP, sent you and several senior members of your administration, a lengthy letter detailing the constant bullying harassment and attacks to which I was being subjected. Your administrators chose to not take any action or even investigate this matter.

To make matters worse, at the behest of pro-BDS organizations, the Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) launched a three-month-long investigation of me. His office wrote a defamatory, 27-page report which has been heavily condemned by seven major organizations.

In reality, this report was an attempt by your administration to publicly scapegoat me for their systematic failure to adopt and implement University of California policies, and provide the necessary guidance to me and other student organizations when we approached them for help. Your administrators fell asleep on the job and decided to blame me-- a student-- for it.

But the desire to vilify me did not stop there. Although the Report was designated as “Confidential,” no reasonable safeguards were adopted to preserve the report’s confidentiality. It was readily forseeable that pro-BDS organizations-- whom your administration freely made this “Confidential Report” available to-- could and would leak it. No efforts were made to prevent this and, of course, this is precisely what occurred.

In violation of confidentiality and retaliation policies, Students for Justice in Palestine openly and unlawfully leaked the EDI report onto the Internet. When I filed a complaint about this violation, your administration declined to investigate it. Worse yet, the Vice Chancellor of EDI, on his blog, urged the public to read this leaked confidential report, and gave them access to it. As recent as August 22, 2016, there was a scurrilous op-ed piece in the Daily Bruin attacking me and relying extensively on the so-called Confidential Report.

UCLA is one of the finest universities in the world. It is unfortunate, indeed that your administration has not only allowed BDS organizations and student activists to freely engage in discriminatory practices of its own against those same students. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, the fact is that the UCLA campus has become a hostile and unsafe environment for students, Jewish and non-Jewish, who choose not to support the BDS movement, let alone support the State of Israel.

I implore you to acknowledge the reality of this regrettable situation and take corrective action that not only remedies my grievances but addresses the current hostile and unsafe campus climate generally so that other students are not forced to leave UCLA. It is too late for me, but I sincerely hope that it will not be too late for those students who follow me.

I will be returning to Los Angeles as often as necessary in order to pursue the discrimination grievance that I filed pursuant to UCLA Procedure 230.1

Sincerely,

Milan Chatterjee

Now This is Truly Scary

Mind hack: Scientists use magnets to change attitudes 

on immigration, religion

© Tom Tingle / The Arizona Republic / Pool / Reuters

Researchers from the University of York have used magnetic energy to suppress humans’ ‘threat-response’ functions and dramatically change people’s attitudes to immigration.

Psychologists used magnetic force to safely shut down the region of the brain associated with “threat-response functions” and conducted a series of tests where volunteers were asked questions about their beliefs.

Scientists found the people were less likely to have negative views when the magnetic force was applied to the posterior medial frontal cortex, positioned a few inches up from the forehead.

In the study, half of participants were given a low-level placebo-like level of magnetic energy that did not affect their brain, while the other half received enough energy to lower activity in the target area.

Volunteers were then asked to think about death, after which they were asked questions about their religious beliefs and attitudes on immigration.

Researchers from the University of York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), discovered those whose frontal cortex was temporarily shut down reported 32.8 percent less belief in God, angels or heaven.

Volunteers were screened prior to the investigation to ensure they held religious beliefs.

The participants were also 28.5 percent more positive in their feelings toward an immigrant who criticized their country.

Dr. Keise Izuma said volunteers were reminded about death because people are more likely to turn to ideologies when they think of dying.

“We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death. As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death,” he said.

Volunteers were asked to respond to negative and positive emotional aspects of religion, in particular to rate their belief in the Devil, demons and Hell, in addition to God, angels and heaven.

Participants were also given two essays to read, both supposedly written by immigrants. One essay was extremely complimentary to the host country, while the other was extremely critical.

Scientists found that when the magnetic force temporarily shut down the ‘threat-response’ part of the brain, people were more likely to have positive feelings towards the immigrant who was critical.

We think that hearing criticisms of your group’s values, perhaps especially from a person you perceive as an outsider, is processed as an ideological sort of threat,” said Izuma.

“One way to respond to such threats is to ‘double down’ on your group values, increasing your investment in them and reacting more negatively to the critic.”

“When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions,” he said.

UCLA’s Dr. Colin Holbrook, who was lead author of the report, said the findings were “striking.”

“These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are repurposed to also produce ideological reactions,” he said.

Unfortunately, the report doesn't say whether, or how long the effect lasted. I'm assuming it lasted only as long as the experiment lasted. Nevertheless, with the incredibly fast advent of multi-cultural tolerance and religious non-tolerance (unless you're Muslim), this finding could lead to some very frightening scenarios. Guess I need some treatment. I wonder if someone has already been applying this to liberal Europeans.