UCLA party that disputed Jewish candidate’s fitness loses election
Payback for Rachel Beyda incident? Pro-Israel UCLA party retakes control.
Lets Act! (LA), the far-left student political party at UCLA, was dramatically swept from power, in election results released Friday, May 1, 2015.
LA, a coalition of mostly identity-based groups (e.g. Afrikan Student Union, MEChA, Queer Alliance, etc.) was defeated 8 seats to 3 (with 3 independents) by their rival, Bruins United (BU), a coalition of most everyone else (led by the Jewish community, fraternities, and sororities).
LA and its constituent groups constituted the bulk of left-wing identity politics efforts at UCLA.
LA was responsible for slew of anti-Israel actions: Two BDS resolutions at UCLA; objecting to the Judicial Board appointment to Rachel Beyda because she is Jewish; and attempts to disqualify candidates who took trips to Israel.
The election likely was influenced by the release by an anonymous Whistleblower of years of alleged internal documents posted online. As reported by The Daily Bruin, LA allegedly funded their campaigns by dealing drugs and misappropriating student government funds. (LA denies the charges.)
![[UCLA Student Judicial Board Meeting - Jewish Student Challenged]](https://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/UCLA-Student-Judicial-Board-Meeting-Jewish-Student-Challenged-e1423766550333.jpg)
Other documents detailed LA’s radical goals; its identity-based organizational structures; an effort to covertly take control over a well-funded university institution; and an Opponents list targeting parts of the UCLA community.
LA’s leaders, of course, blamed racism for their defeat.
At a gathering to cope with their defeat, one of LA’s few elected council members said “they hate me because I’m a brown Muslim woman, They hate me because I have passed divestment on this campus.” and that “they will try their hardest to kill me”. She added that will serve on an all-white council (A revealing statement of the true role that Asian-Americans, several of whom will in fact serve on council, play in the left-wing identity worldview).
Heather Rosen was elected President. Rosen was the council member who mostly stood alone against the last BDS resolution last fall when the Jewish community chose not to show up, and who played a key role in defending Beyda. She defeated Morris Sarafian in an unprecedented 60%-40% landslide.
Sarafian was one of the students who raised questions regarding the judicial appointment of Rachel Beyda because she was Jewish. He now claims he was racially profiled in the election:
BU also – for only the second time in the 21st century – denied LA the office of external vice president, tasked with representing the interests of UCLA students to the larger community and state government. BU promised to ensure the office not pursue any particular group’s political or ideological agenda.
This was a powerful blow to LA’s radical anti-Israel activism. Former USAC president Devin Murphy was distraught, saying: “That’s our home. That’s where the work that we do starts.”
These outcomes show the importance of going on the offensive, even after a BDS resolution has passed on campus.
Turning student government into a weapon to relentlessly attack Jews is a trauma for the entire campus community, and BDS a potentially-costly expenditure of political capital. Even – or, especially – when BDS opponents are striking back hard, BDS supporters can be rightly blamed as the root cause of campus strife. A promise of campus peace combined with appeals to local issues can be highly effective in such an environment.
The election also showed the importance of turning radicals’ extreme actions into news in the larger community.
CampusClimatologist is someone very familiar with the situation at UCLA, but who, for reasons related to employment, has to use a pseudonym.
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Comments
Mocked? Ass kicking would be closer to the truth.
Outstanding victory for Truth and Light, and an unprecedented defeat for Lies and Darkness, at UCLA. Most excellent!
Congratulations to BU for a powerful and well-deserved victory.
The “diversity” Party’s ironic, but predictable, intolerance was exposed to the light of day. The pro-choice or selective principles cult claims post-birth human — other than pregnant female consumers — sacrifices. The names of these commodities won’t be so easily obfuscated behind a veil of clinical privacy.
Maybe there is hope yet for this generation.
Maybe.
Congratulations to Heather and the other new members of the Student Government. Lead well and God Bless.
Dirty Tricks of Halderman Ehrlichman (aka Nixon) in college, oops it started @ UCLA… history of corruption repeats so better follow these leftists/racists/muslims…
Thanks for the detailed report. Looks like the good guys won one.
mathewsjw > Great historical tidbit. Yes, Watergate architects H.R. Halderman and John Erlichman did get their start running student government campaigns at UCLA (against each other though, not together).
I wonder if Campus Climatologist could respond to this..
Is BU really a pro-Israel party? BU held a plurality of the council before the divestment vote in November 2014 — and it still passed. There were only 2 votes against it, yet 6 BU members. 2 abstained, so two BU members voted for it! Can you explain this?
perhaps a small bellwether for a larger trend/backlash against Leftist intolerance in the name of ‘diversity’. One can hope.
OccupyThat – The Daily Bruin etc doesn’t like to think of these as parties (they believe “party politics” is bad), and only this year did slates even become official entities in election code. However, they are parties.
One member who was elected as BU effectively switched parties to “caucus” (for lack of a better word) with LA. Similarly, the two winners from the special election, which did not technically run on a slate, also caucused with LA (and one had run on LA the previous election). One BU abstention was due to him being president (they only vote to break ties). It is true that one actual BU member (Carlos Quintanilla) this time (last time it was party line), defected on the vote, but that is an unusual occurrence on issues like this.
Couple of Questions:
1) Fabienne Roth ran with BU but then drifted from them. Do you know why exactly this happened? Why’d she run with BU to begin with?
2) Roth’s departure leaves us with 5 BU members. Avinoam Baral filled Murphy’s spot as President, and could no longer vote. Did anyone fill Baral’s vacated seat?
3) Why did two BU members abstain instead of voting against?
4) How do you know it was party-line last time? February 2014’s vote was secret? Or are you assuming that it was party line based on the way the math works out?
Also, why did Let’s Act get trounced so badly this election? You didn’t address that so much in this report (which is wonderful, by the way). Is this a fluke or does this signal a long-term trend and public “fed-upness” with Let’s Act’s ridiculous platforms.
This was a powerful blow to LA’s radical anti-Israel activism. Former USAC president Devin Murphy was distraught, saying: “That’s our home. That’s where the work that we do starts.”
Please define the “work” that you do and the goals of such “work”.
OccupyThat >
1) I believe a very close friend of hers drifted away first, and then she followed.
2) No one had been appointed to fill that seat yet. Murphy had just resigned.
3) Two BU members did not abstain. I neglected to mention that one of the seats filled in the special election as a BUer who resigned. So 6 were elected. One resigned, one switched parties, one became pres and could not vote, leaving 3. Of those, one broke party lines and voted for divestment, bringing it down to 2. Party discipline last year, and special election performance, were quite bad.
4) It was party line. Among other things, there was a straw vote before the official vote that came out exactly the same way. Also, just because the votes were not recorded did not mean they were truly secret. Council members were free to, and generally did, tell people how they voted.
I get it now. Very much appreciate the responses. Just trying to understand how the system works to prepare myself.
Also, why did Let’s Act get trounced so badly this election? You didn’t address that so much in this report (which is wonderful, by the way). Is this a fluke or does this signal a long-term trend and public “fed-upness” with Let’s Act’s ridiculous platforms.
Is there any chance the new BU-majority council will repeal divestment? Maybe that gives BDS more attention than it deserves, but there is something satisfying about sticking it to them.
And yet the msm will continue to portray the ugly haters as the majority in every school.