Legal Insurrection has learned that Students for Justice in Palestine-backed UCLA student president-elect Devin Murphy, whose supporters accused his anti-divestment opponent of corruption and conflict of interest for taking a sponsored trip to Israel from a pro-Israel organization, took a sponsored trip to Israel from a pro-Israel group in January 2013.
Murphy, who defeated anti-BDS candidate Sunny Singh by a mere 31 votes in an election with 8,200 cast, went to Israel on a California Student Leaders trip sponsored by the American Jewish Committee’s
Project Interchange.
http://youtu.be/jUGZwLb2XiE?t=3m15s
That Murphy went on such a sponsored trip but is pro-divestment, shows that such trips are merely educational, and do not dictate a particular pro- or anti-divestment result.
SJP filed a
judicial board conflict of interest complaint not only against Singh for going on a trip sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, but also against Lauren Rogers, another anti-BDS council member who also went on a Project Interchange Trip.
Murphy also
signed a letter pledging not to take sponsored trips to Israel from various groups, which accused numerous pro-Israel organizations of promoting bigotry against Muslims, Blacks, and Armenians.
Questioned about his trip (video clip
here, and embedded below), Murphy claimed that he had no conflict of interest because he was not a member of the council at the time. He also did not indicate that he would recuse himself from related matters while on council.