Chancellor Albert Carnesale chose not to sign a petition
promising to fight anti-Semitic action on campus, a petition 300
other heads of American colleges and universities signed. The
chancellor made the correct decision.
Bruce Bialosky, the Southern California chairman of the
Republican Jewish Coalition, spoke to more than 50 students
Thursday and advocated for Carnesale to add his name to the
petition.
The issue is that an all-encompassing zero-tolerance policy for
all hate crimes already exists on campus ““ something the
chancellor emphasized. Not only would signing the petition be
redundant, it would grant Jewish students special emphasis that
could be symbolically interpreted by other communities as the
university exercising preference for one group. Gay and Muslim
students, and other members of minority groups are entitled to the
same amount of protection by UCLA hate crime policies as Jewish
students.
Signing the petition would have been more of a political
statement than a practical one given already existent policies; it
would have decreased the credibility of zero-tolerance by making it
seem a politically shifting, rather than constant, rule.