I am writing in response to “Majority of USAC candidates sign joint ethics statement,” by Amanda Schallert in News on May 6. I am a graduate of UCLA’s Class of 1986 and served on the Undergraduate Students Association Council and as commencement speaker. Thus, I was intimately immersed in the issues and dynamics reflected in the article. In those years, our major international focus was the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, including a significant effort toward divestment. At no time was there an effort to require candidates for USAC to recuse themselves from trips sponsored by outside organizations.
It is painfully ironic, and evocative of much skepticism and suspicion, that concerns stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – one that is markedly distinct from earlier concerns about South Africa by any and every fair measure and criterion – should elicit a much more severe and disproportionate exclusion from enlightening and empowering educational opportunities. This effort is clearly yet another insidious, not-so-subtle attempt by Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions groups to insinuate their outrageously biased agenda into campus politics.
UCLA has always been a beacon of educational fairness, open dialogue and inspiring erudition. I trust that cooler and more judicious heads will prevail in identifying and marginalizing this borderline anti-Semitic propaganda for what it truly is.
Daniel Weiner
UCLA Class of 1986
