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.”
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.
A UCLA spokesperson said the institution condemned all forms of discrimination and was reviewing the complaint “as it is absolutely critical that every single member of our community is evaluated fairly for opportunities within student government.”
USAC leadership was unable to comment on the proceedings because it is an ongoing case..
Jewish Faculty at UCLA's statement
Jewish Faculty at UCLA, which claims to represent Jewish and non-Jewish faculty at the institution, said on social media last Wednesday that CAC’s use of the term Zionist was code for being Jewish, and the word was being twisted “into a slur to exclude Jews.”Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo weighed into the situation by arguing on X/Twitter on Tuesday that “of the many examples of antisemitism driven by campus DEI, UCLA may be the worst.”Ha’Am noted that the Jewish magazine had previously accused Verdugo of denying access to four of its Jewish reporters to a November CAC event protesting the prohibition of on-campus encampments.On October 9, in the wake of the October 7 massacre, Verdugo issued an official CAC statement declaring that it would continue to provide unwavering support to Palestinian “liberation.”“We also stand on the grounds that decolonization is not a metaphor,” read a CAC Instagram statement. “Thus, we honor the Palestinians on the frontlines taking their land and sovereignty back! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”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.”