Muslim Students Association calls for diversity requirement prioritization

The Muslim Students Association issued a statement calling for UCLA administrators to openly push for the implementation of a diversity-related general education requirement Thursday.

The statement says the requirement would help improve campus climate and combat ignorance and hateful, disrespectful speech. About 40 other organizations – including UCLA student groups, Undergraduate Students Association Council offices, Muslim student organizations at other campuses and independent groups – signed and endorsed the statement.

The press release follows a controversial USAC meeting last month where some individuals used language that could be interpreted as Islamophobic and anti-Semitic during their public comments. In the statement, the Muslim Students Association calls a diversity-related GE requirement a vehicle for UCLA to hold community members more accountable for hateful or racist speech.

“(With a diversity-related GE requirement,) nobody has the excuse (to be ignorant) anymore because you have knowledge of … how creeds other than your own work in operational respect,” said Nida Aslam, the external vice president of the Muslim Students Association and a fourth-year English student.

The Muslim Students Association statement also asks for UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Janina Montero to issue statements urging the UCLA community to prioritize the creation of a positive and inclusive campus climate.

On Feb. 24, Block called on faculty members to pass a proposal for a diversity-related GE requirement by the end of 2014. If faculty start formally working on a proposal soon, a new proposal could go to a vote and be passed by the Academic Senate in time to meet Block’s request.

UCLA is currently the only campus in the University of California system without a diversity related GE requirement. The UCLA Academic Senate has to failed to pass requirement proposals three times in past, despite advocacy from some students and faculty.

Additionally, the Muslim Students Association statement calls for members of Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA to issue statements condemning “the conflation of the Muslim identity with the Palestinian identity” and “Islamophobic commentary” used during the USAC meeting on Feb. 25, where councilmembers voted on a controversial divestment resolution.

The USAC divestment resolution, which failed to pass after an almost 12-hour meeting, asked for UCLA and the UC to divest from specific companies that profit from Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Students for Justice in Palestine wrote the divestment resolution and other cultural student organizations endorsed it.

The statement specifically mentions Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA because the two groups were the most vocal about their opposition to the divestment resolution and some of the Islamophobic sentiment expressed at the meeting could be mistakenly attributed them, Aslam said.

While the statement does not attribute Islamophobic comments said at the meeting to members of the Jewish student organizations, members of the Muslim Students Association think Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA members could improve campus climate by publicly dissociating themselves from individuals who made Islamophobic comments and were also vocally against the resolution, Aslam said.

The Muslim Students Association asked members of Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA to sign the statement, but members of the Jewish student organizations declined because they thought the press release did not accurately address the anti-Semitic language used by public commenters or sufficiently acknowledge that members of the Jewish community also felt attacked during the heated USAC meeting, among other reasons, said Tammy Rubin, the president of Hillel at UCLA and a third-year human biology and society student.

Members of the different student groups also disagreed on a clause in the statement where the Muslim Students Association condemns anti-Semitism and says anti-Zionist sentiment is not inherently anti-Semitic, Aslam said.

Miriam Eshaghian, president of Bruins for Israel and a fourth-year psychobiology student, said she thinks that anti-Zionism is intrinsically anti-Semitic.

Eshaghian said she had wanted to work on a joint statement with members of the Muslim Students Association to call for a diversity-related GE requirement and to condemn both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic language used at the meeting. She added that she thinks the statement would have been more powerful if it came from both the Muslim Students Association and Jewish student organizations.

“We think that both communities were really affected (by the hateful speech) and that both communities have been very attacked,” Eshaghian said. “If you’re asking the campus to be inclusive having only one side isn’t portraying the severity of the issue.”

The Muslim Students Association chose to release the statement on its own because members felt they needed to openly condemn Islamophobia at a time when their statement would be particularly effective and relevant. They felt a sense of urgency to publish the statement before too much time had past since the USAC divestment decision, and further meetings with Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA to coordinate a joint statement could have taken weeks longer, Aslam said.

Rubin and Eshaghian said they condemn any form of Islamophobia and they have not yet decided how to respond to the statement.

At the USAC meeting on Feb. 25, some members of Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA spoke against the passage of the resolution. They said it targeted Israel by supporting the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, even though the resolution included a clause claiming it was only related to divestment.

The USAC meeting included about nine hours of public comments, where students spoke passionately for or against the resolution.

The statement says that some of the commenters at the meeting incorrectly conflated the identities of Muslim and Palestinian individuals, an assumption the statement calls ignorant and offensive.

Individuals on both sides said they received hate mail regarding the discussion at the meeting, and some students said they are still receiving anonymous hate messages.

In the statement, the Muslim Students Association criticized councilmembers and faculty advisors at the USAC meeting for not stopping hateful speech or openly taking a stand against it while it happened. The statement says the silence of councilmembers and other individuals at the meeting demonstrated a need for more accountability.

“No set of arbitrary guidelines will change the behavior of people, but implementing them will help the university hold people accountable,” said Neyamatullah Akbar, president of the Muslim Students Association and a fourth-year biology student.

Members of the Muslim Students Association, Bruins for Israel and Hillel at UCLA are still planning to meet about the possibility of working together on another statement.