The Cultural Affairs Commission at UCLA is facing accusations that it is discriminating against Jewish students in its hiring process after it emerged that the commission's head, Alicia Verdugo, gave instructions not to hire "Zionists" and presented a "no-hire" list.
Bella Brannon, the editor of the Jewish student newspaper on campus, Ha'am, filed a complaint with the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) Judicial Board over the alleged discrimination last week.
According to the complaint, following Verdugo's directives, every applicant who identified as Jewish was rejected by the Cultural Affairs Commission, even when no mention was made of Zionism or Israel.
Verdugo sent a message that read, "PSA, lots of Zionists are applying - please do your research and I will also share a no hire list during retreat."
Among the applicants who were rejected was one who wrote "as a Jewish student at UCLA, it is imperative that I have the right to express my identity," and another who wrote about their Shabbat observance.
The Cultural Affairs Commission states about its hiring practices, "We reserve the right to remove any staff member who dispels antiBlackness, colorism, racism, white supremacy, zionism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, ableism, and any/all other hateful/bigoted ideologies.”
Ha'am noted that antisemitism is not included among the bigotries it seeks to avoid.
The petition states, “By rejecting Jewish applicants and citing Zionism as a disqualifying factor, despite the applicants never explicitly referencing Zionism or their relationship to the State of Israel in their applications, Alicia Verdugo demonstrates their conflation of Judaism with Zionism. In doing so, they have intentionally created a correlation between Jewish and Zionist identities to systematically discriminate against Jews, a correlation they imposed, even though many Jewish individuals naturally consider Zionism an intrinsic part of their identity. ”
The UCLA campus was rocked by a wave of antisemitism following the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.
In July, a judge ordered that UCLA craft a plan to protect Jewish students in light of the school's failure to address the antisemitism on campus.
At least 25 people were arrested at UCLA in June after setting up multiple pro-Palestinian Arab encampments on campus that police said were unlawful.
As a result of the encampments, the group damaged a fountain, spray-painted brick walkways, tampered with fire safety equipment, damaged patio furniture, stripped wire from electrical fixtures and vandalized vehicles.
A day earlier, A Chabad Lubavitch rabbi at UCLA was assaulted by the anti-Israel activists. According to Shabbos Kestenbaum, an American Jew, the students called their victim a "Zionist pedophile rabbi," and told him to "go back to Poland."