A while ago, there was a minor media firestorm about a situation at UCLA that erupted when a Jewish student was being confirmed for a position on the student council’s Judicial Board. The student was asked a series of questions about whether her Jewish commitments would affect her performance on the Board. This, of course, violates a major taboo. From the NYTimes account:
“Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community,” Fabienne Roth, a member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, began, looking at Ms. Beyda at the other end of the room, “how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”
For the next 40 minutes, after Ms. [Rachel] Beyda was dispatched from the room, the council tangled in a debate about whether her faith and affiliation with Jewish organizations, including her sorority and Hillel, a popular student group, meant she would be biased in dealing with sensitive governance questions that come before the board, which is the campus equivalent of the Supreme Court.
The discussion, recorded in written minutes and captured on video, seemed to echo the kind of questions, prejudices and tropes — particularly about divided loyalties — that have plagued Jews across the globe for centuries, students and Jewish leaders said.
The council, in a meeting that took place on Feb. 10, voted first to reject Ms. Beyda’s nomination, with four members against her. Then, at the prodding of a faculty adviser there who pointed out that belonging to Jewish organizations was not a conflict of interest, the students revisited the question and unanimously put her on the board. …
“We don’t like to wave the flag of anti-Semitism, but this is different,” Rabbi Aaron Lerner, the incoming executive director of the Hillel chapter at U.C.L.A., said of the vote against Ms. Beyda. “This is bigotry. This is discriminating against someone because of their identity.”
The university’s chancellor, Gene D. Block, issued a statement denouncing the attacks on Ms. Beyda. “To assume that every member of a group can’t be impartial or is motivated by hatred is intellectually and morally unacceptable,” he said. “When hurtful stereotypes — of any group — are wielded to delegitimize others, we are all debased.”
The esteemed Dr. Block, whose Jewish identity is doubtless completely irrelevant to his statement, is going way beyond the evidence by saying that the proceedings assumed that “every member of a group can’t be impartial.” The obvious reason for the questions was because there was doubt, not assumption. Anyone in his or her right mind would realize that it would not exactly be surprising if Ms. Beyda’s Jewish identity influenced how she voted on a lot of issues, most particularly Israel and the now common controversies over the BDS movement on campus. Read more