UCLA
Chancellor Gene Block spoke out firmly against measures that would bar
those elected to UCLA’s student government from taking part in trips
sponsored by certain pro-Israel organizations.Prior to the recent student council elections, various pro-Palestinian groups asked candidates to sign a pledge that they would not take educational trips to Israel sponsored by AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Hasbara Fellowships.
“I am troubled that the pledge sought to delegitimize educational trips offered by some organizations but not others,” Block wrote in an email to students and faculty, Haaretz reported.
“I am troubled that the pledge can reasonably be seen as trying to eliminate selected viewpoints from the discussion,” he continued. “If we shut out perspectives, if we silence voices, if we allow innuendo to substitute for reasoned exchange of ideas, if we listen only to those who already share our assumptions, truth gets lost, our intellectual climate is impoverished and our community is diminished.”
Most of the candidates who won seats on the council did not sign the pledge. However, it created a stigma around the trips, giving the impression that the trips are unethical for students to take if they are in the student government.
Critics of the pledge, like Jonathon Tobin, claim that its purpose is not only to make it harder for pro-Israel candidates to join the council, thereby weakening opponents of divestment measures, but also to shame those students who would consider participating in pro-Israel trips.
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