On Monday, Bella Brannon, Editor-In-Chief of Ha’Am, filed a Petition for Consideration with the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) Judicial Board, alleging that the Cultural Affairs Commissioner discriminated against Jewish students during the Fall hiring process for staff positions. The petition claims that Alicia Verdugo, the current Cultural Affairs Commissioner, rejected all applicants who identified themselves as Jewish based on their presumed association with Zionism, even though their applications did not mention Zionism or Israel.
According to evidence filed in the petition’s appendix, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Alicia Verdugo directed their subordinates to “please do your research when you look at applicants,” as “lots of zionists are applying.” The evidence also illustrates that they informed their co-workers that they would “share a doc of no hire list during retreat.”
The petition contends that every student who indicated their Jewish identity in their applications for Cultural Affairs Commissioner (CAC) staff was rejected. When asked, “What is an issue (social, political, etc.) that is relevant to you, and how would you like to address that through CAC?” one rejected applicant allegedly responded, “An issue that’s relevant to me is the right to express one’s religion because, as a Jewish student at UCLA, it is imperative that I have the right to express my identity.” When asked whether the applicant would be able to attend the staff retreat, another rejected student responded by explaining “I keep Shabbat, so would need to follow Jewish observance.”
Alleged documents regarding the CAC’s hiring policies detailed: “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.” Notably, antisemitism is not mentioned.
While most of the listed “isms” in the policy describe forms of discrimination, Zionism differs as it represents a political movement affirming the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. None of the rejected Jewish applicants explicitly identified themselves as Zionists, mentioned Israel, or expressed any particular views related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in their applications.
The petition argues that none of the students accepted to CAC during the Fall 2024 hiring discussed Judaism in their application, implying that every student who openly expressed their Judaism was denied. This pattern raises serious concerns about the CAC Commissioner Verdugo discriminating against Jews under the guise of Anti-Zionism. Eighty percent of American Jews indicate, according to PEW Research, that “caring about Israel is an important or essential part of what being Jewish means to them,” so discrimination against Zionists still raises serious concerns, especially when it is institutionalized as a hiring policy.
The Petition for Consideration highlights these concerns, arguing that: “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. ”
On October 9, 2023, two days after Hamas invaded Israel, murdered 1,400 civilians, and took 250 hostages, the CAC released a statement expressing that they “honor the Palestinians on the frontlines taking their land and sovereignty back!” The statement also read: “Palestinians should be recognized for their care for the oppressed, and not levied with accusations that conflate the political ideology of zionism with Judaism… Judaism is separate from the political movement of Zionism. Establishing this distinction is important to the safety of Jewish and Palestinian individuals alike.”
In their statement, CAC purports to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism, yet they cited Zionism as a disqualifying factor for employment, simultaneously rejecting all openly Jewish applicants. When asked to respond to the allegations, Verdugo shared the following statement: “The Cultural Affairs Commission (CAC) is an organization that has historically, and continuously, stood with marginalized and vulnerable populations. As such we do not tolerate or endorse hateful rhetoric or actions of any kind from the world, the university, and especially our staff members. As CAC aims to continue being an organization that fights for the protections and inclusion of marginalized, we will continue to hold our staff to a standard that puts the safety and needs of the communities we serve first.” Verdugo did not respond to follow-up questions, including: “Zionism is included in the alleged list of ‘bigoted and hateful ideologies.’ Can you please provide the CAC’s position on why Zionism is included in the list?” and “Do you consider Jewish students to be a group you serve to uplift?”
USAC President Adam Tfayli did not respond to our request for comment.
Beyond the current CAC, this would not be the first time USAC’s hiring practices have discriminated against Jewish students. This unfortunate trend at UCLA caused a firestorm in 2015 when a Jewish student was initially denied a position on the Senate Judiciary Committee because USAC members believed she would not be impartial to campus issues as a Jewish student. Using similar biased and hateful justifications for their denial of a Jewish student, the guilty members of USAC then ultimately issued a public apology to the Jewish community for “delegitimiz[ing] the identity of individuals or people.”
The CAC’s discriminatory Fall hiring practices are merely the latest instance in a pattern of troubling behavior for the commissioner and their office. Instances listed in the petition include CAC denying Jewish students access to an open microphone night, blocking a Jewish student on the CAC Twitter account, sharing conspiratorial posts about the state of Israel on a UCLA-affiliated account, and Verdugo telling a Jewish student that “you simply don’t have the will or empathy to look inside yourself and understand that your parents are liars. They are white, and benefit from white supremacy regardless of religious affiliation.”
The Petition for Consideration calls on the USAC Judicial Board to address allegations of discriminatory hiring practices within the CAC. According to the official rules of the Judicial Board, “The Judicial Board must grant or deny a ‘Petition for Consideration’ within three business days.”
Cover Image by user vidalia_11 via Flickr
Brannon’s petition will be made public on the Judicial Board website when they conclude deliberation. Ha’Am is happy to provide a copy upon request.
