UCLA Cultural Affairs Commission Cut Jews From the Hiring Process, Complaint Argues

The Cultural Affairs Commission at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) explicitly discriminated against Jewish students in its hiring process, a complaint with a university Judicial Board claims. While the head of the organization sought to cut “zionist” students from the hiring process, the complaint, from student Bella Brannon, alleges that every student who mentioned their Jewish identity—including those who didn’t mention Israel or the war in Gaza at all—were rejected when they applied to serve on the commission’s staff. 

The Cultural Affairs Commission (CAC), according to its website, is one of 15 bodies of the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council. The organization provides programming that fosters “an inclusive environment to permit students at UCLA to challenge and exchange with one another and to achieve intersectional solidarity.” According to Brannon’s complaint, Alicia Verdugo, the student in charge of the Cultural Affairs Commission, explicitly told students working on the commission that “a lot of Zionists were applying” and to “do your research when you look at applicants, and I will also share a doc of no-hire list during retreat.” 

According to the complaint, the CAC’s own internal documents state that “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.”

In her complaint, Brannon wrote that “No student applicants for the Senate mentioned Zionism or any reference to Israel in their applications,” adding that, out of dozens of applicants, only “five were rejected outright. And among those five, three indicated their Jewish identity in their applications. Not a single accepted applicant mentioned Judaism, making every single openly Jewish applicant rejected.”

Brannon further told Reason that, out of the other two rejected applicants, one clearly used AI, and the other wrote about “political inclusion and dialog across differences, which is something that cultural affairs is clearly not interested in.”

Brannon herself applied to serve on the CAC’s Hip Hop Congress, but was rejected. “I’m Jewish, I’m proud, and I can also groove on the bass,” says Brannon. “But unfortunately, because of Verdugo’s clear employment discrimination against Jews, I didn’t get that chance.”

According to a November article in Ha’Am, UCLA’s Jewish student newspaper, when asked for comment on the allegations, Verdugo responded that “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 [sic], we will continue to hold our staff to a standard that puts the safety and needs of the communities we serve first.”

“We really hoped that by filing this complaint through the student body’s official channels, we could also bring it to them and say, Look, this has nothing to do with Israel, Palestine, or Gaza,” says Brannon. “You can think whatever you want, but this is the consequence of hatred. This is the consequence of vitriol and cheap slogans that are affecting Jewish students who are really just trying to go help put on awesome concerts.”

According to Brannon, the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Judicial Board granted her petition against Verdugo on Tuesday, meaning that the complaint will receive a preliminary hearing. Brannon has also taken her complaint to UCLA administrators. 

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