Nominee for Calif. student regent draws rare ire
The University of California’s governing board plans to vote Wednesday on a new student member who would be the first practicing Muslim to hold the post and whose nomination is being vigorously opposed by some Jewish groups. UC Berkeley senior Sadia Saifuddin was picked from a field of 30 applicants to serve on the UC Board of Regents during the 2014-15 academic year… The Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs, conservative commentator David Horowitz and others have called on the board to reject Saifuddin’s appointment, alleging that some of her political activities as a student senator and member of the Muslim Students Association at Berkeley make her unqualified to represent the University of California system’s more than 222,000 students. Those activities included co-sponsoring a bill calling for the divestment of university funds from companies with economic ties to the Israeli military or Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and authoring a resolution condemning a UC Santa Cruz lecturer who had linked the Muslim Students Association with terrorism “for inciting racist and Islamophobic rhetoric.” … Jonathan Stein, a Berkeley law school graduate who recently completed a one-year term as the UC student regent and was part of the five-member committee that recommended Saifuddin, said her critics have overlooked Saifuddin’s work to build bridges, which included bringing Muslim and Jewish students together during the divestment debate and founding the Berkeley campus’ first interfaith worship space.
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by Lisa Leff, The San Francisco Chronicle.