UCLA campus leader quits over ‘unsafe’ climate for pro-Israel students

The former president of the UCLA Graduate Students Association leaves the university’s law school over what he calls a “hostile and unsafe campus climate.”

Milan Chatterjee will complete his third year of law school at New York University School of Law, the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal says.

Chatterjee, who is Hindu, was reprimanded by the university in July for using his position to threaten to withhold funding for an event if it were used to promote divestment from Israel. He said his intention was to maintain the Graduate Student Association’s neutrality in political affairs.

Late last month, Chatterjee sent a letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block informing the university that he was leaving in the wake of bullying and harassment by pro-BDS students and organizations.

“I reached out to senior members of your administration many times,” Chatterjee says in the Aug. 24 letter informing the university official of his decision to leave.

“I believed that these administrators would be especially sensitive given the public outcry caused by similar BDS-led efforts against UCLA students… I could not have been more mistaken,” he writes

He also calls the UCLA campus “a hostile and unsafe environment for students, Jewish and non-Jewish, who choose not to support the BDS movement, let alone support the state of Israel.”

In a statement sent to the Jewish Journal, UCLA defends its investigation of the incident, which found that Chatterjee violated the university’s “viewpoint neutrality” policy.

— JTA