SJP at UCLA Asks the Graduate Student Association to Rescind Restrictions on Speech and Association

Update: 11/18/2015:

Three legal groups, Palestine Legal, The American Civil Liberties Union - Southern California, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, have now issued a legal letter to the UCLA Administration and the GSA advising them of the illegality of the funding restrictions described below and requesting the GSA rescind this policy immediately. 

The press release is located here, and the legal letter can be accessed here and is embedded at the bottom of this blog post.

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Summary of Facts: 

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA has learned that the Graduate Student Association (GSA) is tying funding for programming to restrictions on the ability of individuals and groups to advocate for divestment from corporations violating Palestinian human rights or to associate with groups advocating such a policy. 

Emails released to SJP at UCLA (with screenshots included below) show the GSA president stating that GSA would fund the Diversity Caucus only on the condition that it have “zero connection with ‘Divest from Israel’ or any equivalent movement/organization.”  The funding was for a Diversity Town Hall for the campus to discuss concerns about racism. In a followup email confirming the stipulations, the GSA president clarified that this position was official GSA policy. SJP has also learned that, three hours before the event, the GSA president threatened to revoke the funding if his stipulations were not followed. 

This policy harms UCLA Graduate Students in four ways:
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• First, it directly harmed organizers of the Diversity Caucus, who were forced to censor themselves in order to receive GSA funding. 
• Second, it harms groups advocating for divestment from corporations violating Palestinian human rights in that it both bars these groups from receiving GSA funding and restricts their ability to associate with other student groups.
• Third, it harms all graduate students on campus – and especially the diversity community targeted by this restriction – by reducing the range of speech that they can engage in or be exposed to. 
• Fourth and most importantly, this policy harms all UCLA students by creating a McCarthyist educational environment where certain political views, and the people who hold them, are blacklisted. The GSA has an obligation to nurture a campus environment that respects the viewpoints of all graduate students. By suggesting that the GSA could restrict funding based on any viewpoint it disfavors, or that the GSA has the power to bar funding to student groups based on their advocacy for Palestinian rights, it suggests that it could also bar funding to student groups advocating for any other political position it wishes, liberal or conservative, this year or in future years. This is not only unconstitutional, it casts a devastating chill over our campus environment and threatens to extinguish free speech on campus, as GSA successive administrations barred funding to groups that did not fit their political preferences.

In the interests of all graduate students, and of people holding all political viewpoints, the GSA must formally rescind this policy at its next meeting. We have every confidence that the GSA will recognize the unconstitutional nature of this policy and act in the interests of all graduate and undergraduate students by formally rescinding this policy and taking steps to remedy the damage already done.

In the following parts of this statement, we reproduce the emails from the GSA President articulating this policy and then outline the ways in which the policy and actions taken by GSA violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which the GSA is bound by as part of a public institution and as a recipient of public funds. 

Emails from GSA president Milan Chatterjee outlining funding restrictions based on speech in favor of divestment or association with groups promoting divestment:




How the GSA’s policy violates the First Amendment:

The GSA policy articulated by Chatterjee violates the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution in two ways - by restricting freedom of speech and freedom of association. 

• Freedom of Speech:
  • What the law says:
    • ​​The first amendment protects freedom of speech. While the Graduate Student Association can decline to take a position on an issue, it cannot discriminate based on a viewpoint when funding student events.
  • Legal Precedent: 
    • ​​Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia 
    • Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth
  • How the GSA’s position violates the law: 
    • ​Requiring organizers of events to have “zero-connection” with divestment supporters is blatantly discriminatory based on their viewpoints. 
• Freedom of Association
  • ​What the law says:
    • The First Amendment protects both the right to free speech and free association, or group memberships. Requiring that students or student groups restrict their association with other groups as a condition of receiving public funds violates the First Amendment. 
  • Legal Precedent:
    • NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson
  • How the GSA’s position violates the law:
    • The funding stipulation is an over-broad restriction on students’ freedom to form political associations with others that violates the first amendment. 

In addition to viewpoint restriction, this policy is an unconstitutionally vague restriction on speech. There is no clarity as to who or what falls under the restrictions articulated by the GSA, leading anyone who believes that their activities might fall under the GSA policy to censor themselves. Given the wide range of students and groups that have endorsed divestment, the demand that recipients of funds have “no connection” to divestment potentially affects many people. 

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Legal Letter to UCLA Re: Viewpoint Discrimination