Aram Ghoogasians unfair and inaccurate portrayal of the GSA, along with the SJPs usage of

uncharitable tactics to express concerns with our funding of a Diversity Town Hall forum, leave
us very worried about the level and style of political discourse at UCLA.
It is important to clarify what actually occurred when I tried to help the Diversity Caucuss event.
When the Diversity Caucus approached me for funding, it had already over-committed to a
$6,700 catering bill. At first, other organizations were hesitant to contribute money to this event
on the grounds that they felt it lacked credibility, but I truly felt dedicated to promoting diversity
and wanted to help assure the event would go smoothly. I persuaded my cabinet to contribute
$2,000 in ad-hoc funding and then convinced USAC to co-sponsor the event as well. Because of
this GSA-USAC alliance, other organizations joined to sponsor, and the event was a great
success.
Unfortunately, the Diversity Caucus has chosen to respond to our support by selectively leaking
and misrepresenting information to SJP that has been completely taken out of context.
Aram and the SJP might not know this, but ASUCLAs Student Interaction Fund prohibits
organizations from using funds to support religious and partisan events. With Arams logic, the
entire ASUCLA organization (and not the GSA in particular) violates First Amendment rights
and should be subject to mass resignation. Since the GSA cabinet was providing ad-hoc funding,
our stipulation adhered to ASUCLAs policy by ensuring that we did not use student funds to
support a partisan event. So we informed the Diversity Council that we cannot financially
support a one-sided viewpoint, whether it be BDS or any countermovement to BDS. Its
unfortunate that the Diversity Council chose to misrepresent this fact to SJP and the greater
UCLA community, making it appear as though we were arbitrarily choosing to silence one
viewpoint on the issue, rather than adhering to ASUCLAs Student Interaction Fund policy.
Whats even more disappointing is that, instead of engaging in a respectful conversation about its
concerns with GSA, or even alerting us of their concerns at all so that we might respond, SJP
chose to immediately retain attorneys and have them send us a letter mischaracterizing events. In
his opinion piece, Aram misleadingly claims that I told SJP to reach out to the UCLAs legal
team with their concerns so I wouldnt have to deal with them myself but he fails to mention
that I only did this because the SJP had lawyers contact us first, rather than speaking to us
directly, thereby bringing matters to the litigation level. This bad faith omission of fact confirms
that Aram and SJPs aim wasnt to resolve their genuine concerns but to publically and
misleadingly cast the GSA in a poor light.
Aram, SJP, and SJPs lawyers should not bully student leaders but should instead take their
issues to the UCLA administration. Our position is not and has never been that students should
not freely voice their beliefs and engage in dialogue. Any legitimate worries about the policies
should be voiced and heard, but our efforts and decisions should not be misrepresented in the
process.
In this case, the three firms that SJP retained have used their letter which criticizes us based on
an inaccurate picture of events and our positions in an attempt to gain publicity and unfairly
criticize us. This intention has been highlighted by the fact that, instead of addressing its

concerns with GSA, engaging in a dialogue with us directly so that we have the opportunity to
clarify our stance and appropriately solve any problems students might have, SJP is focused on
circulating this letter to the media.
The GSA works hard to serve the UCLA community and would hope for a good-faith chance to
discuss and resolve complaints. It is unfortunate that the Diversity Caucus chose to selectively
leak and misrepresent information and that Aram and SJP have misdirected their disapproval
towards the ASUCLAs funding policy towards us for our attempts to accord with it
Id be happy to resolve any concerns with SJP leaders over a respectful and direct conversation.
The GSA knows that not all of our decisions will please everyone in UCLA, but we would have
hoped that any concerns would be raised directly with us so we would have the opportunity to
address them, prior to bringing lawyers and publicly circulated misrepresentations of events into
the picture. I hope we can all hold ourselves to a dignified level of political discourse. And no, I
won't be resigning as GSA President.