Despite Protest, UC Regents Elect First-Ever Muslim Student Member

Disregarding outside pressure from Jewish groups, the University of California System board confirmed its new student regent Wednesday. Sadia Saifuddin, who attends UC Berkeley, is the first Muslim student to sit on the board. A Pakistani-American, Saifuddin was publicly opposed by people on and off-campus, including the conservative activist David Horowitz, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, and the UC Irvine adjunct professor who runs Stand With Us, the Israeli education organization. Saifuddin co-sponsored a campus bill asking the university to divest funds from companies with economic ties to the Israeli military or Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and accused a UC Santa Cruz lecturer of “inciting racist and Islamophobic rhetoric” for linking the Muslim Students Association with terrorism. The controversy over her nomination to the board made national news.