Benny Grush/Staff

The ASUC Judicial Council has unanimously ruled parts of controversial divestment bill SB 160 unconstitutional, removing clauses that require the ASUC to divest from companies affiliated with the Israeli military.

In an opinion released Sunday, the council ruled that the ASUC Senate lacked the authority to divest ASUC funds, saying that investment decisions must be made by the ASUC Investment Committee.

The council included an updated version of the bill in their opinion, which removes about 30 words that would divest ASUC funds but preserves other parts of the bill detailing Israel’s alleged human rights violations and encouraging the UC system to divest.

“The ASUC Senate has no constitutional power to craft specific investment policies,” the opinion states. “According to the By-Laws, the only body in the ASUC with the authority and expertise to write investment policy is the Investment Committee. Thus, when the ASUC specified companies by name and issued strict directives such as ‘will divest’ in SB 160, it overstepped its legislative bounds.”

Noah Ickowitz, former SQUELCH! party chair and a former columnist for The Daily Californian, was among those who filed charges against SB 160 on April 26. He said that while other components of the bill are still problematic, he is satisfied with the decision.

“(The decision) takes out any of the concrete action items in the bill that would have an effect (to divest funds),” Ickowitz said. “Taking away the clauses asking the ASUC to divest its funds takes away the core of the bill.”

Feelings among the bill’s proponents are also optimistic. Despite some of the bill’s language being removed, they say the symbolic message of the bill remains in place.

“The final (bill) that the Judicial Council produced is nearly identical to the one we passed,” said Student Action Senator George Kadifa, who authored SB 160. “It contains all relevant clauses asking the UC to divest. The ones that were stricken were added as afterthoughts; the ASUC has no investments in companies that actually profit (from alleged violations). We’re glad it’s over.”

However, supporters also disagree with the Judicial Council’s ruling, which effectively placed the authority of senate subcommittees above the senate itself.

“To say the senate does not have the power to do something is a little funny, because the senate is what creates these subcommittees,” said Independent Senator Sadia Saifuddin, who also sits on the investment committee. “Subcommittees construct policy based on what the senate says.”

But Ickowitz said that the council’s decision represents an important check on senate overreach.

“I think the fact that it was a unanimous decision speaks to the power and voracity of the charges filed, and I think it sends a strong message that the ASUC Senate cannot overstep structures regardless of the issue or topic at hand,” Ickowitz said.

Jacob Brown is a news editor. Contact him at jbrown@dailycal.org.

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Benny Grush/Staff

The ASUC Judicial Council heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case regarding the controversial divestment bill, SB 160.

The council heard the case, Ickowitz-Freeman v. ASUC Senate & SB 160, at Anna Head Alumnae Hall Wednesday morning. Petitioners Noah Ickowitz, SQUELCH! party chair and a former Daily Cal columnist, and Joey Freeman, former external affairs vice president, allege that the bill’s passage was unconstitutional because it legislated investments, did not pass through the ASUC’s investment committee and did not obtain the two-thirds majority required to approve investment legislation.

CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack argued for the defense, saying that SB 160 makes no changes to the budget and therefore does not fall under the investment committee’s purview. He also said that SB 160 leaves the ASUC’s revenue sources  unaltered. If this is true, the bill’s passage would be constitutional.

On Friday, the Judicial Council approved a settlement agreement to the case that would remove language from the bill, making the passage constitutional. On Saturday, however, the Judicial Council backtracked on that decision, deciding instead that the settlement was invalid.

ASUC Attorney General Hinh Tran agrees with the petitioners that the bill’s passage was unconstitutional and decided not to represent the ASUC Senate in this particular case despite the attorney general’s traditional role of doing so.

“The settlement would have produced a constitutional SB 160,” Tran said. “I determined personally that there are parts of SB 160, as is, that are unconstitutional because the ASUC intended that anything finance-related would require a two-thirds vote in order for the ASUC to divest.”

SB 160 was originally passed on April 18 by a vote of 11 in favor and nine against after 10 hours of debate that continued through the night and into the following day.

Pack — in place of Tran — argued for the constitutionality of the bill’s passage.

However, despite the procedural nature of the case, both sides felt their personal beliefs on divestment were being brought into the debate, raising questions about whether individual values will influence the justices.

“A significant part of the defense’s arguments were personal attacks on the plaintiffs rather than arguments against legal claims that the plaintiffs were making,” Ickowitz said. “Personally, I felt that they harped on one of the violations I was asserting but briefly addressed the others.”

Pack said, however, that this is not about Israel or Palestine but about upholding the integrity of decisions made by the ASUC.

“I hope that the Judicial Council upholds the legislative decision of the senate to support SB 160 rather than affirming arguments that aim to use judicial council to achieve a legislative goal,” he said.

The Judicial Council declined to comment on this story.

Click here for a video of Ickowitz’s statement.

Contact Matt Trejo at mtrejo@dailycal.org.

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SB 160 divests ASUC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military. The Judicial Council originally issued the gag order around 8 p.m. Saturday evening, demanding silence on the case from all parties involved. The gag order came after the ASUC rescinded its previous decision to approve a settlement of charges against SB 160 that removed any clauses that required the ASUC to divest its funds.

“While the judicial procedures allow for a gag order to be placed any time, I believe that their reason was not sufficient to overstep the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said Noah Ickowitz, a petitioner in the case, SQUELCH! party chair and a former Daily Cal columnist.

In an email obtained by The Daily Californian, Associate Justice Scott Lara thanked all parties involved for their patience during the gag order and stated that currently, “the confusion about trial procedure and the judicial process between the parties has largely been cleared up.”

Members of the ASUC Judicial Council could not be reached for comment as of 4:30 p.m.

On Friday, the Judicial Council voted in favor of a settlement between the petitioners and the bill’s author, Student Action Senator George Kadifa. The settlement would have removed clauses that petitioners had said were unconstitutional. Petitioners alleged that the bill had not been approved by the appropriate ASUC committees and was not passed by the necessary two-thirds vote. Two ASUC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the gag order, were sharply critical — even angered — at what they called the council’s freehanded use of the gag orders, which the officials said was an overreach of the council’s authority.

The original charges will now go to trial, and the Judicial Council will rule on their validity. The trial for Ickowitz-Freeman v. ASUC Senate & SB 160 is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. at a location to be determined.

UPDATE at 6:12 pm: The trial will be held at Anna Head Hall and is open to members of the public.

Staff writer Jeremy Gordon contributed to this report. 

Contact Shirin Ghaffary at newsdesk@dailycal.org

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Charlotte Passot/Staff

I come from a family of refugees. My mother was younger than I am now when she was forced to flee for her life from the Islamic Revolution of Iran. My mother recalls being forced to sit in the back of her classroom along with a group of young Jewish children during her school years.

When my mother went to buy groceries in the market, she was not allowed to touch the produce because she was considered a “dirty Jew.” These are only a few indicators of the systematic oppression of the Iranian Jews, some of the oldest inhabitants of Persia. At the age of 20, she was forced to abandon her life in Iran as her family was scattered across the world. My grandmother, Mamanjani, was never allowed to return home because of her active involvement in Jewish organizations. Though she had no ties to any other government, she was warned not to go home for fear of execution without trial. Despite calling Persia home for 2,500 years, in 1979, my family and many Jewish families like my own were forced to forced to flee their homes. My family’s home, business and property was confiscated. We were torn from our homes, forced to flee to whichever country would take us in.

Though these experiences define me, some students on our campus seem to think my history does not count. During the “divestment” meeting two weeks ago, Students for Justice in Palestine tweeted about those opposed to divestment: “the Zizis are literally white people crying about their privilege, lol.” Apparently, Zizi is SJP shorthand for Zionist. And later, Daily Cal Blogger Noah Kulwin discussed a clear division he seems to see between “students of color” and “Jewish students,” implying that Jewish students like me cannot be considered students of color. I am here to address ignorance about what truly defines the Jewish people. Amid claims — or rather accusations — of “privilege” or the inability of Jews to understand the plight of “colored people,” I realized many people on this campus are unaware of who the Jewish people actually are.

My story is not unique among those who stood against divestment. Many of my peers who spoke against divestment come from families that experienced similar persecution before making it to America. For some, it was the Iraqi Farhud, where hundreds of Jews were killed and injured as Baghdad’s Jewish community was destroyed. For others, it was the oppression Jews faced under Soviet rule in Russia. And for others still, it was the Holocaust of Eastern Europe. But although they come from different corners of the globe, these Jewish students are here for a single reason: because making it to America was the difference between a new life and death in the countries they used to call home.

In the second half of the 20th century, millennia-old Jewish communities throughout the Middle East and North Africa were completely destroyed. The number of Middle Eastern Jewish refugees like my parents is on par with the number of Palestinian refugees following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

Not every Iranian Jew achieved asylum in America. For those who were not fortunate enough to make it here, Israel was the only country to which refugees could go. That’s what it means to have a Jewish State. It is a place — the only place — Jews like my family are guaranteed security. For our senate to refuse to recognize Israel as the Jewish State means that they are refusing to acknowledge my right to a place where my family, and others like me, are safe.

The pro-divestment movement wants you to believe that its cause is a struggle between the ethnic minority Palestinians and the “white” and “privileged” Jews and Israelis. By pretending that Jews are white Europeans, they argue that Israelis are foreign occupiers. But Jews are not a homogenous group of white people; we are an ethnically Middle Eastern people, comprising many unique communities from across the globe. After centuries of persecution, we have found security in this country and in our nation’s first home, Israel. And although we have achieved the privilege of statehood, our personal histories are defined by our recent struggles.

If there is one thing we can accomplish at a university, it is to educate ourselves. It shames me to see students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world denying the oppression of my people. True justice comes from recognizing the struggles and stories of every student. It is both offensive and counterproductive to define the ethnicity and history of another student group for political gain. Each student, regardless of race, ethnicity, color or creed, faces unique circumstances. To alter a commonly used sentiment on this campus, we all must check our prejudices.

Aryella Moreh is a student at UC Berkeley.

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It looks something like Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s statement that was recently released in response to SB 160, the ASUC bill that calls for targeted divestment from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and illegal settlement.

Birgeneau explained his opposition to SB 160 just hours after the student senate passed the bill but waited over two weeks to condemn an April 1 assault on a Students for Justice in Palestine member.

The SJP member was publicly attacked in Sproul Plaza for vocally affirming Israel’s status as an apartheid state – a description which notable figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, award-winning author Alice Walker, former President Jimmy Carter and former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair agree with.

When the chancellor is quick to condemn a decision by the student senate majority but drags his feet before condemning an assault on a SJP member, it should be obvious which group is being marginalized.

Moreover, the chancellor downplays the severity of the assault by writing in his statement that the SJP member was “struck in the face.” In reality, the SJP member was punched in the face with a closed fist and knocked to the ground by a much larger assailant. The blow was so forceful that a witness reported shortly after the assault that the assailant’s knuckles were bleeding.

Birgeneau’s statement was insensitive, and it employed victim-blaming rhetoric. He argued that it was the divestment campaign that caused a divisive, hostile climate on campus. Nothing could be further from the truth. Divestment is in actuality an effective, nonviolent and legitimate tactic in the struggle against Israeli apartheid.

The chancellor argued that the campus is divided, but who stands on which side?

Thirty-one student organizations endorsed targeted divestment from Israeli apartheid, but Birgeneau sided with a small number of pro-Zionist students. It should be clear that the major division is not within the student body but between students and the administration.

To continue employing rhetoric that builds on a narrative of conflict between “students of color” and “Jewish students” is to disregard developing bonds of solidarity between Palestinian students and diverse networks of allies, including Jewish and Israeli students who supported SB 160.

Even Noah Kulwin, an opponent of SB 160, stated in a Daily Californian opinion blog that Palestine solidarity activists are constantly “demonized,” “delegitimized” and held to an unfair “double standard.” When Palestine activists face hostility, their victimhood is often removed from them, and they are blamed for their own victimization. Merely holding a political opinion is perceived as hostile, and violent reactions to such a “hostile” political opinion are seen as a natural reaction — as if saying violent response to Palestine solidarity activism is only to be expected. As if saying divestment is to blame for violent reactions – not the perpetrators of such violence. Such is the underlying rhetoric being employed in the aftermath of the inexcusable assault on a member of SJP.

UC Berkeley has a rich history of activism – from the Free Speech Movement to the Third World Liberation Front to the divestment campaigns against South African apartheid – that we should ultimately be proud of. What many of us take for granted today – free speech, ethnic studies and the end of South African apartheid – were once deemed “controversial,” publicly demonized and met with repression from authorities.

Whereas the campus administration has repeatedly attempted to suppress students’ activism and democracy, students and community members have nonetheless persisted in connecting many struggles in our own community to the struggle for justice in Palestine. There is a clear connection between American imperialism allied with Israel in the Middle East and the austerity, racism, militarization and violence here in the United States.

We say no to Israeli apartheid and illegal settlement. We say no to victim-blaming and the scapegoating of divestment. We demand recognition and reversal of these policies, and we stand as students united in solidarity for justice in Palestine – and for justice at our school.

Ley Cerezo is a sophomore at UC Berkeley and Alex Schmaus is a current student at Berkeley City College.

The post Coming together for campus justice appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Graham Haught/Staff

With the passage of SB 160 on April 18, the UC Berkeley campus has been packed with people pointing fingers at their peers for the controversial decision. Even the Daily Cal has been going crazy about the vote, talking about how so-and-so was harassed by so-and-so and is now pointing fingers at so-and-so. Well, I want a turn too. I’m not going to talk much about SB 160, though; that’s been done. I want to point a finger at the ASUC as a whole.

Most senators know, or at least should know, about Article IX, Section 2, Clause A, of the ASUC Constitution. It states: “The ASUC Senate, the Judicial Council, and the Graduate Assembly shall not take action on any main motion unless and until that motion has been publicly posted for at least one week.” But no materials were posted in advance for the SB 160 meeting and, in fact, this lack of public notification has been the standard operating procedure all year. So here’s my question: Why did the ASUC Senate even discuss SB 160 – or SB 158, for that matter – if no agenda was published? In fact, why did the ASUC Senate take action on most things this year if the agendas were hardly ever published on time? Technically, it’s  all unconstitutional… rendering the 10-hour Senate meeting to discuss SB 160 entirely inane.

That’s not the only problem. The ASUC website is a mess: It still, for example, says the Senate meets at Eshleman Hall … last I checked, Eshleman isn’t really accessible. Bills up for consideration aren’t published until after they’re approved. But most importantly, ASUC agendas aren’t being published in advance. In my role as a staff member for a nearby local government, part of my job involves posting city agendas week after week. And sometimes, I admit, it seems like a waste of time. I’ve even asked myself: “Who the hell reads this? Who the hell cares?” But those questions are beside the point. It’s the government’s obligation to serve the people and to follow the guidelines and rules it puts foward in its bylaws. And I believe the people have the right to know what’s going on – especially at UC Berkeley, where students often take pride in their activism and involvement.

About two weeks ago, a day before an ASUC meeting, a friend asked multiple senators about the meeting location. They all replied, “I don’t know.” I understand that Lower Sproul is under development and that many events are being shuffled around, but that’s no excuse for the senate’s failure to communicate properly with the students it claims to serve.

We live in an era of transparency. Everyone cries for it. The senate even passed “A Bill in Support of Transparency, Accountability, and Enforcement” earlier this year. Yet, for some reason, the ASUC fails time and again to follow its own rules. The meeting on SB 160 brought the room to maximum occupancy, so it’s safe to assume that a decent portion of the UC Berkeley community knew about it.

But what about the less controversial topics that may well affect students more than the ASUC striking down foreign policy? Isn’t it our right to know about those issues too?

Surprisingly, only after I casually brought up the notion of taking legal action with ASUC staff members did agendas get posted, and even that took place days after the fact.

The crafters of the ASUC Constitution thought the community should know what the senate is doing. That’s why Article IX, Section 2, exists. I believe the current senate should act in accordance with this founding principle. I call upon the new ASUC Senate, the executive officials and their staff to take responsibility for their actions, and stop hiding behind unpublished agendas. Be transparent and accountable. You care about this school and what happens with it. So have some respect for the rest of us, who care too, and let us know what the ASUC is up to.

Nir Maoz is a freshman at UC Berkeley.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this op-ed incorrectly stated that ASUC Senate office manager Jordan Tauber sent no agenda packet on the day of a April 17 ASUC meeting scheduled to discuss SB 160. In fact, Jordan Tauber did send out an agenda packet to ASUC senators and other members of the campus community listing SB 160 as a special order item.

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The ASUC Judicial Council backtracked on its previous decision to approve a settlement of charges against controversial divestment bill SB 160 on Saturday.

On Friday, the Judicial Council voted in favor of the settlement, which would have removed clauses that petitioners had said were unconstitutional. They alleged that the bill had not been approved by the appropriate ASUC committees and was not passed by the necessary two-thirds vote.

The settlement removed any clauses that required the ASUC to divest its funds from companies associated with the Israeli military. The Judicial Council’s latest decision means the parts of the bill that were removed will be restored.

The original charges will now go to trial, and the Judicial Council will rule on the validity of the charges. The trial is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. at a location to be determined.

In an email obtained by The Daily Californian, Judicial Council Chief Justice Suneeta Israni said the settlement was reversed because the negotiators did not have the authority to modify a previously passed bill. According to the email, the original decision to accept the settlement was based on the impression that 11 senators officially voted to pass the post-settlement version of the bill.  In reality, that figure came only from a straw poll taken by ASUC Attorney General Hinh Tran, the chief negotiator in the settlement, to gauge support for reaching the settlement.

The Judicial Council issued a gag order around 8 p.m. Saturday, demanding silence on the case from all parties involved. Last Monday, the Council also issued a gag order on the case surrounding alleged election law violations by External Affairs Vice President-elect Safeena Mecklai. According to a high-ranking official within the ASUC, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of disciplinary action, gag orders have traditionally only been used to protect witnesses and defendants from possibly injurious information before a decision has been made.

However, the Judicial Council’s Rules of Procedure do not clarify or limit the circumstances under which the Council can issue such an order.

Two ASUC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the gag order, were sharply critical — even angered — at what they called the Council’s freehanded use of the gag orders, which the officials said was an overreach of the Council’s authority.

In an email sent to Israni before the gag order took effect, SQUELCH! party chair and former Daily Cal columnist Noah Ickowitz expressed his displeasure with the Judicial Council’s handling of the case as well as the decision to rescind the settlement.

“I need to express my deep sadness in both your procedure and transparency,” Ickowitz told Israni in the email. “The whirlwind of having so many verdicts in the span of 24 hours has taken a toll on me and I believe has tarnished my vision of a system I used to appreciate.”

Neither Israni nor Associate Justice Stephanie Chamberlain could be reached for comment for this story.

Like with the case surrounding the health and wellness referendum, the Judicial Council planned to decide the SB 160 case by summary judgement, in which the council can make a decision without the participation of involved parties and without hearing oral argument. According to the Rules of Procedure, the council may issue a summary judgement “in the extreme event the Council does not believe a hearing will provide any substance to the controversy brought to its attention.”

The council eventually reversed its intention to issue a summary judgement, reverting to the original plan to hold a trial.

Contact Jeremy Gordon at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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The settlement calls for the removal of clauses in SB 160 that dealt with ASUC investments and appropriations. It effectively thwarts the ASUC’s effort to divest its own funds from companies involved in Israel’s alleged “human rights abuses” against Palestinians, leaving a purely symbolic piece of legislation that requests similar divestment by the UC Regents.

The charges that brought about the settlement claimed that the bill was not approved by the proper committees and should have been passed by a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority.

“I think SB 160 has lost a lot of weight through this settlement,” said Noah Ickowitz, SQUELCH! party chair and a former columnist for The Daily Californian. “The bill that passed is now a completely different bill once these clauses are stricken. It loses almost all its authority. I hope the public understands that this is no longer ASUC divestment.”

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said in a public statement that the passage of SB 160 would in no way affect the investment policies of the university.

The settlement, which is pending approval by the Judicial Council, was reached between Attorney General Hinh Tran — representing the ASUC — and Ickowitz and former external affairs vice president Joey Freeman. Tran, who was tasked with defending the ASUC in the matter, conceded the legitimacy of the constitutionally grounded charges against SB 160 but added that in his opinion, the charges did not have enough merit to warrant nullifying the bill.

“It’s a sign on cooperation and compromise on a very difficult bill,” Tran said.

Student Action Senator George Kadifa, who authored the bill, disagreed that the settlement watered down the bill in any way, emphasizing that the purpose of the bill has been largely symbolic since its inception.

“The settlement changes very, very little about the bill,” Kadifa said. “A part of the reason (we were willing to compromise) was that the ASUC wasn’t invested in any of these companies. That wasn’t the main focus. All language calling for the UC Regents to divest is still in the bill.”

While the settlement represented a compromise between the parties involved, it was not necessarily a consensus of the affected communities.

Despite being on the opposite side of the divestment debate, Jewish Student Union President Daphna Torbati agreed that the settlement did not really change the essence of the original bill.

“Although this is definitely a change in the right direction, these changes are largely inconsequential, as the bill still contains the same sentiments that ignore much of the Israeli narrative,” she said.

Both Tran and Ickowitz said they believe that the settlement reflects an important ability to compromise on an issue that has been divisive. They echoed a sentiment similar to that of ASUC President Connor Landgraf when he announced that he would not veto the bill in an effort to expedite the campus’s healing process.

“Not going through a hearing definitely helps campus climate,” Ickowitz said. “We really don’t need a trial right now, and the settlement avoided a big public spectacle. I’m sure there are people in both communities left unsatisfied, but in this case, I’m sure it was the right decision.”

Contact Jeremy Gordon at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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Elected representatives of the UC Berkeley student body like Pacheco and Landgraf have an obligation to be honest and transparent about their actions. This is especially paramount when it comes to controversial topics like the debate around SB 160, a bill the senate passed nearly two weeks ago that calls for divestment from companies associated with the Israeli military. Pacheco offered to drop completely unrelated charges against Landgraf’s executive order putting the health and wellness referendum on the ballot if Landgraf did not veto the bill. Though he indicated in his handwritten note to Landgraf that his offer should not be the deciding factor, its very existence calls his motives into question.

Pacheco somehow needs to be held accountable for his actions. Landgraf made the right call by being forthcoming to the ASUC attorney general about what happened; Pacheco should face charges if at all possible. If no grounds exist to charge Pacheco for his ethical breach, then the ASUC Senate must at the very least take steps to prohibit such actions from recurring in the future.

On a broader level, Pacheco’s note is one of several indicators of the extent to which divestment has negatively impacted the campus. Considering that senators have received threatening messages and the physical assault that occurred on campus before the vote, the ASUC and the campus administration should intervene. Students must feel safe on campus, even after expressing controversial political beliefs, and they must be able to have faith that the ASUC is operating with integrity and accountability.

ASUC President-elect DeeJay Pepito would do well to focus on improving campus climate as she begins her term. Though many students disagree about the necessity of divestment, all should be able to acknowledge that some of the reactions have reflected poorly on the UC Berkeley community. And as the assault and the general reaction to divestment show, the problem transcends the boundaries of the ASUC. All student groups need to be engaged in a meaningful way moving forward so that none feel UC Berkeley is not a safe or welcoming place for them.

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Nothing like a scandalous political quid pro quo, complete with new information about an ideologically stained physical assault on Sproul alongside bylaw violation charges galore to awaken our senses. I give you, Divestment: Season 2. After this latest flood of melodrama, politicians in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento look like snoozers.

Please understand, this is not a column about divestment and the many reasons it is an ineffective, rash and brazenly ignorant way to address the staggering conflict in Palestine. There have been human rights violations that require legitimate objection and scrutiny on the world stage, but few students at UC Berkeley truly understand the tense realities of living in a nation surrounded by enemies who desire nothing more than your nation’s complete annihilation. “From the river to the sea,” is the oft-repeated slogan. But this column is not about divestment. The only solution of any lasting quality to our public woes is a campuswide shift in political culture that transcends the issues.

Nor is this a column about judicial charges and constitutional violations. Former Daily Cal columnist and SQUELCH! senator Noah Ickowitz and former Student Action external affairs vice president Joey Freeman filed charges with the ASUC Judicial Council on Friday, alleging rampant constitutional violations in the passage of SB 160. Like America’s cultural obsession with litigation and the inevitable flurry of court cases that follows any major legislation in Sacramento and Washington, the charges of both Ickowitz and Freeman demonstrate a foolhardy determination not to lose this battle, no matter what the broader costs are of prolonging the conflict. In an interview with The Daily Californian, Ickowitz acknowledged that personal ideology was part of his motivation for dragging on this looming legal fiasco. But this is also not a column about ASUC legal affairs.

And this is not a column about ASUC Senator Jorge Pacheco’s recent public foul-up with ASUC President Connor Landgraf. Pacheco reportedly offered last Tuesday to remove his Judicial Council injunction on Landgraf’s health and wellness referendum in exchange for Landgraf opting not to veto the divestment bill Pacheco supported — classic you-scratch-my-back I’ll-scratch-yours political positioning. It’s embarrassing for Pacheco to place himself on such morally questionable grounds, embarrassing for the ASUC to become embroiled in the debacle and embarrassing for UC Berkeley students regardless of ideology. But this column is not about the latest of ASUC scandals, either.

Finally, this is not a column about “campus climate” or a plea for any recently mistreated Berkeley “communities.” Attend any ASUC Senate meeting or elections event, and one will quickly discover the true power those two simple phrases have over student political discourse at UC Berkeley. As George Orwell would have said, those phrases have “lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” But, alas, this is not a column about tired political rhetoric.

This is a column about simple maturity.

More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Isocrates criticized the Athenian democracy of his day by accusing it of training citizens to “(look upon) insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and license to do what they pleased as happiness.” Isocrates’ ancient words were later written by others to reflect modern realities in the Aegean and elsewhere: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

Isocrates on Berkeley politics: “Oh, please.” UC Berkeley and the ASUC are a perfect case studies for Isocrates’ theory, and as evidenced by the April 1 assault on a pro-Palestinian student at Sproul Plaza by a goon who disagreed with the victim’s political stance, we as a university are struggling to stop the bloodletting of overemotional worn-out rhetoric, repugnant political maneuvering and excessively theatrical squabbling that have characterized our campus for nearly a month — with no foreseeable end in sight.

More than anything else, campus politics is centered almost entirely on winning a disturbing and very public game — winning over votes, winning popular opinion and winning elections. It comes at the cost of a collaborative, academic atmosphere and civilized public dialogue.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We’d be wise to put the events of this month in perspective, to acknowledge that the ASUC is only a student government and that our politics do not, in fact, define us as individuals. What this campus needs most — and what Isocrates was hinting at — is a shift in the tone of public discourse.

Anything to stop the bleeding.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @connorgrubaugh.

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