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| Sofia Saifuddin, walks in after her nomination as a student member of Governing body |
SAN FRANCISCO: Strong Jews groups and lobbies has opposed strongly the appointment of first ever Muslim American women as a student member of its governing board.
21 year old, Sadia Saifuddin, will become the first Muslim student member of the 26-person board of regents for a year-long term starting in 2014 in University of California at Berkeley.
Her nomination was strongly opposed by Jewish groups including the prominent Simon Wiesenthal Center citing her involvement in a campaign to divest university funds from companies with business connections to the Israeli military.
She was objected by Jews groups due to her sponsoring of a student senate resolution that condemned a lecturer at the system's Santa Cruz campus for his Islamophobic rhetoric.
Rabbi Aron Hier of the Wiesenthal Center, which petitioned the regents to deny Saifuddin a seat on the board said,
“In a year where campus climate issues have been the dominant theme of the UC system, a vote to appoint somebody who has served to polarise thousands and thousands of people in the campus community and beyond is shocking,”
A 25 member university regents voted on Wednesday to confirm her appointment with one member, Richard Blum, abstaining from the vote.
Saifuddin in her acceptance speech said that she hoped to make the university system accessible to more students.
Her rejoiced supporters said she was an exemplary student who cared about students of all faiths and has worked to benefit the system as a senator in the Association of Students of the University of California.