Law student leaves school over pro-BDS harassment

Milan Chatterjee, the former president of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Graduate Students Association and third-year law student, informed UCLA that he would be leaving the school due to a "hostile and unsafe campus climate" fostered by Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) groups.  

"It's really unfortunate," Chatterjee told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. "I love UCLA, I think it's a great school and I have a lot of friends there. It has just become so hostile and unsafe I can't stay there anymore."

While he was student president, Chatterjee, who is Indian-American and a Hindu, made the distribution of funds from the Graduate Students Association (GSA) for a school diversity event contingent on its sponsors not being associated with the BDS movement.

This move brought protests from BDS supporters, and a June 2016 investigation by the UCLA Discrimination Prevention Office (DPO) concluded that Chatterjee violated school policy requiring a neutral viewpoint on the distribution of funds.

In a statement, UCLA spokesman Ricardo Vazquez expressed disappointment over Chatterjee's decision to leave but stood by the DPO's judgement.

"Although we regret learning that Milan Chatterjee has chosen to finish his legal education at a different institution, UCLA firmly stands by its thorough and impartial investigation, which found that Chatterjee violated the university's viewpoint neutrality policy," the Aug. 31 statement read.