On February 10, 2015, Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed was one of four members of the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) who voted against a student’s appointment to USAC because she was Jewish.

The student, Rachel Beyda, had been nominated to the council’s Judicial Board. At the February 10 USAC meeting, one of the four council members, Fabienne Roth, asked Beyda: “Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community, how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?”

Once Beyda left the room, the council debated “about whether her faith and affiliation with Jewish organizations… meant she would be biased in dealing with sensitive governance questions that come before the board.”

Sadeghi-Movahed said: “For some reason... I’m not 100% comfortable, I don’t know why… I definitely can see that she’s qualified, for sure, but I just worry about her affiliations, obviously.”

After a faculty member interjected that “belonging to Jewish organizations was not a conflict of interest,” the students held a re-vote and unanimously voted to appoint Beyda to the board.

The New York Times reported that the discussion, which was recorded in written minutes and captured on video, “seemed to echo the kind of questions, prejudices and tropes — particularly about divided loyalties — that have plagued Jews across the globe for centuries, students and Jewish leaders said.”

Sadeghi-Movahed and the other three council members who had voted against Beyda submitted a collective letter to the Daily Bruin apologizing to the Jewish community.