UCLA 'Social Justice Advocates' program goes dark

The University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) appears to have cancelled a program that sought to pay students to fight “whiteness, privilege, and heteronormativity.”

The “Social Justice Advocates” program was first reported on by Campus Reform last May, after UCLA posted a job listing seeking to hire 8-10 students to empower their peers by facilitating workshops about “systems of oppression” and how to fight “the status quo.”

[RELATED: UCLA paying students to fight ‘whiteness,’ ‘patriarchy’]

Students hired for the role would be remunerated with a quarterly stipend in exchange for working at least three hours per week hosting workshops such as “Social Justice Myths,” and “All Aboard The Struggle Bus,” according to the initial job posting.

Funding for the program was to come from the Bruin Excellence & Student Transformation Grant Program (BEST), a student-led initiative backed by taxpayer funding with the express purpose of promoting “social justice leadership among campus activists.”

However, UCLA no longer appears to be offering the program, as the Social Justice Advocates program’s Facebook page has been inactive for over a month, the program’s “workshop request” form is now defunct, and the UCLA website no longer maintains any active pages for the program.

In fact, UCLA gives no indication that it hired any students at all, which would make it the second public university to cancel a Social Justice Advocates program after the University of Arizona, where the program likewise disappeared following its exposure by Campus Reform.

[RELATED: U of Arizona to revise ‘Social Justice Advocates’ position]

Campus Reform reached out to UCLA about the lack of communication concerning the Social Justice Advocates program, but spokespersons for the university have not responded to either confirm or deny that the program has been eliminated.

Meanwhile, Washington State University is the only school that still appears to pay students to fulfill a similar role. Although the school’s Social Justice Peer Educator program did face backlash after Campus Reform reported on it last summer, it still remains active.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Toni_Airaksinen