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On Nov. 19, student activists barged into a restricted area of Covel Commons where the Regents of the University of California were holding their bimonthly meeting. In so doing, they disrespected the standards of both civil dialogue and the democratic process of our country.

The rage of the activists can be attributed to two key issues.

First, the majority of the regents’ meetings are held at UC San Francisco, the only UC campus that lacks an undergraduate student body. The protesters asserted that the regents must work with students, not in spite of them. This problem could be solved by geographically redistributing the sites of the meetings so as to encourage student input and constructive dialogue.

But how did the students tackle this obstacle? Instead of calling for a closer student-regent association in a respectful, civil manner, they stormed past the police stanchion line and demanded that they be heard. But they were already being heard. According to Kendra Carney, president of the Students for Academic Freedom, dozens of student envoys were present at the meeting and close to 15 actually spoke during the public comments segment. But, animated as they were, the protesters erupted in a fit of aggression.

What precisely did this accomplish? By acting almost like irrational rebels, the student activists gave the regents good reason not only to move their meetings away from the students, but to close those meetings to the students altogether.

Yet what seems to be just a tactical error on the part of well-meaning protesters turns out to be a central element of a veiled agenda. In fact, one of the organizations in attendance was UC Berkeley’s By Any Means Necessary, whose statement of purpose calls for a “new, militant, mass civil rights movement.” The term “by any means necessary” was used by Malcolm X as a call for violence.

This is where the second demand comes in – the resignation or removal of Ward Connerly from his position as a UC regent. It is this request that betrays BAMN’s intolerance and bigotry. The fight for integration and equality begins, according to an announcement on its Web site, “with removing Ward Connerly from the University of California Board of Regents. Connerly, author of Proposition 54, is a conservative black businessman and 1993 appointee of former Republican Governor Pete Wilson.”

So is it Connerly’s politics, skin color or his career that makes him the prime target? The answer is made clear after a brief examination of BAMN’s Web site – By Any Means Necessary is a leftist organization that preaches and practices political discrimination on college campuses.

Sascha Cohen, a USC student, told the Daily Bruin, “We feel he’s trying to turn back the clock on civil rights, and we think it should move forward.” And Yvette Felarca of Berkeley’s chapter of BAMN, taking the debate to a new personal level, said, “We want to make Connerly a liability for any business, individual or government that does business with him”(News, “Students call for Connerly’s resignation, Nov. 20).

But the issue here is neither political nor personal. By taking up the position of a regent, one does not surrender his right to an opinion and free speech. The only qualification for being a good regent is to serve the students well. And if this is the standard against which Ward Connerly is measured, then he has performed his duties masterfully. Connerly, in fact, has reliably voted against fee increases and, according to him, “probably voted with the student regent more than any of the other regents combined.”

If student activists could point to unethical or illegal behavior in Ward Connerly’s record, or cite a violation of regent policy, then the demonstration last Wednesday would have been legitimate. However, the only crime that the protesters could cite was the crime of being a conservative.

But BAMN hasn’t stopped at Connerly. According to its Web site, it has launched “a national boycott of Coors beer for its substantial financial support of Connerly’s campaigns, including Prop. 54.” The alleged contributions, however, came not from Coors Brewing Company, but rather from its owner Joe Coors, who died last year. BAMN has attacked not only Ward Connerly’s supporters but also the employees of his supporters, whose jobs and livelihoods have come under fire as a result.

Protesters at UCLA eliminated any chances of a civilized discourse between regents and students. Even beyond that, they painted a morbid picture of a repressive monolith – a prejudiced UC student body that has, in the name of racial justice, adopted political injustice.

The battle here is not between the morality and immorality of affirmative action, Proposition 54 and conservatism. The protesters have begun a battle not against another opinion, but rather against opinion itself. They have advocated brute force over civility, suppression over freedom, and bigotry over tolerance.

Hovannisian is a first-year history and philosophy student. E-mail him at ghovannisian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.