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Aug 8, 19

How My Campus Is Covering For a Dangerous Neo-Nazi

Report from Southern California, about how a neo-Nazi who was part of the world’s most infamous white supremacist website relocated and re-established himself at UCLA, only to be unmasked again. In response, the campus administration attempted to shield him from controversy despite outrage from students.

“Random violence is not detrimental to our cause, we need to convince Americans that violence against nonwhites is desirable…because there’s no way to remove a 100 million people without a massive element of violence.”

– The Daily Stormer

This February, it was revealed that prominent neo-Nazi organizer and all-around creep Athanasse “Dimitri” Zafirov had fled his home city of Montreal and had reappeared at UCLA, now enrolled at the Anderson School of Management [1]. As a UCLA alumnus, I was surprised and disgusted by this news, and both I and others reached out to the administration to inform them of the situation. Though we never got a response, we were hopeful that the school would do something to address the problem. We were emboldened by the fact that this news came just half a year after ProPublica discovered that violent RAM member Michael Miselis was enrolled in UCLA’s Aerospace Engineering program [2]. When the graduate school’s website blanked out Zafirov’s profile, we assumed that he was on his way out.

Half a year later, it seems that we were wrong. Not only is Zafirov’s profile back up [3], but apparently no action was taken by any of the school administrators. It appears that UCLA took down his profile purely as a measure to avoid bad PR until the issue quietly went away [4].

It appears that UCLA took down his profile purely as a measure to avoid bad PR until the issue quietly went away.

This is especially troubling because Zafirov is not just any run-of-the-mill racist. He is a leader in the Montreal neo-Nazi and alt-right scenes, and was involved in organizing many of their events. As the head of white supremacist groups ID Canada and ARM, Zafirov arranged meet-ups for members of The Daily Stormer, organized harassment of local protesters, and set up speaking events for prominent bigots [5]. In addition, Zafirov is closely affiliated with a parade of fascist thugs, including Daily Stormer writer Gabriel Sohier Chaput and Shawn Beauvais MacDonald, a member of violent neo-fascist groups La Meute and Atalante [6][7][8][9]. Zafirov’s neo-Nazi views are so prominent that he was apparently fired from his last job in Canada because of his racist behavior [10]. Lastly and most importantly, Zafirov led the Montreal neo-Nazi group that attended the murderous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017 [11].

Given all of this, I cannot avoid the conclusion that my alma mater took deliberate steps to hide the presence of a dangerous neo-Nazi among their graduate students. Sadly, this is standard procedure for many organizations when they are called out for housing bigots, but the situation with UCLA is much more extreme. Not only is the bigot in question an overt racist affiliated with other violent individuals, but this is the second time that this exact situation has transpired [12]. As far as I am concerned, UCLA is putting its faculty and students in danger in order to avoid bad PR.

As far as I am concerned, UCLA is putting its faculty and students in danger in order to avoid bad PR.

If Athan Zafirov has the right to attend a prestigious graduate school with zero consequences for his disgusting behavior, then at the very least the students and faculty of UCLA have a right to know about it.

[0] <zafirov_headshot.png>
[1] https://itsgoingdown.org/identitarian-daily-stormer-leader-and-unite-the-right-marcher-outed-as-ucla-phd-student/
[2] https://www.propublica.org/article/michael-miselis-rise-above-movement-white-supremacist-group-northrop-grumman
[3] https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/degrees/phd-program/areas-of-study/accounting/meet-the-students/dimirtri-zafirov
[4] <ucla_asm_student_page_diff.png>
[5] https://montreal-antifasciste.info/en/2019/02/17/the-montreal-nazi-scumbag-who-thought-he-could-get-away-with-it/
[6] https://mtlcounterinfo.org/montreal-meet-your-local-alt-right-nazi-scumbags/
[7] <zafirov_with_macdonald.png>
[8] <zafirov_with_macdonald2.png>
[9] <shawn_beauvais_macdonald.png>
[10] http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2018/07/generation-identity-alt-right-montreal.html
[11] <zafirov_fired.png>
[12] https://dailybruin.com/2018/10/02/former-doctoral-student-arrested-for-involvement-in-2017-charlottesville-riots/

RELEVANT CONTACT INFORMATION

UCLA ANDERSON SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATION

PhD Program Admissions
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Interim Dean
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Faculty Chairman
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Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
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UCLA ANDERSON SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT FACULTY

https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/accounting/faculty

UCLA UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION

President
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Internal Vice President
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External Vice President
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General Representative 1
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General Representative 2
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General Representative 3
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Academic Affairs Commissioner
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Campus Events Commissioner
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Community Service Commissioner
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Cultural Affairs Commissioner
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Facilities Commissioner
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Financial Supports Commissioner
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Student Wellness Commissioner
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Transfer Student Representative
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Finance Committee Chair
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