The College Fix

Quid pro quo with AIPAC

Support for Israel may be at the heart of a leadership brawl at the College Democrats of America, which organized a coup against its pro-Israel president last week.

The political enemies of Natasha McKenzie appear to be orchestrating a media blitz against her by writing articles accusing her of bad leadership, and then citing their own articles as grounds to kick her out.

McKenzie, in turn, has allegedly insinuated that her critics are attacking her because she’s a young black woman in a position of leadership.

The anonymous author of a Tuesday post at the liberal news site Daily Kos said McKenzie faced “a series of well-publicized allegations of intimidation, corruption, chaos, and other concerns” in the wake of the group’s national convention two weeks ago.

The post by “CollegeDemocrat” reprints a series of letters from the College Democrats’ executive board to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the group’s parent organization, making known the board’s intention to impeach McKenzie if she didn’t resign first.

The letters accuse McKenzie of a series of violations at the convention: blocking a candidate from joining others on stage for a candidate forum, threatening another official for supporting a particular candidate, disregarding the Wisconsin state chapter, and creating “an atmosphere of intimidation.”

Yet just hours before the impeachment post, “CollegeDemocrat” had scolded McKenzie on Daily Kos for accepting an award from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee a few months ago. (McKenzie’s tweet about her award, which is now “protected” along with the rest of her feed, drew a tweet response from current DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “#Mazeltov!”)

The post noted the College Democrats had given an award to an AIPAC official at the convention.

“Why would the Democratic Party’s youth auxiliary invite a representative of an organization that is spearheading lobbying against the cornerstone foreign policy achievement of the Democratic President to not only speak, but receive an award at, our convention?” the author wrote, referring to Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

According to another Medium story, McKenzie had responded to the allegations on her Facebook page by claiming only a “small group” of College Democrats were pushing for her resignation.

She referred to her race and gender twice in the now-deleted post, according to Medium. “I would never wish the sexism and bullying I have recently experienced upon anyone,” she said: “Women of color” in particular are “ridiculed and publicly humiliated for being ‘intimidating,’” one of the claims against her.

McKenzie said this small group of antagonists had “contacted administrators at my college” among other harassment, in their bid to get her to step down.

The College Democrats’ national organization could not be reached for comment. An email sent to the only current board member listed on its website, Carlos Martinez, was immediately returned as “undeliverable.”

McKenzie, the only current officer listed, did not respond to requests for comment, and an email to the group’s communications team was not returned.

The “CollegeDemocrat” account at Daily Kos was only created on July 25 and it’s responsible for just three posts, starting with “chaos” at the convention.

Speculating that the “CollegeDemocrat” account was created by a member of the national group’s leadership, Breitbart writer Nick Pappas said the blowup at the convention and targeting of McKenzie has “made it clear that Democratic support for Israel ought be viewed with suspicion and that opposition to Obama’s farce of a nuclear deal with Iran has no place in the Party.”

The Daily Kos posts seem to suggest “a quid pro quo has taken place between AIPAC and the current CDA administration, that AIPAC is incompatible with the Democratic party, and that such ‘corruption’ calls into question McKenzie’s propriety as head of the organization,” Pappas wrote. “The author has decided that the re-elected president’s relationship with AIPAC’s [sic] undermines President Obama, the Party, and the cause.”

A Medium post by Masha Anderson, a member of the College Democrats’ Wisconsin chapter, appears to back up the narrative that McKenzie was dismissive towards certain state chapters.

Anderson wrote about a canceled election meeting, members shut out from voting, and a contentious election in which the two candidates withdrew their candidacies in protest of the national organization’s procedures.

The College Democrats at New York University also released a statement demanding McKenzie’s resignation for her “disgraceful” actions, but cited three articles, two of which were the anonymous Daily Kos posts.

The NYU chapter publicized a Medium statement by a “coalition of women – many of us of color” – in the College Democrats, accusing McKenzie of playing the race and gender card to deflect criticism.

“Co-opting the struggles of minority female leaders for personal salvation is insulting and demeaning to our cause,” they wrote. It was signed by more than 30 women.

According to McKenzie’s bio, the College Democrats “knocked on nearly 135,000 doors in the 2012 election cycle and made over 60,000 phone calls” during her first term. She was re-elected at the convention last month.

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IMAGES: Susan Melkisethian/Flickr, Daily Kos screenshot

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