The banners, which are hung throughout the UCLA campus, feature a variety of UCLA graduates highlighting the university’s proud legacy… and Angela Davis.

Jacob Kohlhepp at The College Fix has the story:

UCLA honors communist revolutionary as role model

Recently, while strolling down Bruin Walk, I admired the UCLA Optimist banners. The marketing campaign consists of posters and short slogans that highlight the university’s proud history, and includes the likes of Jackie Robinson and many other trailblazers.

The posters fill the campus with a mostly positive atmosphere, and remind students of the alumni legacy that makes UCLA such a great institution. But among all the posters is one of Angela Davis. And this is where the Optimist campaign goes too far.

Her selection as a UCLA optimist is not inspiring, it is unbalanced and perhaps politically motivated.

For one, not a single UCLA alumnus who champions a conservative cause is among the poster campaign, yet there are many famous and positive role models to choose from.

What’s more, the Optimist campaign has many powerful stories in its narrative: helping the homeless, innovating in medicine, exploring the next frontier – all of which make me feel proud to be a Bruin.

Professor Davis’s actions are not in this category of inspiration.

Here are some facts: Davis was and remains a controversial individual in the history of American politics. She has been a member of the Communist Party, having run as vice president under the party’s banner in 1980. After leaving the communist party, she continues to be a member of an offshoot socialist party. She purchased the weapons used to perpetrate a courtroom hostage crisis in 1970. This hostage crisis resulted in the death of a judge and the injury of several others. Although she was exonerated of responsibility for the crimes, the fact remains that she was materially involved in some manner.