Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.
Donald Trump
Add LA Unified to the list of organizations that wants nothing to do with businessman and presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The district’s Beyond the Bell branch said today it will not hold the eighth-annual Beyond the Bell Golf Classic, which was scheduled for Nov. 23, at the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes.
The golf club has refused to return a $7,500 deposit that Beyond the Bell made, and the program is currently looking for a new location to hold the tournament, according to LA Unified. Beyond the Bell is an after-school program.
The decision to move the tournament comes in response to derogatory comments Trump made recently about Mexican immigrants.
“There was absolutely no reason to host our largest fundraiser at a Trump facility after Donald Trump shared negative immigration comments,” Alvaro Cortés, Beyond the Bell’s executive director, said in a statement. “Beyond the Bell is dedicated to serve the underrepresented and uplift underprivileged communities of Los Angeles.”
The tournament was expected to raise up to $70,000 for Beyond the Bell’s Music and Entertainment Education, as well as for Camp Skyhook, which is operated in collaboration with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Skyhook Foundation. Abdul-Jabbar, a retired NBA All-Star, also recently penned an editorial in Time attacking Trump for his comments, which he characterized as “the definition of racism.”
During a June 16 speech when he announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination for president, Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul and TV personality, made a number of comments about Mexican immigrants that many deemed offensive and racist.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best,” Trump said during the announcement. “They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people.”
In response to the inflammatory comments, several online social media campaigns were started, asking companies to “dump Trump.” A number of companies that carry the Trump brand of clothing and merchandise have severed ties, including Macy’s, mattress giant Serta and and PVH Corp. A MoveOn.org petition asking Macy’s to dump Trump has received over 700,000 signatures.
ESPN and the PGA have also said they will no longer hold golf tournaments at Trump-owned courses. Both Univision and Comcast’s NBCUniversal canceled plans to air Trump’s Miss USA and Miss Universe beauty pageants, and NBC cancelled Trump’s reality show “Celebrity Apprentice” while also severing ties with him.