Hayden Takes Soka Fight to Japan

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) has flown to Japan to press his opposition to Soka University’s plans to expand its campus in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Before leaving last Friday, Hayden said if Calabasas-based Soka “can lobby people here for their project, I see no reason we shouldn’t go there and lobby against it.” Hayden said he sees Soka’s plans as damaging to U.S.-Japan relations, which he would like to see strengthened.

Soka, affiliated with the Japan-based Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai, has fought efforts by state and federal park officials to acquire land it owns in the Santa Monica mountains.

Instead, the school wants to expand its campus to accommodate up to 4,400 students. The school currently provides English-language classes to about 100 students from Japan.

Earlier this year, Hayden, chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, introduced legislation intended to make it difficult for Soka to bill itself as a university and asked state and federal tax officials to consider revoking Soka’s tax-exempt status.

Bernetta Reade, a Soka spokeswoman, encouraged Hayden to visit Soka’s campus in Japan. “I think it would be an eye-opener for him. It’s a fully accredited, viable university,” she said.

But Reade added that she believed Hayden should be focused on local problems, such as the growing number of homeless people in his Santa Monica-based district, instead of heading “to Japan to stir up opposition to something that’s not even in his district.”