On Tuesday March 31, ASUCI senate members–who have been widely condemned and petitioned for recall by the student body for their corruption, racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination –passed legislation repealing R48-15, a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) bill from 2012.
The 2012 bill was the first BDS resolution to be passed on a California campus, and served as a call by students at the University of California, Irvine to divest from companies which profit off of violence against the Palestinian people living under colonial occupation. This bill represented the students’ voices in opposing the university’s material investment in systematic oppression of all forms.
The settler-colonial state of “Israel” was founded through massacre and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian people in 1948, and continues to ethnically cleanse, disperse, and dispossess the Palestinian people of their land and national identity.
Our university invests with tuition dollars in, and profits from, companies which play an active role in the occupation of Palestine, and thereby the human rights abuses and institutionalized structural violence against the Palestinian people. Many of these same companies that profit from the colonial occupation of Palestine are also involved in war and colonization across the world, mass incarceration, surveillance, and climate change– all structures which disproportionately oppress Black and Brown people.
As SJP at UCLA recently stated, “Through the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP)—the UC’s main investment vehicle—the UC has some of its largest holdings in the deplorable investment management firm BlackRock, which is also the largest investor in weapons manufacturing in the United States. UCRP also has its own holdings in companies like Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the world, the top supplier of the US military, and a pivotal provider for the Israeli military. BlackRock wields unparalleled influence in the fossil fuel industry and continues to profit from fossil fuel-based energy, despite widespread calls for divestment. Additionally, the UC invests in enterprises whose actions fly in the face of its principles while simultaneously declaring its commitment to sustainability and diversity. Partially funded by UC investment, the US military is one of the largest polluters in the world, surpassing 140 independent countries in emissions. Finally, the bombs, bulldozers, bullets, and planes produced by the business partners of the UC go to states that use them to kill, maim, and drive out Black and Brown people across the world, many of whom are friends and relatives of UC students.”
In the past, students and community groups have effectively pressured the UC Regents to divest from South African apartheid and the Darfur genocide in Sudan. This strategy has been used by many historic movements against oppressive regimes. In 2005, inspired by the international pressures put on apartheid South Africa, Palestinian civil society organizations began the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state for freedom, justice, & equality in Palestine and this campaign has since spread widely across the world.
The new legislation (R55-56) which repealed the BDS bill not only slanders the entirety of the BDS movement, but outright denies the reality of apartheid in the ongoing settler-colonial state. This dangerous denial of reality is deliberately dishonest and manipulative in its intent to smear Palestinians and their allies who support the liberation and self-determination of the Palestinian people. The legislation, which contains lies and baseless claims against Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as others, is an attack and an attempt to silence voices which express support for the Palestinian people against occupation, apartheid, racism, among other ongoing systems of oppression.
Students have a legacy of standing against oppression and injustice at UC Irvine and elsewhere, and it is important not simply to preserve this legacy, but to carry it forward. It is imperative for us to stand unequivocally against all forms of racism and virulent bigotry globally and on campus, including but not limited to anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, cisheteropatriarchy, anti-Semitism, and the ongoing system of apartheid in “Israel” and the Zionist occupation of Palestine. We call on allies within the UC system and community members to sign this petition to express support for the voices for justice in Palestine, and to condemn the recent legislation passed by the ASUCI senate and its corrupt members, as it does not represent the student body.
SJP UCI 