The Associated Students at the University of California, San Diego (ASUCSD) voted 20-12-1 in favor of divesting from companies that engage in business with Israel during their meeting March 13. The vote came at the end of the third meeting ASUCSD had devoted to a divestment resolution that had been proposed by UCSD’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group and co-sponsored by two A.S. Council Senators.
Council voted via a secret ballot. In total, discussions about SJP’s resolution, which was eventually renamed “Resolution in Support of Corporate Accountability by the University of California, San Diego through Divestment from Corporations Profiting from Violent Conflict in Israel and Palestine.”
This vote, which was finalized at 1:28 a.m., marked only the second time an ASUCSD Council had voted on a divestment bill, after voting down a similar resolution 13-20 last year, tabling another two in 2010 and 2011.
In a joint statement issued after the vote, leaders of two key pro-Israel student groups said it had made many Jewish students feel insecure at UCSD but nonetheless urged Jewish and pro-Israel donors to continue to support the school.
SJP’s 2013 resolution, originally titled “Resolution in Support of UC San Diego Corporate Accountability through Divestment from Corporations Profiting from the Illegal Occupation, Siege, and Blockade of Palestine,” called on the UC Board of Regents to pull its investments from companies that sell weapons and materials to the IDF. The resolution is advisory in nature and does not compel UCSD’s leadership to change its investment policy.
UCSD became the third UC campus to pass a divestment resolution this year, following a November vote by the Associated Students at UC Irvine and a March 6 vote by the student government at UC Riverside.
The meeting was held exactly a week after an eight-hour marathon that lasted until 2:07 a.m. when Council adjourned because security had not been booked to staff the event past 2:00.
Council spent the first hour of their March 13 meeting on other matters before returning to “Unfinished Business” from the previous week’s vote-less meeting.
New to this meeting were two alternate resolutions, co-written and proposed by Campuswide Senator Irene Chang, titled “Resolution in Support of the Socially Responsible Investment of UC Funds” and “Resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and its Effects on the UCSD Campus.” The former used wording similar to the corporate accountability aspect of SJP’s original resolution and the latter sought to affirm ASUCSD’s neutrality on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a resolution that resolved that ASUCSD “recognizes the struggles and narratives of both Israeli and Palestinian students.”
Chang said that her resolutions would improve campus climate and set a precedent for similar resolutions that may come up in Council.
“This will set a foundation for future groups to have for whatever may come next,” Chang told Council. “This isn’t to undermine divestment, this is to help groups who want to divest from companies to have a guideline for doing so.”
Chang’s resolution on responsibility of investments was almost immediately tabled until the beginning of Spring quarter in April, because many councilmembers said they were uncomfortable discussing a resolution that had only been brought to ASUCSD 10 hours earlier.Chang had emailed the resolutions at 9:00 a.m. on March 13.
Council spent a significant amount of time discussing the other resolution after Chang and other councilmembers urged their colleagues to consider a bill they called “neutral” and “fair.”
Council debated the resolution on neutrality on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for around an hour before ultimately deciding to table it.
Passage of the resolution is strictly advisory—meaning that the UC Board of Regents is not bound to abide by the resolution or make any changes in its investment practices. In fact, a 2010 statement from UC President Mark G. Yudof announced that at no time in the near future would UC divest from Israel, companies doing business with Israel, or any other country unless the United States deemed that country to be committing genocide.
“The U.S. has not made any declaration regarding the state of Israel, and therefore, we will not bring a recommendation before the board to divest from companies doing business with the state of Israel,” Yudof said in the statement.
After the vote, UCSD’s pro-Israel group Tritons for Israel (TFI) and the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) released a joint statement condemning the resolution and calling on Jewish and pro-Israel donors to continue to support UCSD despite the passage of the divestment bill.
“This resolution represents a step backwards for our campus, and a step backwards for the Israeli and Palestinian people,” TFI President Ben Hass and UJS President Harrison Gill wrote in the co-authored statement. “It has created a hostile environment at UCSD and alienates the many Jewish students who feel targeted by it.”
The day after the vote, UCSD Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla released a statement reaffirming the UC Regents stance against divestment from Israel.
“The UC leadership has reiterated its decision that such divestment is not the policy of the University of California and that a divestment resolution will not be brought before the Regents,” Khosla said. “I am confident that our students will continue to engage in open, balanced and civil dialogue when discussing highly complex world issues that evoke strong feelings and emotions.”
