University of California Student Association Passes Divestment Resolution

By JTA February 9, 2015

The University of California Student Association passed two resolutions urging the university to divest from several countries, including Israel, the United States and Mexico.

On Sunday, the association’s board of directors cited human rights violations in several countries in backing measures that urged the University of California Board of Regents to divest its funds.

One resolution targeted a number of corporations doing business with Israel for “violating Palestinian human rights.” The other called for divestment from the governments of several countries — what the resolution described as an “illustrative and non-exhaustive list” that included Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Mexico and the United States.

The resolution on Israel passed by a 9-1 vote with six abstentions. The other resolution passed by 11-1 with three abstentions, according to the association in a since-deleted post on Twitter. The association is made up of representatives of the student governments from each U.C. campus.

The U.C. Board of Regents has repeatedly stated that it will disregard any students’ resolutions urging divestment.

In passing the resolution on Israel, the student association cited the divestment resolutions passed by six of the nine U.C. student governments as well as one passed by U.C.’s graduate student union.

The more general divestment resolution on human rights cited the United States for drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, a high rate of imprisonment, detentions and deportations of undocumented immigrants, and support for dictatorships, among other things. It did not cite any specific human rights violations by the Israeli government, instead citing the same corporations as the Israel-specific resolution.

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