A day after a large pro-Palestine protest at UC San Diego, the school's Associated Students has passed a resolution calling for "Divestment from Corporations Profiting from Violent Conflict in Israel and Palestine."
“The Associated Students Senate voted to pass constitutional amendments related to the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) movement. Specifically, the amendments call for divestment from companies, and 27 out of the 36 senate members voted to support the legislative item,” Associated Students President George Chi loi Lo said in a written statement to KPBS.
The companies named in the resolution included General Electric, Northrop Grumman, Caterpillar Inc., Alliant Techsystems, Boeing, General Dynamics Corporation, Globecomm Systems, Hewlett Packard, Ingersoll-Rand, ITT Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Motorola Solutions, Raytheon, Silicon Graphics, Terex, United Technologies, and Valero Energy Corporation.
Heidi Gantwerk, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego, said the resolution "is terribly misguided, and in implementation, it’s antisemitic."
Gantwerk also said, “It really is calling for not just changes to this policy or that policy, but really just fundamental changes to the existence of the state of Israel."
Gantwerk also said the student group doesn’t understand the full history and context of what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. KPBS asked Chi loi Lo for a response to that charge, but he did not provide one.
At least for now, UC San Diego is not going along with the Associated Students demands. The University issued a statement which said in part:
“The resolution does not align with the position of UC San Diego, which like the University of California and the other nine UC campuses has consistently opposed calls for a boycott against and divestment from Israel … a boycott of this sort poses a direct and serious threat to the academic freedom of our students and faculty and to the unfettered exchange of ideas and perspectives on our campuses.”
