At tonight’s (Jan. 29) ASUCD senate meeting, Senate Resolution (SR) #9 passed with an 8-2-2 vote. The text of SR #9 calls for the University of California (UC) Board of Regents to divest from “corporations that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, violating both international humanitarian law and international human rights.” ASUCD voted down a similar resolution this past May.
With the passing vote, ASUCD formally recommends the UC Regents to divest from American companies Caterpillar Inc., G4S PLC, Veolia Environment and Raytheon.
Over 550 UC Davis students, staff and faculty members attended the senate meeting, which was called to order at 8:57 p.m. in the Sciences Lecture Hall 123.
At approximately 9:10 p.m., after introduction speeches from both supporting and opposing sides of the bill, Aggies for Israel President Julia Reifkind called upon the anti-divestment crowd to participate in a walk-out of the meeting, causing most of those opposed to the bill — about a third of the attendees — to leave.
Senators Nicholas Sanchez, Anabiah Syed, Casey Nguyen, Reem Fatayerji, Azka Fayyaz, Roman Rivilis, Robyn Huey and Andrea Velazquez voted in favor of the resolution. Senators Artem Senchev and Eugenia Chung voted against it, and senator Alex Lee abstained. Senator Amelia Helland was not present. The meeting was adjourned at 10:07 p.m.
UC Davis joins UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and UC Riverside as UC schools to pass similar resolutions through their student governments.
Ritika Iyer can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
Photo by Jian Gelvezon.
Bravo Aggies! While I happen to believe you got this right, the most important thing is that you took it head on to begin with. No matter what you believe, no matter how you voted…BRAVO!