UC grad students endorse Israel divestment by 30 point margin

Another domino has fallen in California for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement with the passage of a divestment resolution sponsored by UAW 2865, a union that represents more than 13,000 of University of California's approximately 50,000 graduate and post-graduate students.

Results tallied from a Dec. 4 vote among University of California graduate students show that among the 2,168 students who voted at UC’s nine campuses, a whopping 65 percent opted to call on UC administrators to divest the system’s financial investments from Israeli government institutions and from companies that assist the Israeli government in what BDS supporters say is its oppression of Palestinians. 

Of the 1,411 students who endorsed the resolution, 1,136 pledged to not “take part in any research, conferences, events, exchange programs, or other activities that are sponsored by Israeli universities complicit in the occupation of Palestine.” The vote was brought forth by UAW 2865, a union that represents 13,000 graduate students. 

Although the vote is only symbolic (UC administrators have repeatedly refused calls to divest) and although only about 4 percent of the UC graduate student body voted, the move marks yet another success for the BDS movement in the country’s largest university system. Student governments at six of the system’s nine universities have endorsed divestment from Israel, with UCLA’s being the most recent, having